A curiosity-based framework for creative expression
Yes, it's called Feel Follow Flow. No, I'm not sorry.
This is the final article in my five-part series on unblocking and unlocking your creativity, whether that’s in your work, your art practice, or just the way you move through your life.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
In my 20s, sharing the creative expression of others through Design Milk was the closest I could get to my own creativity. Toward the end of that decade, I unknowingly began to use my creativity in growing my business, which usually started with the curious question “what if we…”. And then I picked up a pencil and a sketchbook. This all happened in a very short amount of time.
Since then, I’ve busted through every single creative blocker on the list, and still fight some of them to this day. Using curiosity as wayfinding has been the number one thing that’s led me to success in all of my endeavors. Curiosity is a natural, human ability, but it gets repressed, so following it and allowing it to lead you isn’t as easy. We often have to work to remember how to navigate with it. To follow your curiosity is a choice to venture into the unknown, not only to gain knowledge or experience but to expand who you are.
A few posts ago, I came up with “Feel Follow Flow,” which sounded fun to say, is incredibly corny, and so, obviously, I’m going with it. Be the cringe! (This is Blocker #2).
This idea came out of my own Feel Follow Flow process. I felt a pull when I started writing about curiosity as a navigation system. I followed that pull by writing this whole series: the curiosity framework, the pull of curiosity, how that leads you to so many possibilities, and then the outcome of all of it, which is flow. Flow is what happens when you follow your curiosity into something that’s got you in its gravitational pull, and you just start going, whether it’s writing, a business plan, painting, cooking, or whatever rabbit hole you’re deep in.
Where are you right now?
As a framework nerd, I pondered what this could actually look like? Like, how do you know if you’re stuck? You can’t really measure curiosity but you can gauge a level of interest based on your gut feelings. And based on your level, you can pinpoint what stage you’re in on the road to Flow.
Take a look at the graph below. Consider the blockers again. Where do you fall right now?
Are you High curiosity/Low creativity? For example, consuming but not making.
High creativity/Low curiosity: making but feeling hollow.
Low both: stuck.
High both: the Flow, or close to it.
Start by answering the following questions:
Is anything pulling at you right now, even a little?
Are you making things? If so, does it feel meaningful or hollow?
When did you last lose track of time doing something?
What made you jealous recently?
If you’re Stuck:
Go back to before. Make a list of everything that used to pull at you: hobbies, obsessions, rabbit holes, things you were jealous of other people doing. Pick one. Spend 20 minutes with it, no agenda, and see if anything stirs. And if you haven't read Part Two on gravitational curiosity, start there.
If you’re Consuming:
Pick the one thing you keep coming back to and do one small physical thing toward it in the next 24 hours. It has to be an action, not a plan. Order supplies, open a document, write a title. Don’t let your brain interfere. Skip straight to the doing. Go back to Part Three if you need to.
If you’re Hollow:
Put down whatever you’re currently making and spend one week writing only about what you’re actually curious about right now. Don’t let your logical brain talk you out of it or push you in a direction based on assumptions, e.g., what you should be curious about. The hollowness is usually because the curiosity ran out before the project did. Go back to Part Two.
If you’re in the Flow:
Write down what conditions made this possible, such as what you cleared out of the way, what you were doing, who you were around. This is your personal Feel Follow Flow recipe. Save it because you might need it when the blockers come back (did I mention they come back? When they do, just go back to Part One).
Feel free to share where you’re at in the comments. Are you in the Flow? Almost there? Or stuckity stuck?
No matter where I am on the quadrant, this is the exercise I come back to. Whenever I have a new goal, I do a short exercise:
Name the goal.
Identify path to achieve goal.
Make up a new story in which I’m the things that can get me there.
I don’t abandon my previous stories, I can decide how much of them I still wish to believe.
I don’t know exactly where this all goes next. I’m following the thread, same as you. What I do know is that curiosity got me here, and here feels pretty good. I had a lot of fun writing this series.
Love it! Plus alliteration for the win, every single time, no matter the cringe.
I find that I cycle through these stages and depending on the creative act I could be in multiple stages at once. Right now I am in the consuming stage in my writing, the feel follow flow for painting and creating a larger body of work and stuck as I graduated from a MFA program earlier this year and trying to find my way to what's next. I love the analogies you have created here and it helps so much to see things from a different perspective. Long time follower of yours since the Design Milk days. Hope you are having a great week Jaime!