I often wondered why some days, weeks, even months I am totally driven to make quilts, stitch, paint or even try out new recipes – but there are other times when it’s all I can do to even read a book. I’m not talking physical energy here, but rather creative energy. There are even times when I’m physically spent, but I keep on sewing or stitching because the creative urge and energy is so present.
I believe that we can exhaust our creative energy just like we run out of physical energy. This realization finally dawned on me after one period of time when I really wanted to be in my sewing room doing something creative, but all efforts were futile even though I had plenty of physical energy. Why couldn’t I get into one of the many projects I wanted to work on?
What I’ve discovered about myself is that when my full-time job (as VP product marketing for a $100+ million line of business within a multi-billion dollar technology company) has me doing lots of creative work (rather than spending a lot of time in meetings or putting out fires), I have less creative energy at the end of the day – even though I’m raring to go physically. It seems that there is a limit to creative energy just like there is a limit to physical energy.
For me, I guess the best of all possible worlds is when I am creative at work -- but still have creative energy at the end of the day for fun projects.
