Know Yourself to Make Your Best Work
How do we set up the circumstances that support creative work — and support you, the maker? I mean the problems you solve at the job site or the office, and your quieter creative outlets too: dabbling in poetry, picking around on the piano. But this ONE thing we’re talking about today will also bring new richness to how we show up in relationships and conversations, how we decorate and tend our homes and yards and flower beds, even what we bring to the volunteer groups and clubs we're part of.
You might be wondering what one piece of advice I could possibly offer that would improve your garden and your pottery and your small talk at parties (and maybe your job-interviewing skills too). The short answer is: know yourself.
Knowing yourself sounds simple. But with calendars as jam-packed as ours are, it's actually quite a feat. It means digging into your personality and values, your strengths and weaknesses and gifts, your family background and childhood — all the stuff that makes you you. The rest of us want to see that magical combination of weird — the mix NO ONE else on this planet has — show up in your art, your work, your conversation, your contributions to this planet we all share.
How Deep Is Too Deep?
How can we dig into who we are without falling too far down the rabbit hole? And how much of this navel-gazing is actually useful? There's no recipe, but I think of it like a lantern. The glass is a one-of-a-kind mix of shapes and colors — that's your history, your memories, the way you're built. Your light is everything else — your energy, your humor, your center, the way you show up for the people around you. And when that light shines through all those particular shapes and colors, it creates something only you can make — your art, your work, your whole way of being in the world.
There are unlimited ways to show up in this world, unlimited ways to be you.
Whatever your patterns, your unique preferences and the light you shine — we want to see it!
I have always loved learning about myself. Like those notebooks we passed around in middle school, adding your answer to every question — favorite color, favorite sport, dream vacation, dream car. (Any fellow Gen Xers remember these?) The magazine quizzes, horoscopes, Myers-Briggs, countless self-help books. I've gathered all of it over the years, and I'm still digging — but also becoming more myself all the time, on my own terms, just by being still, writing, and listening.
And that's where I want to focus today: a simple, powerful way to know yourself more — not through a quiz or a book, but by looking inward and celebrating who you are before you ask anyone else to weigh in.
My Favorite Framework: The Artist's Way
It comes from the amazing Julia Cameron and her book The Artist's Way — a twelve-week program of journal prompts and exercises, plus a daily practice and a weekly one. This week, we're focusing on just the daily one. Simple, but it is so powerful: Morning Pages.
Morning Pages
Cameron advocates — strongly — for writing morning pages every day, immediately upon waking. (Well, as soon as you've got coffee in hand; she agrees that's part of the ritual.) So is actually writing it out by hand: no devices, no typing, no dictating. You free-write and don't stop until you've filled three notebook pages. Anything at all — the thoughts crossing your mind, complaints, the weather. The idea is that about halfway in, you're done with the surface fluff and into the real meat: revelations about yourself, the spark of a new project, a truth or connection you hadn't noticed before.
I was once lucky enough to be on a Zoom call with Cameron, the Queen of Creativity herself, and I asked whether you're “allowed” to write about tasks and plans for the day. Her answer, in short: not really. But for me those are so often top of mind, so I allow myself a few lines about the day's agenda. I keep my planner nearby, and if a real task pops up, I box it and keep going — then move those boxes into the planner once the pages are done, without ever breaking the flow.
It also shows me something about myself: how task-focused I am, and how much I benefit from a ritual that centers me before I dive into work.
For me, morning pages brought a clarity I hadn't gone looking for. I spilled it all onto the page — the dreams, the stresses, everything — and the truth surfaced underneath: as proud as I was of my health care career, I had an unwavering need to create, and to show up for the people I love in a way that work never allowed. One frenzied session, and I knew. I didn't quit the next day, but I started moving toward this creative life.
Cameron recommends a second practice, too — the weekly Artist's Date — the playful, outward opposite of all this quiet writing. Think a slow lap through the craft-store clearance aisle to find a few little treasures your inner 8 year-old would love, or an hour at the aquarium to activate your sense of wonder. It's so good, and so easy to skip, that it deserves its own post — so I'm saving it for next time.
Know Yourself - and Keep a Running List
Try the pages this week, or go all in and pick up Cameron's book to follow the whole program to the letter. I love how structured it is while still allowing freedom and flexibility. (As a firstborn, I do love a good set of rules.)
And keep a list going somewhere of what you learn — your patterns, your strengths and weaknesses, your preferences and dislikes, and most of all, what lights you up. Then begin intentionally weaving those things — weaving you — into how you show up every day. Because that's the person we want to see. Scars, weirdness, and all.
Quick Win: Tomorrow morning, coffee in hand, write three pages by hand before you touch your phone or your to-do list. Just once. See what surfaces.
Solid Solution: Commit to morning pages every morning this week — three pages, longhand, before the day grabs you. Keep a running “what I'm learning about myself” list as you go.
Treat Yourself: Buy (or borrow) The Artist's Way and slip away for a day, or a whole weekend, to start working through the prompts. No agenda but looking inward and seeing what you find.
With Enthusiasm for Life + Art,