Mastering Mindfulness for Creatives: Build an Authentic Creative Practice

1. Introduction: Are you committed to developing your creative work, but you're lacking structure? Do you want to make more time for your creative endeavors, but you don't know how to ritualize it? Do you want to own your creative voice even when working with third parties? Then this is the class for you. Hi, on. My name is Jade Boler, otherwise known as njaded Jade online, and I have amassed over 1 million followers across my YouTube channel and social media platforms. Talking about mindfulness, self growth, and learning. The focus of my creative channels has continually changed across the years, but I've really learned how to mark everything that I do with my authentic creative voice. Whether I was talking about study tips at university or talking about my journey with meditation. I've really learned how to hone my own creative voice, and I can't wait to teach you guys how to do that, too. Today, I really want to help you elevate your creative work, whether you're a writer, illustrator, or a content creator like me. I really just tell you some of the habits that have made me successful over the years. We're going to be talking about identifying your creative time and how you only really need one sacred creative hour a day to do deep and meaningful work. I'm going to walk you through my notion of how I set up my power planning hour every week. And then we're going to talk about owning our creative voices, whether you're working with brands, partners, or other collaborators. Especially as our work evolves from a hobby into a potentially viable career, if you choose that. Really understanding how to advocate for your vision and your creative voice. If you're ready, let's get started. 2. Identify Your Creative Time: Hello. Okay, in this first lesson, we're talking about identifying your creative time. Whether your creative passions are a hobby or your nine to five job or five to nine squeezed in after your full time job. It's so important to optimize your ideal time of work to make sure that you're doing the best work possible whenever you sit down to do your creative stuff. You're making it productive. You're making it worth your time. In this lesson, I'm going to work off with the assumption. Every single one of us has the ability to find just 1 hour a day to turn into our sacred creative hour. Based on your schedule, based on your life, you might be able to do more than that, but I'm asking you to always commit just doing 1 hour minimum, and this 1 hour, we're going to protect it. This 1 hour is going to be an hour of deep focused work. We're not sitting there half scrolling. We're not on social media. We're really committing to that time, moving us forward in our creative endeavors. So, step one is to identify when you personally work best. We're all different. Some of us are early birds. Some of us in light howls. Some of us work all bloody day and come home exhausted. And one of the most important parts of being a creative about being self employed is self understanding. Do you work better when you've just had breakfast? Or does eating actually make you feel a bit sluggish? Do you work best around other people maybe in a cafe environment with ambiance, or do you work best in silence at home? I personally know that I am a morning person and I love a distraction free quiet zone. For me, my best creative work is done when I'm allowed to inwards, and, for example, script writing. That's such a deep work process. I really need to be inside of that script inside of the world that I'm building. I know that I have a lot more mental clarity after exercising and getting a good night's sleep. So those are all just things that I will use to feed. What time I'm putting my sacred creative hour every day. And then step two is to look at your calendar and your existing commitments. If you're working a full time job, if you're a full time student, have a look at your calendar and see what is eating into your time. I mainly have my YouTube channel while in full time education, so, You know, I had school when I was an ill student, I had school from like seven 30 until 4:00 P.M. And then at University, I had lectures and assignments scattered across my week. I really had to learn to be extremely disciplined with myself in order to make my creative work happen, especially because as you become an adult, you're juggling so many other things. You're juggling social life, you're juggling friends, you're juggling the work that you're doing, but you're also just feeding yourself, exercising, trying to make yourself happy, budgeting, all of it. So, to make sure my secret creative hour happened, I know I work best in the morning. So every day I would look in my calendar, and as long as I didn't have too early of a lecture, I would schedule my creative 1 hour for around seven or eight A. I'd make sure that these sacred creative morning hours are used for deep work. So things that require a lot of mental power, things that require my best self, like scripting a video, like filming a video. And then any days where my sacred creative hour couldn't be in the morning, maybe because I had an early lecture, I would put it maybe in the evening, but I wouldn't put difficult work. I would be doing work that is easier that doesn't require the same version of myself to show up. Whatever your life looks like, use your self knowledge to schedule your sacred creative hour at the time that works best for you. Idally you're doing that at the same time every single day, see that you can start to develop routines, and it feels like a habit without friction. So the first exercise for this lesson is to firstly, journal about your best creative time. Reflect on when you've created your best pieces. Reflect on when you feel like you have the most energy when you want to sit down and just create. If you're someone who mend straights, that can also look like. Oh, yeah, I actually work the best the week after my period, and maybe in the lead up to my period. I just don't have the energy. I'm not as creative, and maybe I'm going to schedule more hours in that week after my period to make sure that I'm optimizing my body's natural fluctuations. And secondly, have a look at your calendar. Whether you use a journal or a planner or Google calendar like me, and really slot in that sacred creative hour based around your other commitments. If it's not going in your calendar, it's not going to happen. Let's be honest. Guys, you're not going to be motivated every single day. That is fine. The beauty of just committing one secret hour every single day is that you are building up the discipline to just be consistent and slowly, slowly, slowly, your creative endeavors are going to keep growing before your eyes because you're showing up. Make the time for the projects that you love and care about. I promise it will pay dividends in the future. See you in the next lesson. 3. Create Rituals for Deep Work: Hi, Jon. Welcome back. So we have identified our sacred creative hour. It's in the calendar. It's gonna happen. Now we've got to create rituals to make sure that that hour is the most productive hour possible. This is the secret to how I ran a YouTube channel while also juggling a whole university degree and writing a publishable book. I would make sure that any time I was dedicating tools on my YouTube channel was productive. That I wasn't sitting there for 8 hours pretending to edit or pretending to script a video, but instead, I would use 1 hour and, like, really be there, really put my whole mind and energy and focus into doing this well. Work smarter, not harder. We've got three ritualistic habits that are essential to making the most of our sacred creative hour. Firstly, set up your space. Based on what you need, you've got to get your space ready, because if you're rocking up to your creative hour and you've got to spend the first ten, 15, 20 minutes gathering plies, gathering your mediums, cleaning, tidying, all of that stuff. You're actually not going to be doing deep work in that hour. For me, my best creative time is in the morning. So that looks like setting up my desk or setting up my filming space the night before, so that I can just wake up, get ready, sit down, and it happens. Equally, I need a distraction free zone. But I lived with roommates, my entire university degree. Like, sometimes they had two roommates, in my room while still trying to be a YouTuber and film videos in my room. And so I would have to plan in advance and maybe tell my roommates, Oh, can I film from this time to this time, or, Hey, I'm going to be scripting a video at this time. Like, would you mind being a bit quieter or I can put my headphones on, that you just really got to prepare the space in advance to set you up for success. Also, there is something about coming to a clean space that has been prepared for the task. Maybe you even lay out your clothes ready. That wow that just reduces all the friction. That lets you dive into what you want to do. I also highly recommend an app blocker that blocks any distraction apps. Like, I am a literal content creator on social media, and yet I block all my social media apps at all times, and I only ever unblock them for periods of 15 minutes so that I go on there and I have an actual intention. I'm not getting lost. I'm not doom scrolling, and my creative time is what I needed to be. There are los of free apps, but I'm currently using PL, and I love it so far. Number two, now we've set up our space, you've got to set up the mind. This is genuinely the most underrated tip. Nowadays, we are bombarded with social media posts with short form content. Everything is trying to steal our attention. And if you've been scrolling for the last few hours or if you've been at work, you've got so many things in your head. How are you going to sit down and expect yourself to do your best creative work without first settling your mind. You have to find what works for you, but I personally swear by journaling and meditation. The whole thing takes five to 10 minutes. Let me tell you it's as easy as this. Firstly, you come to your desk. And you brain dump everything in your head. Oh, my God. I've got to remember to do this later. Oh, my God, I need to reply to this person. Oh, my God, works so stressful. Oh, my God, this is happening. I need to go buy these clothes, and you need to return this blah blah, blah, blah. Brain dump. Put it all there because you don't want that distracting your fake a creative hour. And there's something so freeing about having all the stuff in your head. Out there on the page. Once you've done that, you do a little bit of the meditation breathwork. Guys, this will change your whole life. Spend two to 5 minutes with your eyes closed just observing your breath. Let me tell you, observing your breath is the most life changing thing that you can start doing. You can even put on a guided meditation if you want, but don't skip this. Imagine that your mind is a shaken up glass of muddy water. All of this darkness floating about, you know, all the thoughts from your day, everything that's happened, all the stress. What you're going to do in this silence of just looking at your breath is you're going to allow all of that mud to just settle, and you're going to be looking through some clear water. Observing your breath also activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which is so essential for states of calm and focus and deep work. I normally set a timer on my laptop or phone, sit for a few minutes, and then I am ready to go. And finally, step three is you've got to find something unique to you. Find a really short little creative ritual that makes you feel like you are entering your creative state. What gets you inspired? Could it be reading a certain quote? Could it be lighting a candle? Could it be getting out your sage clearing the energy, you know, like, whatever it is, have something that marks the start of your creative work and really ritualize that to get into the habit? I studied cognitive science at University, and one of the most fascinating things that I learned was the science of behavior change and how we can use our brain and knowledge of our brain to enhance our ability to form habits? There's this wonderful tool in the literature called habit stacking, which is the idea that you have an existing habit? When you put a new habit, Onto an existing habit, your brain starts to expect that new habit. So it makes it so much easier to start. It takes away all the friction. And here, we're trying to habit stack your ritual, your creative little ritual, and doing deep work. So, for example, when you light a candle at your desk, it is followed by deep work. And if you repeat that every single day, candle lit, do deep work. Candle lit, do deep work. Over time, your brain is going to make that process so much easier for you because the second that you that candle, your brain is starting to go, it's time for deep work. You're not going to be doing the mental Olympics of convincing yourself to do the deep work. You're just going to do it. Remember that repetition is key, consistency is key, and it can take up to 30 days to form a habit. Definitely keep that in mind, but Ah, guys, I'm so excited for you to create your rituals. The exercise for today is to write down how you're going to create a ritual. Jot down, how are you going to set up your space every single day for your creative sacred hour? How are you going to set up your mind, with your meditation, with your journaling, and you're going to brain dump? Like, how are you going to get your mind ready for deep work? And then finally, what is the something special unique to you that is really going to get you in the zone, like lighting your little candle. And then repetition, repetition, repetition. See you in the next lesson. 4. Plan Your Creative Time for Productivity: Hi, Ron. Welcome back. So today we're getting into the nitty gritty. We're doing the planning. We're looking at our systems that are going to set us up for success. We've identified our creative sacred hour. We know when that's happening. We know the ritual for how we're going to get into that deep work state. But here's the thing. If we don't plan in advance our creative work, we're gonna sit down at that desk, and we're going to be like, what do we do? What task do I complete today? What means doing? Where do I focus my energy? Where do I focus my efforts, and you're going to spend the first, like, 10 minutes of that session, actually in planning mode, rather than doing mode, rather than execution mode. So, the easy solution is you dedicate just one of your sacred creative hours a week to becoming a power planning hour. In this hour, you're going to look at your creative goals for the week, and you're going to start to think about how you're going to slot that into the time that you have this week to make sure that it gets I love doing a planning power hour on a Sunday so that I can assess how things went last week and really look into my coming week and use it most effectively, optimize my time. For example, if my goal is to post a YouTube video on Saturday morning. I will first split up the constituent tasks of that goal. So on notion, I'll write out. Okay, I need to make a thumb nail. I need to plan the whole video concept. I need to write the script. I need to edit the video. I need to record B roll, edit the B roll on. I need to upload the video. I need to write the metadata for the video, and then I need to post it on my Instagram story to be like, G watch this. And maybe that feels a bit overwhelming, but then you're going to start to break it down a bit more, and you're going to say, Okay, roughly how long is each of these sections go to take me realistically? Planning the video concept may be 15 minutes, but writing a video script that can take an hour, 2 hours really depends on the research. So you've gone through. You've estimated how long everything's going to take you. Now, We're going to do some important stuff. We're going to identify which of those tasks requires the deep work. The way that I would define deep work is it's work that requires focus. You can't halfway through, be chatting to someone and then come back into the task and then start scrolling and come back into the task. Deep work requires your full self to be present. For me, writing that video script is deep work. I've really got to be committed. It depends on the video, but for me, editing can also be very deep work. If I'm trying to tell a story, if I'm doing voice overs and narrative, I really want to be inside of that story. We something like a thumbnail, I'm quite happy to be making a little collage, chatting to a friend, coming back to the collage. And now that I know which parts of my creative process require the most from me, I can schedule those into my sacred creative hour. My sacred creative hour is happening in the morning, which is my best time of day for work. The night before I will have had an early night because I didn't have any late lectures or social life. And so I'm going to plan that time as my scripting day. This reduces all of my future anxiety because I know how the video is going to happen. I know I'm going to post a YouTube video on Saturday because I have planned my entire week to make sure that it happens. I'm not just saying, like, as one goal in my calendar, make video. Instead, I'm really breaking that down into all its little tasks and then scheduling those tasks. So, today's exercise is to write out all your constituent tasks that make up your creative goals. What do you need to get done? Break those down as much as you possibly can and start to estimate how long they'll take you. Be generous with yourself, especially if you are less experienced and you don't necessarily know how long things will take you. Assume that they'll take maybe double the time that you think. As accountability to make sure that you guys have done this, please upload this onto the class. Upload your list of broken down tasks as a project here so that we can all have a sense of community so that we can see what each other's working on, but also so that we can start to see, you know, like, how are people breaking down their tasks. Like maybe someone is writing a novel, and they need to do research for one of their characters. Maybe they're going to, like, read a certain book or they're going to do research about historical period, and then they're starting to see how long that's going to take them. Like, that is so interesting to be able to learn from other people. If you're a content creator, maybe you're planning a real and thinking about storyboarding and how long that's going to take you. So write down all your little tasks, upload them here, and then have a look at your calendar and start slotting them. Into the creative time that you've already defined for yourself. You guys have got this. Look at this. We're doing our little planning power hour. We've got our secret creative hours going on. The creative process is happening. And I think we're ready to partner with third parties. See later. 5. Collaborate with Third Parties: Own Your Creative Voice: Hi team. Okay, so you're doing the work. You've identified your sacred creative time. You've even got your planning power hour to make sure that you are optimizing all of your creative time that week. But now another part of the work begins. Working with third parties. That can look like so many things depending on where you are in your process, so that can look like collaborating with a brand if you're doing paid work, working with a friend or other artists on your work, being commissioned by the city. So many things. No matter who you're working with, you really got to learn to own your authentic creative voice. Have a vision. And of course, when you're bringing in more people, it's easy for that vision to be derailed. For me, working with third parties looks like working with incredible brands that I love. So everything from sustainable clothing brands like Lucy and Yak, or the language learning tool in Goda that I've been using for several years to learn German, even notion I've worked with and even skill share, which is incredible. Across the years, I've really learned how to both work to a brief that I've been given by a brand, but also not make a collaboration feel too awkwardly Addy and still feel authentic to my voice and my channel and still provide value for my audience. I have had to learn the skill of telling a brand story without compromising my own voice. And I'm sure you guys have witnessed at some point, watching a content creator whose content just doesn't feel that authentic when they're doing an ad. Like they're just holding out a product, and they're like, Buy this. It's on offer now. And you just kind of know that they don't really use it, that they don't really care. But it is a skill to learn, you know, telling this brand story, but also making it come through your creative voice. I want to help you avoid that uncomfy feeling of working with someone and feeling inauthentic or not feeling like you. I want this to really feel like you in every single way. Here are three steps to owning your authentic creative voice, no matter who you're working with. Step one, and this is the most important step is to only accept projects that genuinely resonate with you. We all want our creative endeavors to translate to some kind of tangible monetary outcome. However, it is not worth sacrificing your creative voice for money. If you are playing the long game, which is what you should be thinking of doing, right? You're hoping that you can retain your creative skills and your creative voice forever. Then every single time that you are giving up your creative control. You are weakening your connection to yourself, and therefore, your connection to the work that you are making and to your authentic voice. You somewhat become a sellout because you are selling your voice away. Guys, it is so easy to get lost in the world of other people's expectations, brands expectations, money, earning, doing crazy big things. But you've really got to learn to have this meter of I like this bran I like this company. I like the ethos. I like their values versus, I don't want to give them the honor and privilege of my work being associated with them. Remember that when you're offered something, if it's not a hell, yes, like, yes, I can so see this working. Oh, my God, yes, this fits so well, that's probably a no. Like, maybe most of the time nos, and it's so hard to learn that. It's so hard to stand by it. But your authentic yes is a powerful and sacred thing, and you've got to try and look after it as much as possible. So, How do you do that? You make a list of your non negotiables. For example, me as a content creator, working with brands. I have a very clear list of non negotiables that my management team know whenever they're talking to brands and representing me, they know what I'm going to say yes to and what I'm not. For example, I'm vegan, and I've made it very clear that I don't want to work with companies who aren't vegan or who aren't cruelty free or just have really, like, bad ethics and bad sustainability practices. I really do my best to avoid them. Ideally, I want to work with companies who have good intentions, good morals, good ethos, and, you know, maybe they do things like donating to charity or just good principles for the world. I love companies that are relevant to what I do, so anything in education or mindfulness, learning, self growth, and anything that is too far from my brand, I'll be like, no, no, thank you. Because my platforms are so valuable to me. I have poured my whole self time, money, energy, everything into creating them, and to sacrifice them for some brand that doesn't align with my values is a total waste. It's like dishonoring everything that I've been doing online for all these years. I will not dishonor myself. Number two, you've got to learn. How to compromise and collaborate with what a brand wants. While still owning your creative voice, you want to create something that feels like both of you are in it. The brand are happy, but you are also happy. And again, that starts with only saying yes to things that are aligned. But now that we're in it, how do we really have those conversations to make sure that we're loving what we're creating? Okay, guys, so this is a Vn diagram. On this side, we have my brand. On the other side, we have their brand. And the overlapping sweet spot, this is where our brands align. So, so, for example, I was lucky enough to work with the incredible ingoda who are a language learning school that I've been using for years. On the left, we have my brand. Things that I talk about are mindfulness, veganism, learning, education, friendship, authentic happiness, joy. And the kind of things that they stand for are empowering language learning education, cross cultural learning, making new connections through languages, seeing the world travel. From this, I can see that our sweet spot, Talking about anything to do with cultures, meeting, engaging with new people, and learning in education. This stuff that I do, this is not all that relevant to their brand. I'm just going to theme the video around something that does fit to their brand. You've chosen to work with them for a reason. Really define what that reason is and lean into it. How are they going to serve your audience or how are your audience going to really love seeing you collaborate with this company or with this person? Then we're going to get clear on what their campaign is or what their idea is Ask as many questions as possible so that you're not misunderstanding anything. This is so important. What is their vision? What are their aims? What are they want to get out of it? Are they trying to drive sign ups? Are they trying to spread awareness? Are they just trying to make an incredible piece of content for the sake of their love of creativity? And then you can have a dialogue about where you can naturally see yourself elevating their goals. In the ingoda example, I have an incredible audience of young people who love learning. Like a lot of people followed me from my study tube days, my education days, and I truly think ingoda is so valuable to learn a language. And so for any of my followers who are interested in traveling the world and learning about new cultures or picking up a new skill for fun, this is actually going to help them. It's going to be beneficial. And so when Lingoda tells me that their goal is to drive sign ups, that's actually something I can help with. That's something that benefits my audience and benefits them. Be confident in expressing your thoughts. Who you are, your ideals and really make sure that you have conversations about all the logistics of the partnership, but also the creative ideas. I recommend getting a brief of some kind signed off before you create anything. So after you've had the conversations, you've asked the questions, you're going to have some ideas of what you want to create. Maybe you can script it out, you can make a detailed list of those ideas, and you can get the brand or the Fed party to agree to it. Get them on board before you start creating. And then finally, part three, now that we've made the content, push back on anything that doesn't feel authentically you. A, and here is the most important part. Frame it as for the greater good. Don't be like, Yeah, I really don't like your idea because you just suck at music, and I have way better taste in music. Like, no, you're going to prime the reason for wanting to change whatever they've said as being something that's also going to benefit them. It's going to benefit me, but it's also going to benefit you, and I'm going to tell you why. So, for example, if a brand wants me to say something that doesn't feel authentic, I'll say it's actually in your best interest for this to feel authentic. No one is going to listen. No one's going to want to sign up unless it feels like something that I genuinely love and that I genuinely use. And if I'm saying scripted words, people will know that it's an ad and people won't care for whatever I'm saying. And so it is in your interest to drive more sign ups for me to have creative control and creative freedom, and you've got to trust me. You're always asking for their trust. And this is why you've got to be really strong in your own creative voice and your creative vision because you're asking them to trust you. So you've got to trust yourself first. I'd also suggest an alternative that tries to compromise. So, okay, you want me to say this line that doesn't feel very authentic to me. How about if I said it like this, which is in my words, which is in my tone, which will feel more authentic, but still gets the point across. The biggest tool at your disposal is your gut feeling. Your creative voice comes from your gut and your intuition. And so if your intuition is telling you that something is off, that you don't like an amendment, tell them. Okay, guys, if you are working with brands, if you're working with third parties, then congratulations. That is a big step in anyone's creative process. Your hobbies and passions are being recognized monetarily or by real other people, and that is incredible. But also note that this is an entire realm of learning to stand up for yourself, of learning to own your creative vision, of learning to compromise while still holding your integrity. But the beauty is, you will learn more about your creative voice than you ever would have learned through just working alone, because now you're having to learn to defend things. You're learning why things matter to you. You're learning what it means to be authentic. You will learn far more about your own creative voice than you would have alone, because you're going to be tested. You're going to be forced to stand in your values. And that's a good thing. I'm so excited for you. And, guys, I want to read your list of non negotiables. Please upload them here so that we can all get inspiration. For example, one of my good friends Ruby, she works with a charity pro bono every single year. And that really inspired me to create a nonnegotiable of doing charity work at least once every year, and that means that I keep that space free in my calendar to make sure that I am like, working with charities. So yeah, we can all get ideas from your nonnegotiables. So definitely definitely share this Yes. Congratulate on owning your creative voice. 6. Final Thoughts: Wow, guys. So in this rapid fire class, we covered a lot. We covered the essentials of the creative process in getting us from ideas in our head to making the time to actualize these ideas, to creating a planning time to make sure that we're optimizing our time perfectly and also being able to collaborate with third parties and really making the most of a brand story and our own story and combining on voices to create something meaningful. Some key words from the class. Secret creative hour. Power planning hour, a list of non negotiables and owning your creative voice. I really hope you guys found this useful, and please engage in the discussion if there's any parts of my creative process that you would love to see more on, more insight into, and maybe even more ideas for classes in the future. I very rarely share my creative process, so this has been so fun digging into things that have helped make me a successful creator. I can't wait to have a look at your non negotiable values. Please upload any resources to this class that you'd like to share with the community. And I can't wait to hopefully see you guys again soon. Thank you guys for watching and feel free to follow me on my other channels, if you want to see more. Bye.