Navigate the Creative Wilderness: Tips to Tap into Wonder on Your Journey

1. Welcome to Wide-Eyed Wonder: Hey, creative. What inspires you to create? Is it a fascination with the natural world? Is it a love for people? Is it an unending interest in typography, fonts or design, no matter what inspires you to create your work. My guess is that at the very root of it all is a deep sense of wonder. See, wonder is the desire to know something deeply. It is a pathway to new insights, new ways of seeing, and new ways of being in this world as creatives, it's our role and rad responsibility. Translate that sense of wonder through our creative work to give people the chance to see the world differently, notice new possibilities, and uncover alternative pathways forward into a better future as a collective whole. Your wonder is your deeply rooted why it is your guiding compass and force on your creative journey. But what happens when your innate sense of wonder starts to fade? What happens when wonder seems to disappear? When wonder seems to disappear, how can you rediscover it to regain energy, inspiration, and clear direction forward? That's what we're exploring today in the creative wilderness, by tapping back into the underlying current of wide eyed wonder that is a present at the root of your creative journey. Hey, I'm Liz. I'm an illustrator, educator and creative business owner in New Mexico. I've spent many years navigating the highs, lows, and unknowns of the creative wilderness. That's why now I am so stoked to share my field notes and tips with you throughout this series so that you can gain more confidence on your creative journey and know that you're not alone out there. See, as an illustrator, wonder is the fuel that guides my desire to create. My curiosity about nature and desire to know more about our environment directs my creative practice. But sometimes it can feel like I lose touch with that sense of wonder and need to tap back into it to regain energy, inspiration, and renewed direction for my creative journey. That's why today I'm sharing my best tips with you to rediscover a sense of wide eyed wonder on your creative wilderness journey so that you can have more clarity, direction, and inspiration as you move forward. You ready? We'll dive on in, by the way, if you've taken one of the classes in this creative wilderness tip series before, and are already well acquainted with how it works and with what you need, you can go ahead and jump right to lesson number four. 2. Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about your creative wilderness class project. Your class project for this portion of the Navigate the Creative Wilderness series is to print off the Creative Wilderness Field Guide PDF and fill out the wide eyed wonder section. In this section, you'll find the following prompts. One, your wonder. Two, observe, and three, embrace curiosity. You'll learn more about these prompts throughout 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 section of this class. You can find that by navigating to the Projects and Resources tab and going to the right hand side of the page where you'll see resources. And you'll see the Creative Wilderness Field Guide linked and ready to download. Once you've finished filling out this class portion of the field guide, go ahead and upload it to the class project section. You can do this by navigating to the projects and resources tab and clicking Create Project. Once you're here, you'll see a few options to share your project. Go ahead and fill in the project title with the name of this series in the project description, you can add images from your completed field guide by clicking image. This will bring you straight to your files where you can select the images you'd like to upload. Also type additional observations from your experience in this portion of the creative wilderness into this space. Once you've included all of your images and observations, go ahead and go to the cover image section to upload an image for your project. Again, you'll be brought to your files where you can select your click open and then place it just how you want it in the cropped space, press Submit. Make sure that when you're finished uploading everything, you hit Publish. That way it'll go to the class project gallery. All right, the next lesson we'll go over the materials you'll need for this class. I'll see you there. 3. Gather Your Materials: In this lesson, we're going over the materials you'll need for this class. For this class, you'll need your creative wilderness field guide, a pen, pencil or writing utensil of choice and a phone to take a photo of your completed field guide to upload for your class project. That's it. In the next lesson, we'll go over why wonder is so valuable on your creative journey. I'll see you there. 4. Recognize the Value of Wonder: In this lesson, I'm sharing how you can recognize the value and presence of wonder on your creative wilderness journey so that you can use it as fuel and direction forward on your path. As you can see on the creative wilderness map, wide eyed wonder sits at the center of our journey. It is the guiding force and consistent current underneath our entire track throughout the creative wilderness. Rather than wonder being a jewel or a gem that you set out to find on this journey. It is a force that is already within you and within the world around us. Now I know that might sound like pretty Lord of the Rings or starwarsy, but what I mean is that the wonder that you seek is already seeking you. It is already present within you. Rather than searching for it, you can simply uncover it in yourself. That is incredibly important, because tapping into wonder is tapping into direction on your creative journey. Wonder is consistently asking questions to learn and understand the world around us more deeply, like why? And what if and wouldn't it be cool if these questions offer such a valuable perspective? Because they can guide us as creatives to uncover deeper understanding, new solutions, and innovative ways of seeing and being in the world. I truly think it is our mission, purpose, and value as creatives to do just that. To share the wonders of the world with others so that we can create a better way forward together. Creativity has the power to make positive change. Sharing your creative vision with the world can spark ripple effects in your life and in the lives of the people that you meet. While a lot of this creative wilderness journey is internal, introverted, and reflective, the bigger purpose of it can be to turn around and share our creative insights, work, and ideas with the world to make that positive impact and change. This will take shape in many different ways out here in the creative wilderness on each of our paths. For example, one of the ways that wonder guides my creative practice is that my illustration work is heavily inspired by nature. Hence why we're out here in the wilderness. So when I look at nature, I am filled with an immense sense of wonder. That is my guide for my creative journey, which really leads me to want to share that immense sense of wonder and awe with other people. I want my art to inspire people to slow down and appreciate the Earth so that we can protect and honor our environment. Take a moment now to reflect in your field guide on where you gather a sense of wonder for your creative work. How can you tap into this wonder more frequently to remember the power, value, and clarity that wonder provides on your creative journey. Okay, so while wonder is an ever present current and compass for our creative path, after many miles in the creative wilderness, especially after visits to places like the bog of burnout or dunes of doubt, wonder can really seem to disappear. And it can be hard to know why we're out here in the first place. This can leave us asking questions like what is even the point? By the way, if you want a refresher for how to navigate and move through those stops in the creative wilderness, you can visit them. In the creative wilderness section of my profile page, it can feel like that sense of wide eyed wonder just disappears on our journey sometimes, when in reality it's not really disappearing. It's instead just being covered up and hidden by distractions or external elements. For example, common factors that can cover up or hide our inherent sense of wonder as creatives include exhaustion, burnout, pressure, deadlines, perfectionism, fear, judgment and output, or production mode, just to name a few. To tap back into wonder, we have to peel off those crusty layers that cover it up. Once we do, we can clearly see that Wonder has been present for us this whole time and is just waiting for us asking us to tap back into it. Tapping back into the deep undercurrent of wonder on our journey can be the fuel spark and rejuvenation. We need to remember that our creative trek and work is valuable and important in the world. Because I know that, you know, deep down, there is so much purpose and value of being out here in the creative wilderness together. By tapping back into wonder, we can tap back into the reminder that this journey is worth it and valuable not only to us but to those around us as well. When we tap back into wonder like this, we can get re, inspired, gain energy for ideas, and gather clear direction for our journey forward in the creative wilderness. So how do you peel back those layers to tap back into wonder? Join me in the next lesson where I'll share my main tips to do just that, see there. 5. Tap Back into Wonder: In this lesson, I'm sharing my main tips to tap back into wonder, to use as a guide and inspiration on your creative wilderness journey. Tip number one is to rest. Intentional and consistent rest will give you the energy, awareness, and presence to tap into wonder on your creative path. When we're always in output mode, there's just no room for any new inspiration, or new ideas, or new curiosities to enter in. But when we intentionally rest, we pause and make space in the creative journey to allow new ideas and inspiration to come in. This is why a renewed sense of wonder often seems to easily arrive after we've visited the grove of rest in the creative wilderness. When we take time to pause, rejuvenate, and regain energy, we peel off that crusty layer of exhaustion and let wonder breathe again. By the way, if you have yet to visit the grove of rest on this journey or you want to refresher, then you can hop back into that class in this series by navigating to my profile and going to the creative wilderness section. Tip number two, pause, pause, and reflect on how far you've already come be present in this moment. To take a breath and appreciate every moment of your journey that has led you to this exact point. Look back on your path with wonder. Recognize how wild it is that you are out here in the first place on this journey, in this life, making your way one step at a time. That in itself is something to marvel at. Tip number three allow. Sometimes with creativity, when we get into creation and output mode, we can get really stuck in an external way of being where we're constantly creating. And there's no room to receive any new ideas or new inspiration, that energy can quickly lead to burnout. Instead, take moments to rest and pause, and then when you do allow new ideas and inspiration to land, this is just like a plane trying to land in cloudy weather versus clear skies. The clouds represent your business, your filled up schedule, and your output mode. The plane represents your creativity and ideas. When you pause, the clouds or your business can begin to dissipate and settle, the skies can clear and the plane or your ideas can land smoothly. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think you should only wait for inspiration to land. I definitely think there are times where we have to go find and discover inspiration ourselves. But in that way, it's like a game of hide and seek. Sometimes inspiration is it and comes to find you and sometimes you're it and you go find inspiration. When you rest and pause, you can enter into a state of openness to allow inspiration to come find you. Without this rest and pause, inspiration might arrive when you're really busy and you may not even be able to see it or hear it, or you won't recognize it as inspiration because it's so different from what you're doing right now. But in a space of rest, you can more clearly hear and receive the inspiration and ideas when they land. You can look at them with wonder and ask, oh, what if? And begin to see the ideas with curiosity and renewed creativity. Tip number four, observe. Once you're allowing and receiving new ideas and actually testing them out, observe what happens. Observe the results of the actions you take from your new ideas. Observe what happens when you really listen to another person's perspective with more openness and curiosity. Observe the world around you with renewed wonder. For example, if you are drinking a cup of coffee, how can you be more present to that experience? How can you observe that process with more wonder and curiosity? Where did the coffee come from? Where did the coffee bean come from? Where did that cup come from? How does the cup feel in your hand? Take a moment right now to be fully present to an object that is right in front of you. Set a timer for 5 minutes and be fully present to observe the object. Notice its textures, notice its colors, shapes, and how it feels. Write down your observations in your field guide, even just for 1 minute. Take a moment to observe the world around you fully with utmost wonder and curiosity. That practice in observation can drop you back into the magic and wonder that is available to you each and every day. This can give more reverence to the present moment, which can deepen the sense of purpose on our own creative journey and remind us why we're even out here in the first place to experience that wonder and share it with others. Tip number five, act as if this tip is related to observation. Acting as if it's a really fun, playful exercise where you pretend like you have never, ever been here in this life or on this planet before. Maybe you're 26 years old or 18 or 38, whatever age you are watching this, you act as if this is your very first moment on this Earth. You've never been in the room you're in before. You have never seen a computer before. You've never seen the tree outside your window before. Act as if you are literally from another planet and you are visiting this Earth for just one day. Embody that and just feel how different your experience can be. If I was brand new to this space right now in the wilderness right here, I would be overloaded with wonder because of the smells, the colors, the feeling of the breeze, all of the tree branches, all of the bark texture, the tree leaves above me, the blue sky like so much that I could list. That's full of wonder, Acting as if can break you out of monotony and routine and tap you back into the wonder of the seemingly mundane. This sense of novelty, wonder, and discovery can spark a renewed sense of energy, new insights and inspiration to ultimately serve as a guide for your creative path forward. Tip number six, embrace curiosity. Ask yourself, what if, what would happen if I tried to paint instead of illustrate? What would happen if I looked more closely at this leaf? What would happen if I slowed down for 2 minutes with my coffee to really taste it? What would happen if I deeply listened to this other person in conversation? What would happen if I tried to start my own creative business that I've been dreaming of for years? When we can embrace curiosity through the lens of what if we can open ourselves up to new possibilities and potential that we didn't even dream possible. At first glance, we can bring ourselves out of our routines and back into the wonders of the world. We can make new discoveries and deeper connections with the world and with other people. So take a moment now to make a list of possibilities by finishing the what if question in your own field guide. Fill in the end of the sentence. What if with your curiosities, embracing this sense of curiosity is a doorway back into the wide eyed sense of wonder that is at the root of the creative wilderness journey. That curiosity can lead to so much information for our own creative journey of what we want to make and share with the world. This can lead to new discoveries about the world and clarity for the next steps on our own unique path. Tip number seven, play. Play is a wonderful way to tap back into a wide eyed sense of wonder. The best way to tap into play is by visiting playful pond and jumping right in there, which we do together in the next class in this series. But for now, just find one thing that you could incorporate into your creative practice that feels more playful. Let's say that you're an illustrator and you typically illustrate digitally. And you've been doing that for a couple years, so you really have your rhythm and your methods down. But because of this, it might start to feel monotonous and like you're stuck on process plateau, which you can revisit in episode number five in this series. In this monotony, you've totally forgotten about the wonder of what it felt like when you first picked up your apple pencil. Or when you first learned how to use the pins you use in all of your drawings now. Or you've forgotten just how magical it was the first time you created a drawing that you were really proud of and really loved, or maybe you've forgotten how amazing it felt the first time you sold one of your illustrations. You've just gotten into a rhythm and routine, which is really useful and totally has a place on the creative journey. But can also sometimes mean that you've lost touch with the wonder of your practice. So what small action can you incorporate into your creative journey that feels more playful right now? Can you try a new color palette? Can you try a new art medium? Can you go somewhere that gives you a lot of inspiration before you sit down to create, Incorporate just one small playful action into your creative routine. To drop out of monotony and back into wonder. All right, so to recap. The tips to tap back into a sense of wide eyed wonder on your creative journey are, one, rest. Two, pause. Three, allow. Four, observe. Five, act as if six, embrace curiosity. And seven, play. Let me know in the discussion section which of these tips you're implementing. First. In the next lesson, you'll fill out your field guide and publish your class project. I'll see you there. 6. Publish Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about publishing your class project. Once you've completed this section of the Creative Wilderness, take a photo of your completed wide eyed wonder section of the Creative Wilderness field Guide. Then you can upload that photo to the class project section of this class. Remember, you can upload your class project by going to the Projects and Resources tab and then clicking the Create Project button. Once you've uploaded your project, be sure to hit Publish. Also, be sure to check out other class projects from your fellow creatives in the project gallery. We are all out here together in the creative wilderness. Let's show support for each other's journeys. Lastly, be sure to let me know in the discussion section which tip you're implementing this week, to dive back into a sense of wide eyed wonder on your creative journey. Now join me in the next lesson where I'll share where we're heading next on our creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 7. Thank You & Next Steps: Thank you so much for tuning into this class and the creative wilderness tip series. I hope you're feeling more equipped, confident, and totally stoked to keep tracking through the wilderness together. Remember that wonder is the guiding force for your creative journey and is available to you at any time. By tapping back into wonder, you are tapping back into direction, inspiration, and a deep love for your creative work that you can then share with the world to spark new ideas, new connections, and new pads forward collectively. In the next class in the series Playful Pond, where I'll share my tips for how to dive back into a sense of play for your creative process so you can truly remember the joys of why you started your journey and be present for your practice, rather than letting end goals rule your sense of creative fulfillment and worth. In the meantime, if you want continued encouragement for your creative wilderness journey, you can download a free pep talk that I've recorded just for you to listen to anytime you need to get pumped up and confident about your next steps forward. Lastly, be sure to follow me here on Skillshare to stay up to date on new cases by hitting that follow button. Check out more of my work at Lisbon Y.com and come hang out with me on Instagram at its stay wild. Stay creative, then I'll see you soon waiting on a plane that you can then share with the world to spark new ideas, new connections, and new paths forward.