Navigate the Creative Wilderness: 6 Tips to Drop into Flow State | Liz Brindley | Skillshare
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Navigate the Creative Wilderness: 6 Tips to Drop into Flow State

teacher avatar Liz Brindley, Illustrator, Runner, Nature Nerd

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Welcome to Flow State

      1:50

    • 2.

      Class Project

      1:25

    • 3.

      Gather Your Materials

      0:24

    • 4.

      Know the Value of Flow

      4:06

    • 5.

      Identify Your Natural Flow State

      1:23

    • 6.

      Set a Time on Your Calendar

      2:15

    • 7.

      Set Up Your Space

      1:39

    • 8.

      Eliminate Distractions

      1:41

    • 9.

      Leave Judgement Behind

      3:29

    • 10.

      Take Action

      3:30

    • 11.

      Publish Your Class Project

      0:48

    • 12.

      Thank You & Next Steps!

      1:20

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About This Class

In this third class in the “Navigate the Creative Wilderness” series, “6 Tips to Drop into Flow State,” you will learn my main tips to drop into flow state when you’re feeling stuck on your creative journey so you can move forward with more ease, confidence, and trust in your unique creative intuition.

This class is the third in the “Navigate the Creative Wilderness” series. I recommend starting with the first class in the series, “5 Tools to Cultivate Confidence,” but feel free to jump into any class in the series and go in the order that makes the most sense for your journey. 

Throughout the entirety of this series, you can expect to learn actionable tips to implement on your path to cultivate more confidence in your creative intuition, overcome the fear of unknowns, build support with a creative community, stay consistent with your practice, and celebrate your successes.

Hi! I'm Liz, your trail guide and buddy out here in the Creative Wilderness! I dove deep into the Creative Wilderness when I started my business, Prints & Plants, in 2017. 

Since starting my business, I have worked as an educator and licensed artist with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, crafted a mural for an International Social Media Firm, created brands and illustrations for multiple businesses, and become a Top Teacher on Skillshare.

It has been a *winding* journey to get to where I am now, and I know it will continue to evolve and shift over time! 

That’s why now, I am so excited to share my field notes from the Creative Wilderness with you in this series in the hopes that it helps you navigate the highs, the lows, and the unknowns of your unique path.

In This Class in the Creative Wilderness, You'll Learn How to:

  • Identify what naturally brings you into flow state
  • Hold yourself accountable to yourself and your creative practice
  • Set up your space to cultivate flow state
  • Eliminate distractions
  • Release judgement of your creative work
  • Take action to jump out of overthinking, fear, and doubt in your creative ability and drop into flow state
  • How to use flow state to cultivate more ease, confidence, and trust in your creative path

You'll Walk Away From This Class With:

  • Actionable tips to drop into your flow state
  • Actionable steps to move beyond feeling stuck and move forward on your creative journey
  • A deeper understanding of the value of flow state, and how to access it, on your creative journey.

What You Need:

-pen, pencil, or writing utensil of choice

-the Creative Wilderness Field Guide (linked in the Projects & Resources section)

-a phone to snap a photo of the “Drop into Flow State” section of the Field Guide to upload to the Class Project section

Get Social!

Share your journey! Snap a photo of your field guide as you work your way through this class! Share your photo on Instagram for a chance to be featured on the Prints & Plants account. Be sure to tag @prints_and_plants and #thecreativewilderness so I can cheer you on!

Ready to Dive Deeper?  Here are more resources for you:

Join the Prints & Plants Table for weekly creative inspiration here:

Join the Table

Take the “Overcome Overwhelm” class here on Skillshare:

Navigate the Creative Wilderness: 3 Tips to Overcome Overwhelm

And dig into more Freelance & Entrepreneurship classes here:

https://www.skillshare.com/browse/freelance-and-entrepreneurship?via=heade

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Liz Brindley

Illustrator, Runner, Nature Nerd

Top Teacher


I started my creative biz back in 2017 and have learned SO much since then! Since that time, I've licensed my artwork, reached over 19,000 students worldwide, become a Top Teacher on Skillshare, exhibited my art across the US, created murals for multiple organizations, and helped creative women build their own dream businesses and lives.

And now? I'm sharing everything I've learned with you. My hope is that these classes inspire you to tap into your creativity, build your skills, and feel empowered to make your creative dream a reality.

Download the Free Creative Biz Launch Checklist here.

Want to keep hanging out? Same! Find me here:

Website... See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Welcome to Flow State: Have you ever been so involved in a creative project that you lost complete track of time? You are working steadily on a drawing or painting or business idea and looked at the clock only to realize that hours have passed without you even realizing it? That is the beauty of the creative flow state, which is the space we're visiting together today in this class in the creative wilderness tip series. Today we're talking about how to drop into a creative flow state so that you can make your work with less judgment, build more confidence in your creative ability, and find the energy to continue your journey forward on your creative path. Hey, I'm Liz. I'm an illustrator and creative educator based in New Mexico. I own a creative company called Prints & Plants, and I've spent many years navigating the highs, lows and unknowns of the creative wilderness. Now, I'm so excited to share my field notes and tips with you so you can gain more confidence in your own creative track and know that you're not alone out there. My guess is that as a creative, you've experienced the power and beauty of flow state before. But I know that different beasts on this journey can pull you out of that flow. Beasts like judgment, fear or doubt can bring your flow to a screeching halt, and then it can feel tricky or even totally impossible to get back into flow once you've stepped out of it. That's why today I'm sharing six tips to enter your creative flow state when you're feeling stuck so that you can tap into that non-judgmental presence with your work and move forward on your journey with more ease and energy. Are you ready to dive in? Let's get started. By the way, if you've taken one of the classes in this creative wilderness tip series before and are already acquainted with how it works and what you need, go ahead and jump straight ahead to Lesson number 4. 2. Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about your class project. Your class project for this portion of the Creative Wilderness Tip Series, is to print off the creative wilderness tips, field guide, PDF, and fill out the flow state section. In this section you'll find the following prompts. One, what brings me into flow state. Two, set your calendar time. Three, prep your space. Four, eliminate distractions. Five, leave judgment behind. Six, take action. You'll learn about these prompts in this class so that you can fill them out in your field guide. You can find the Creative Wilderness field guide linked in the projects and resources Tab of this class. You can find that by navigating to this Bar, clicking projects and resources and navigating to the right side of the page. There you'll see the field guide linked and ready to download. Once you've completed the flow state section of your Creative Wilderness field guide, snap a photo and upload it to the class Project Section. You can do this by navigating to the projects and resources Tab and clicking "Create Project." Here, you can "Upload" a photo of your completed section of the field guide. Be sure to include both a cover photo image as well as an image inside of this box. You can also type additional notes and observations from your Creative Wilderness Journey in this space. Make sure you hit "Publish" when you are finished to save your project to the project gallery. In the next lesson, we'll go over the materials you'll need for this class. I'll see you there. 3. Gather Your Materials: For this class, you'll need your creative wilderness field guide, which is found in the projects and resources section, as well as a pen, pencil, or writing utensil of your choice. You'll also need your phone to snap a photo of your completed field guide to upload to the class project section. That's it. In the next lesson, we'll go over what flow state is and why it's so important for your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 4. Know the Value of Flow: In this lesson, we're chatting about what flow state is exactly and why it's so important on your creative wilderness journey. In today's class, we've moved beyond the edge of the creative wilderness and now we're out here in it. This is incredibly exciting and it calls for celebration because this is where the adventure and beauty really starts to unfold and unravel. Now we're in the wilderness. The first spot on the map is flow state. This state typically comes shortly after you've picked a path and made a decision for your creative journey which we did in the last class in this series when we went over how to overcome overwhelm. If you want to hop back to that class for reference, you can do so by going to my profile page, navigating to the Creative Wilderness tip series and clicking the overcome overwhelm class. What is flow state exactly? Flow state is the point in the creative journey when you're doing something you're so engaged with that you lose total track of time. You're so aligned with your process that you feel truly connected to whatever it is that you're working on. Distractions, concerns, even fear of making your work can fall away completely. I love this quote to describe flow state. "Being in the flow means being aware that the river of life is flowing to us at every moment. Being in the flow means accepting whatever comes and putting it to good use, before passing it on. Going with the flow means allowing whatever comes to move on freely, without holding on in any way." See, I like to think of the ease and fluidity of flow as the currents of a river, that carry onward and forward with grace despite obstacles, rocks, or abstractions that may stand in the way. The river has a graceful and powerful determination to continue onward in its journey no matter what. The flow state is similar in that it is a space where we can access that graceful determination to move forward into the bigger creative wilderness with more trust in our process and intuition. This is an incredibly powerful state to access at the beginning of your creative wilderness journey for a couple of reasons. One, because flow state often happens right after you've made a choice and started a project. This is where your level of excitement and stoke about the path you're on is at an all-time high. This heightened energy and excitement is a great space to enter into the wilderness journey. Because it can fuel you forward on your path and give you the momentum to move past blocks, fears, and obstacles with more grace and ease. Trust me, you will need this excitement as fuel and as a reminder of what you are capable of feeling with your creative practice in order to keep going when things get challenging on this creative wilderness journey because they will. The second reason flow state is so important to kick off your journey is that it can allow you to create more freely and with a deeper trust in your unique process. When you're in flow, you can create with less rigidity and attachment to outcomes, which provides a whole new sense of openness and opportunity. Flow state can allow you to be so in touch with your process that you start to make new connections, find new solutions, and make new discoveries with ease instead of force. When you're in flow state, you don't question your creative decisions as much as you do when you're sitting at the edge of your project wondering how to even start. This means that in flow you're just moving with your creative choices, which mark goes where, what color to use, how to add that new income stream to your business. This flow with your decisions breeds more faith in your personal creative intuition. Listening to your creative intuition and trusting it are key for your journey out here. They are like your compass to navigate the unknowns of this wilderness. The more often you can jump into flow state, the more faith you can have in your creativity, and the more energy you can have to move forward on your path. Flow state is an awesome space to be and totally right for this journey. But what about when you can't get into flow because you feel stuck or judgmental of your work or frustrated. What if you feel hesitation to even start walking on your creative path? How can you jump into flow when you're in this state of resistance? Join me in the next lesson where I'll share the first tip to drop into creative flow so you can use it as fuel for your journey. I'll see you there. 5. Identify Your Natural Flow State: The first tip to drop into creative flow is the simplest and the most natural approach. The first tip is to simply identify the activities and situations that naturally bring you into flow state. Pay attention, be mindful, and take note of the moments in your life when you're in flow, when you lose track of time. Take note of who you're with, what you're doing, and where you're doing that activity. For me personally, I drop into flow state when I'm in my garden, on a hike, illustrating, cooking a delicious meal, spending time with good true friends, laughing. All of these things can drop me into flow state so naturally and easily that I might not even notice the shift into flow. I'm just in it without having to plan for it or try. These moments are gems. They are the jewels of the creative wilderness journey because they bring us into full presence, awareness, and alignment without forcing, pushing, or controlling the process. Right now, take a moment to reflect on this tip and jot down your answers to this question in the creative wilderness field guide. What are the activities, places, people, or projects in my creative journey in life that naturally lead me into flow state? Once you've listed a few of the things that easily bring you into flow, meet me in the next lesson where I'll share the second tip to drop into flow state if you're struggling to easily access it. I'll see you there. 6. Set a Time on Your Calendar: The second tip to drop into flow state is to set a designated block of time on your calendar for your creative project and process. This doesn't have to be a full day. It doesn't have to be an hour. It can literally be five minutes. As an example, let's say the creative path you chose in the last class is to create a new series of illustrations. You can set up a block of five minutes in your calendar. Literally write it down and put it in your digital calendar, and in that five minutes, you decide that you're going to start one drawing. Not finish the drawing, not finish the series, just start one drawing. Instead of five minutes, you could do a time block of 20 minutes or an hour instead, whatever feels right to you, but don't feel like this has to be a huge, big, gargantuan time block in order to drop into flow. Because what usually happens is that if you're doing a shorter amount of time like five minutes, it naturally extends to 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour without you even realizing it. Because after you're over that initial resistance to start, you typically drop into the flow state and want to keep going. Let's say that you've set up your time to start the illustration as a five-minute block in your calendar at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning. At 9:00 AM, you show up, you sit down, you set a timer for five minutes, and you start to draw. After those five minutes are done, you can quit or keep going, that's up to you. But usually that first five minutes is the catalyst to drop you into flow and continue creating with less resistance and less fear. Make sure that when you do set up a time for your creative project in your calendar, that you stay true to it. Make it a commitment just like you would a work appointment or a time with a friend or a family member. Because when you block this time in your calendar, you are declaring that your work and creativity are valuable. You are committing yourself to you and your creative process. That is an honorable act that can hold you accountable to show up and move forward with more confidence and fluidity on your creative wilderness journey. Take a moment now in your field guide to jot down a specific date and time within the next week that you're going to show up for yourself, your creative work, and practice. Once you've done that, meet me in the next lesson where I'll share the third tip to drop into your flow state. See you there. 7. Set Up Your Space: The third tip to drop into flow state is to set up your space for success. After setting up your block of time in your calendar and before entering your creative session, set up your space. For me personally, I love to clear my desk and get my materials ready to go the night before a working session. I love things to be accessible and handy so that when I sit down there is less of a barrier to entry to start creating. Let's use the example again that you're going to make a series of illustrations. For this project, you will need your paper or sketchbook, pens, a source of inspiration, and probably a cup of coffee. If you're scheduled time is set for tomorrow morning at 9 AM, then this evening you would take 5-10 minutes to clear off your desk except for your sketchbook, pens, and source of inspiration so that when you arrive at your space at that designated time, everything is there, ready to go. This means fewer excuses to get started, less of a barrier to create, and fewer reasons not to sit down and draw. Pro tip here though; when it comes to prepping your workspace, don't go overboard on how much you do or how much time you spend here. It can be really easy to use this as an excuse to not get to work. Don't get so obsessed about getting your space. Just write that you're actually using it as an excuse to put off starting your creative endeavor. Again, just take 5-10 minutes to prepare your space with the materials you need to get going. Now, in your creative wilderness field guide, jot down the date and time that you're going to set up your space, as well as the list of tools you'll need for your working session. Once you've done that, join me in the next lesson where I'll show you the fourth tip to drop into your creative flow state. I'll see you there. 8. Eliminate Distractions: The fourth tip to drop into flow state is to turn off and eliminate distractions. I personally work from home and have a studio set up in my living room. This means that distractions could easily abound, dishes, laundry, the neighbor, my phone, Facebook, chores, the list goes on. I'm aware that all of these distractions could pull me away from my work if I'm not paying attention. When I start my work and before I drop into the flow state of a project, I turn off my phone and stick it in a drawer away from my studio space and it lives there for most of the day. I let the dishes stack in the sink and do them altogether in the evening so it's not a task during my workday. I save laundry for the weekends. I let my neighbor and anyone else who might pop by know my working hours so I can work undisturbed, I'm aware and have a plan ahead of time for the potential distractions that might come up in my day. How can you give awareness to the distractions that might come up for you before they even start? Take a moment to list out any potential distractions in your field guide. This might be coworkers, family, your phone, music, the next-door neighbor, whatever the distractions that typically come up in your day-to-day, list them out so you have the awareness of them before they crop up. Then jot down a potential solution to eliminate or minimize each distraction. For example, you could turn off your phone, find a space outside of your home to work like the public library, or use music in the background if it helps you enter into flow or if you're scheduling your flow state during your lunch break at work, you could go to a quiet space where you're not interrupted by co-workers. Once you've made your list of potential distractions and possible solutions, join me in the next lesson where I'll share the fifth tip to drop into your creative flow state. I'll see you there. 9. Leave Judgement Behind: The 5th tip to drop into your creative flow state is to leave any judgment you may have at the door. Just leave it behind. Judgment can prevent the flow state from starting and if you're already in flow, judgment can stop it straight in its tracks. This is no fun and can actually be quite frustrating to be moving in and out of flow like a game of green light, red light, when you're just trying to move forward on a creative project. I always say that flow state is a no-judgment zone because so much of resistance can come from the fear of doing something wrong or incorrectly or badly. Let me just say, and I've mentioned this in this series already, all of those things happen. They're just part of the journey. I make bad art, I mess up, I do things incorrectly. But here's the thing. You have to mess up to learn. You have to make bad art to make good art. You've got to get through the muck to get to the good. You have to fail at a project to get to the solution. Failing is just a natural and normal and yes, still uncomfortable, part of the creative process and path. Just because it's part of the process doesn't make it easier. But knowing that it's normal can help to move forward. Since I think of flow state as a no-judgment zone, I also think that right and wrong don't really exist in flow or in the creative wilderness as a whole. Rather than coming at your project or creative journey with the mindset of getting it right or wrong, leave that duality at the door, so that when you sit down to work, there can be a feeling of openness and expansion and possibility rather than contraction. Because flow state is all about expansion and possibility. It's about movement and forward momentum, but not in a way that feels forced or rigid. Rather it's in a way that feels again, full of ease and grace and alignment. By leaving right and wrong at the door, you can drop into that flow. I know that's easier said than done. Just leave your judgment behind. It's a practice. It's something I still practice every single day. But even just having the awareness for your judgment and that it's there can help when you sit down to get into flow. Because if you can recognize those judgmental thoughts that come up like, I'm doing this wrong or, this is so bad or, she's better than me, then you can practice accepting the judgmental thought. Don't try to negate it, don't try to ignore it or shove it away, acknowledge and accept that the judgment is showing up. Allow it to move through you and don't take it as truth. Accept that when judgment does show up, that's a completely normal part of the creative process. It's through this acceptance, acknowledgment, and action to keep going anyway, with the judgment in tow, that you can tap back into flow. Often as you practice holding this gray space of both the judgmental thoughts and the action of creating at the same time, the judgment can begin to drift away just as it drifted in. In this way, judgment is like waves, in and out. Accepting that rhythm of judgment is normal and deciding to keep creating anyway can lead you to have more trust in your creative process, fluidity, and your practice, to have forward momentum on your journey. Now in your field guide, take a moment to list any judgment thoughts that typically come up around your creative path. These could be thoughts like, my work's not good enough, or who am I to make this, so on, etc. Write these judgments down so you can witness them clearly, be aware of them, and identify them when they show up in your process. Once you've listed out these typical judgments, join me in the next lesson where I'll share the 6th and final tip to drop into your creative flow. I'll see you there. 10. Take Action: The sixth and final tip to drop into your creative flow state is perhaps the most important, and that is to take action. You cannot get into flow by just sitting on the edge, you have to take action to get there. This is just like getting into a river. The only way to get in, to drop into the current and flow of the water is to just get in. To get into any beautiful or rich experience in life; be it the river, the wilderness, or flow state, you have to get off the sidelines and take action. This action can be small to start. It can be getting a pencil, getting a sketchbook, preparing your space, or setting aside those five minutes in your calendar. These small steps stack one on top of the other over time, and it's that stacking; that incremental action, that leads to flow. Taking action gets you out of overthinking and into forward movement. Personally I'm a pro at sitting on the edge of something and overthinking every possible outcome to try to figure out what's going to happen before I dive in. Recently, I've been practicing taking action before I feel totally and completely ready, because the action is where so much of the information and learning that I'm seeking and wanting can enter in. The action is where I can really start to have the forward momentum where I'm carried by the flow state to learn quickly instead of just theorizing or overthinking about what might happen or how it might look, or how the project might turn out. When you're in action you're inflow which breeds solutions; next steps, and it shows you answers more efficiently to the questions that you're asking. Again, this is just like getting into a river. Once you take the leap, take the action, then you're in it. You're in the water and it's only then that you can be carried and supported by the flow of the current. Yes, you still have to swim, and be aware, and be conscious of what's around you, but what's beautiful about the flow state is that it's this combination of you contributing your effort and being supported by the creative force at the same time. In this way it's a really beautiful dance between you and the creative endeavor that you're working on. It's an equal exchange of energy. The energy you give to the task at hand comes back to you in the form of more energy, it's a cycle. Essentially, the flow state is a gift back to us for the full presence and attention we give to the task at hand, and to get there you got to take that step. Take action. Now in your field guide take a moment to write down the next action step no matter how big or small, but you're going to take on your creative journey this week and to recap. The six main creative wilderness tips I have for you to drop into your flow state especially when you're hesitant or resistant to begin are; one, identify what naturally brings you into flow and make space for that in your daily life. Two, set a block of time in your calendar. Three, set up your space. Four, eliminate distractions. Five, leave judgment behind, and six, take action. Now I encourage you to really take a moment to soak up this flow state. Soak up the early excitement of our journey together because there are going to be points later in this wilderness where we're tired or it's hard. Right now just revel in this beginning stage, because this flow state will be so much of our fuel and energy as we continue this beautiful trek through the creative wilderness together. In the next lesson, I'll share how to publish your class project so I can cheer you on. I'll see you there. 11. Publish Your Class Project: Once you've finished filling out the exercises related to these six tips, take a photo of your completed flow state portion of the Creative Wilderness Field Guide. Then upload that photo to the project section of this class. Remember that you can upload your class project by going to the projects and resources tab and clicking the Create Project button. Once you've uploaded your photo, be sure to hit Publish. Also, be sure to check out the other class projects from your fellow creatives in the project gallery. We're all out here in the wilderness together, so let's show support for each other's journeys. Be sure to let me know in the discussion section which of these tips resonates most for you today to drop into your creative flow statement. In the next lesson, I'll share where we're headed next together on this creative wilderness journey. See you there. 12. Thank You & Next Steps!: Thank you so much for tuning into this class in the creative wilderness tips series. I hope you're feeling more equipped, confident, and totally stocked to keep trekking through the wilderness together. In the next lesson in this series, we'll be passing through the forest of fear, where I'll share my field notes for how fear shows up in your creative process. How it can actually serve as a helpful guide on your path and how to move out of fear to keep walking confidently forward on your creative journey. In the meantime, be sure to follow me here on Skillshare, to stay up-to-date on new classes by hitting the Follow button, hang out with me over on Instagram at Prints and Plants and check out more of my work at Prints and Plants.com. Stay Wild, stay creative, and I'll see you soon. All right, Recording, here we go. After a long morning. [inaudible], good sign. Okay, All right. Okay, but I am going to look like I am crying. Are you ready? Yeah. Do you need to look playful and fun? Wow.