When Consistency Becomes Conformity: Reclaiming Your Creative Flow
The Weight of Expectation
The expectations I wake up with every day are crippling me.
I don’t like mornings—or getting out of bed—because the moment I open my eyes, I’m faced with everything I should do, how I should spend my time, or why I’m not doing things like everybody else.
I haven’t worked a 9–5 job in over six or seven years, yet there’s this terrible little part of me that whispers there’s something wrong with me because I can’t—or don’t want to—wake up and work Monday to Friday.
The voice taunts me:
“See? Everyone else can do it. They don’t complain or get drained by it. And if they do, they don’t make themselves a victim—they just do it. Why aren’t you more like them? Why can’t you be normal?”
I told you it was a terrible voice.
When Creativity Has Room to Breathe
It’s becoming a regular occurrence that I get creative sparks that wake me up when the moon is the only natural source of light for us humans. Sometimes I think I wake up in the middle of the night with creative ideas because that terrible part of me is finally asleep—and my ideas have space to breathe.
It’s the same when I’m trying to relax, like taking a bubble bath to quiet my mind. That’s when inspiration strikes.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? That creativity comes when we don’t want it and disappears when we do.
The Voices That Shape Our Days
The expectations of the day are shaped by so many voices—society, culture, friends, family, and our upbringing.
The fact that teenagers still have to start high school at 8 a.m. blows my mind. It’s like the system is designed to make life harder. The structure of school never worked for me. I wish I had attended an alternative school that didn’t dictate every minute of my time and attention—someplace that allowed for exploration and creation.
Major systems like school and traditional work schedules simply weren’t designed with people like me in mind. And yet, I still battle this internal pressure to thrive inside a system that was never meant to hold me.
The Creative Paradox
I know I’m not the only one who feels this tension.
Many creatives don’t work 9–5, and if they do, they probably feel their soul being crushed a little each day. I don’t believe in the “starving artist” myth—it’s simply not true.
I truly believe that when we’re operating in our zone of creative genius, that’s when we become most abundant.
As I write this, I’m listening to Drake’s song “Can I.” and there’s a lyric that captures exactly what I’ve been feeling:
“I’ll tell you what I think my biggest flaw is, (baby)... I try to be consistent, but I can’t.”
That’s it. I try to be consistent—but I can’t.
Drake—one of the most successful artists of our time—struggles with consistency too. He’s a multimillionaire in multiple industries, yet still human enough to wrestle with the same inner conflict.
The Death of Creativity: Trying Too Hard
It’s the trying that kills our creativity. Not consistency. Small consistent actions is a very good strategy to reach your dreams. It;s the fact that we’re trying or expecting or forcing creative flow into a rigid timetable.
Trying to be consistent in art is such a strange concept. We want to practice, learn, and grow into vessels that express the beauty we’ve been entrusted with—but where’s the line?
The ebb and flow is where the magic happens. And yet, we try to force our production.
Sometimes I catch myself wishing for a creative timetable:
9:00 a.m. — Creative Contemplation
9:50 a.m. — Fundamentals of Writing
10:40 a.m. — Digital Expression
Wouldn’t that be neat and tidy? Except that’s not how creativity works.
Living Outside the Machine
How can we wake up and not expect ourselves to participate in the well-oiled machine the world has built around us?
It’s dizzying—absolutely suffocating at times.
After 38 years of waking up thinking, “This is how my day should go,” (usually filled in by external expectations), I get frustrated that I can’t just shake it off and say:
“F** that. I’m going to lean into where the day takes me.”*
And by “the day,” I mean staying deeply connected to what’s inside of me—the pulls, nudges, whispers, and opportunities that aren’t forced but simply there for the taking. Opportunities that offer inspiration, creation, and action that feels good. Not forced.
A Radical Way to Live
This feels like a radical way to live. Because it is.
It’s radical to say no to the tidy timetable and do your own thing. It’s radical because we live in a society driven by money, success, and power—a world that requires us to show up to maintain its rhythm.
But waking up, checking in with yourself, and being led by God’s beautifully present spirit? That’s radical because it doesn’t provide easy answers to questions like, “So what do you do?”
My answer is simple:
I wake up and go from there.
Can it be that simple? That beautiful?
I really hope so.
What do you think?
Share your perspective in the comments below—I’d love to hear from you.
These are my honest and raw thoughts,
I hope they help,
Katie
This dance is inspired by this blog. I had to break free from my conditioning in order to even allow myself to create something like this. The dance existed inside of me weeks before I allowed myself to create it in real life… simple because my conditioning said I should be doing something else. I edited it with the song “can I” by Drake but it wouldn't let me download it with the music, so here’s a spoken word video of the blog matched with the dance. I hope you enjoy.
