The Inner Workings Worksheet
This checklist teases out attitudes and mindsets that affect the way you do your creative work. Unlike the Practical Conditions Worksheet, this one approaches your interior obliquely, by examining your feelings and thoughts on your process.
You can check off items, but you could also use a + or – symbol, or a number: 1 disagree, 3 agree, 5 hell yeah I agree. This list is more to make you think than to rate yourself.
Beginning
What are you like at the start of a project?
- Planning and preparation keep me from starting hands-on work.
- My battery is perspiration, not inspiration.
- I seek to develop a lot of momentum by making fast decisions.
- I restart a lot and it makes me anxious and slows my progress down.
- I don’t mind restarting when something clearly sucks.
- I don’t need much of an idea to start.
The Messy Middle
What do you go through during the slog that is the middle?
- I bounce from project to project to maintain my momentum.
- I often feel like the work is just happening with me doing nothing.
- I need to let projects sit for a while.
- I overthink my actions in the messy middle.
- I want there to be happy accidents when I’m working.
- I’m ok with diverging from my original idea for the piece or project. Things can change.
Finishing Work Off
Does it end with a whimper or a bang? How do you know it’s over?
- I’m reluctant to finish work if I’m not sure of the ending.
- It’s finished when it’s close enough and I’m bored.
- I’m ok with leaving small mistakes.
- I feel a need to control the presentation of my work.
- When I revisit a piece, I often think it sucks.
- I like my work even better when I’ve not seen it for a while.
Encounters With Audience
Creative work is still work, and all work uses up time. There’s 168 hours a week!
- I’m not embarrassed to talk about my work.
- Criticism makes me defensive.
- I feel like my peers look down on my work.
- When I see my work with other people around, I see all the things wrong with it.
- I don’t like to watch people engaging with my work.
- I feel people don’t understand what I do.
Encounters With Yourself
What’s it like inside your head?
- My inner conversation is with a real asshole.
- I like to narrate my work and life as I make it and live it.
- I get bogged down deciding which choice is best.
- I don’t think I take enough risks.
- I’m often frustrated.
- I seek to learn more than confirm.
Your Takeaways
Our creativity is wrapped up in our work, and the internal issues that interfere with our work can often be seen by the issues and path our process.
We all have issues stemming from fear and shame, but we don’t know each other, and I wouldn’t want a stranger asking me about shame issues and making inferences about my past.
Are you surprised by any of your answers? Are you seeing a pattern of behavior that is causing you inner friction? Was this worksheet plain old uncomfortable for you?
Did you spot anything that you can fix? Did you discover that not wanting to talk about your work and not taking criticism well are part and parcel of the same thing? Did you realize you get stuck in the middle and finish a very small amount of what you start?