​
GS #29: How consuming is killing your creativity

We're wrapping up the year with lots of reflection, planning sessions, and conversations about where we want to steer the businesses in the coming year.

Our last newsletter of the year will be next week with our Year-End Review, and then we'll be on hiatus until January 6th eating all the apple pie (without mustard powder, IYKYK 🎙️👀) and Christmas cookies we can get our hands on. ❄️🍪

Hope you're able to slow down this month, rejuvenate, and spend time doing things that bring you joy.

- Caroline and Jason

---

calm creator chronicles ✍️

Will this be the year you create more than you consume?

👩🏻‍🦰👋: Last newsletter, I shared my new goal to NOT OVERTHINK IT when it comes to creating content. I’m happy to report that, so far, this approach seems to be working for me.

I’m feeling inspired. I’m creating art again. But this weekend, I almost fell into a familiar booby trap—something I call the Creator’s Dead-End of Doom.

Let me paint a picture for you and see if this sounds familiar...

1. You feel a spark of desire to make something.
2. Immediately, a fear creeps in: “Will anyone even care? Is this something people will like?” You picture pouring your heart into something that "flops," lost to the algorithmic graveyard.
3. To guard against this vulnerable fear, you start looking at “successful” content for inspiration. A video here, a post there, a creator rabbit hole... now you're on a consumption binge under the guise of "research."
4. Before you know it, you’re sucked into comparison mode: “Everything’s already been made. I’m not good enough. Why even bother?”
5. That initial creative spark fizzles out and your idea never sees the light of day.

We all know that consuming is easier than creating—it always will be.

But the danger is that we often convince ourselves that consuming will help us create. And that’s what I call the booby trap. Every time I’ve tried to reverse-engineer what works for others, I’ve ended up absolutely killing my creativity vibe.

​
Interrupting the cycle

So what are we to do? How can we interrupt the Creator's Cycle of Doom?

This weekend, I felt the spark to create a YouTube video for WAIM’s channel. For a moment, I caught myself opening YouTube to “get inspired” by similar videos.

But, I caught myself. Not this time, booby trap!

Instead, I quickly set up my laptop by a window, opened QuickTime, and hit record. No time to think about the right angle, the right camera, or whether my idea would please the algorithm. I just wanted to see where my creative spark would take me.

And you know what? I had FUN.

It brought me back to 2016, when I started a daily project to create and share a piece of art every single day on Instagram. That project changed my life. It grew my audience. It helped me develop my unique art style. It even landed me a book deal.

The best part of that endeavor? I didn’t waste energy looking at what art was getting likes on Instagram. I didn’t have the time! Instead of looking outside for inspiration, I looked inside for what I wanted to express, and that kept me creating consistently.

​
⚡️ taking action: an invitation to create more

Now let’s talk about you.

I know you have things you want to create—videos, posts, products, newsletters. You have a voice that’s begging to be expressed. But are you letting the Loop of Doom hold you back?

Are you looking OUT THERE *gestures wildly* instead of looking IN HERE *gestures lovingly at your heart like a sage character in a Disney movie*?

This upcoming year, my goal is simple: Create more than I consume.

That’s it.

Want to join me? Let’s see what happens when we make the objective that simple. What opportunities open up? What new growth does it unlock for our businesses? What confidence, pride, and self-knowledge do we gain in the process?

Stay tuned. I guess we’ll find out together!

​- Caroline 👩🏻‍🦰​

226 - A (real) messy convo about social media In this episode, you get our messy, honest, real-time takes on using Instagram for business. Are we bringing back our channel? Will it be worth the effort? Join us as we debate, laugh, and figure out where we stand for 2025. LISTEN ON: APPLE | SPOTIFY | WEB​

⏩️ ⏩️ ⏩️ hey, will you forward this to just ONE calm creator friend? We are looking to build our community just ONE calm creator at a time. If you have a business bestie who is tired of the highly-competitive, profit-only approach to building an online business, please invite them to subscribe to Growing Steady.

gimme, gimme more ​ Ways we can help you build a calm online business: Start building online courses with Teachery. This is our other business baby, an online course platform we created to help you build beautifully branded online courses that look completely custom. Get our limited time Lifetime Deal here.​ Want bigger launches with less stress? Snag our raved-about course, Calm Launch Formula, and learn our proven system for selling digital products without the chaos of a hectic launch! Use code "growingsteady" at checkout for 50% off! ​ Ps. We use Kit to send you these emails and you can find all our online biz tools we love here.

Thanks for reading! We pour a lot of love into these weekly newsletters, and we hope you can feel it!

Did a friend share this with you? ​Subscribe here.​​

---