Ola Lauren

Have you ever felt guilty for having great ideas but not pursuing them? Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “just do it” enough times that it’s getting to you, making you feel less than for not being able to commit and run with an idea the minute it enters your head. 

This guilt creates an odd and unfortunate cycle. You judge yourself for the inaction but that judgment just creates even more inaction. You never reach the point of actually making something or sharing it with people because there’s all this pressure on you that’s self-inflicted. Creativity cannot thrive under such conditions. So what would happen if you took the pressure off? It’s not easy but it’s something I’ve been working on myself for the past year. 

I’ll give you a little spoiler and tell you that the result is me publishing this first post on a blog that I’ve been wanting to start for years now. Each of the following are lessons I had to learn before I was ready to make this jump.

No one judges you (and your process) as much as you do

The day I realized that I judged myself more than anyone else ever could was a very freeing day. No one could possibly beat me in this regard. Because honestly, who has the time to criticize us as often as we criticize ourselves.

There is beauty in you waiting to be realized. There is power in you longing to be brought forth. And I don’t think it will come out if you judge yourself and make yourself feel bad for not having started sooner. This just initiates that whole cycle of guilt and fear. And if you do manage to force yourself to create something I doubt it will be anywhere near as beautiful or impactful as it could have been, had you actually wanted to do it.

A wise man once told me that if I ever got tired of playing the guitar I should leave it in its case and wait until I felt excited to play it again. He told me that if I forced myself to play I’d lose my love for it, and that it’s better to wait than force ourselves to do things that are meant to be enjoyable. 

Don’t give up on creating altogether just because you don’t feel ready to go right now. Have patience with yourself and your creative process. 

The little things add up over time

When I look back at the past few years I can clearly trace a series of seemingly insignificant events that led me here, to starting this blog and even writing this particular piece.

One thing that really held me back from starting a blog was that I couldn’t come up with the right name. A few years ago I came up with one that seemed perfect, but then the more I thought about it I felt that it put me into a box and gave the blog a singular focus. This didn’t feel right to me, since I’m someone with many different interests and I want to write about them all. Still, I couldn’t come up with a better name no matter how hard I tried, so I eventually stopped trying and pursued a different dream of mine. I went to Costa Rica and learned how to surf. And would you know what happened? I stumbled across the name I’d been looking for all along, one that encompases all the different parts of me.

I never would have found the name had I not gone on that trip and discovered my love for surfing. I had always felt a pull towards the ocean and surfing but it wasn’t until then that I fully realized it. I learned that I’m in love with surfing, much like the way I’m in love with the Spanish language. They are both things that light me up from the inside out whenever I practice them. “Ola” in Spanish means “wave”. Surfing has taught me that I’m learning to ride the metaphorical waves of my life: in my perspective expanding, my relationships changing, the ups and downs of solo traveling, and even the fluctuations of my blood sugar as I’m a type 1 diabetic. The name encompasses so many things I want to write about, and leaves room for me to grow, but also to stand firm in who I am by including my name. The puzzle pieces came together at last and in a way I never would have expected.

When we push ourselves to just go for it we’re not allowing things to fall into place the way they are meant to over time. 

Appreciate how far you’ve come

When we pay attention to the little things adding up and preparing us we can then appreciate where we’re being led. We can be grateful for where we’re at right now which will only bring us more abundance and ideas.

I keep a lot of notes, and while working on this blog post I stumbled across one I’d written about a year ago that I simply titled “Fear”. I wrote out some of my fears at the time and how I was frustrated by them. What surprised me most was that here I am a year later, and I have either conquered each of the fears or am actively working on them. In fact, once I publish this post I will have overcome the last one. 

To be honest though I’m not exactly sure “overcome” is the right word here, as I’ve learned there is no shame in being afraid. My fear is simply a part of me that wants to protect me, so I will make room for it but I will not allow it to stop me from creating and doing the things that I want to do.

Push your comfort zone sustainably

I believe bravery is a muscle that should be stretched slowly over time. You have to find what works for you and feels right. For me, I just try to take things one step at a time and be honest with myself about what I’m comfortable with. It comes down to taking that first step, getting used to the challenges that presents, and after that has become comfortable you take the next step. Some steps are bigger than others, and there will be times when you have to make a leap, but as long as you’re honest with yourself about what you’re ready for and that you are serious about growth then you can’t really go wrong.

I actually started my first blog about 6 years ago. I followed my desire to write but I also pushed myself a lot and shared more than I was comfortable with. I published only one long blog post because of this. Looking back, I just wasn’t quite ready. I really wanted to be ready, and I pushed myself to do it, but it wasn’t my time. I was going through some difficult and transformative changes and I needed to let myself breathe and grow through that, and not force myself to create anything out of the pain I was still processing.

Know that you don’t have to share anything before you’re ready

If there’s one thing I wish I had done differently throughout my own process it’s that I would have written and created freely but kept it to myself. I was ready to write years ago but I wasn’t ready to put my work out there. I now read some of the old ideas I wrote down back then and wonder what I meant or where I was coming from.

Sharing what you make can be exciting but your art is still valid even if you keep it for yourself. I wish I had created more for myself during those preparation years because then I would have book snippets, blog posts, songs, videos, films and paintings to look back on. If you decide to share what you make, that part can always come later when you feel more confident and have realized that no matter what happens or how people respond you won’t stop creating if that’s what you want to do. Having said that…

Be proud of what you’ve already made

It’s entirely possible that you are already a lot more brave and creative than you think. This means that it is also possible that you have already made many things; they have just flown under your radar. This could be because they didn’t feel big enough to you, they didn’t have the success you wanted them to, or you didn’t stick with them long enough. 

In my case, I’ve mainly focused on my lack of writing blog posts and books over the years. That hyper focus on one area I was lacking in didn’t allow me to see all of the other things I’ve made. I wrote countless journal entries, college papers and short stories for creative writing classes that had all helped me grow immensely as a writer yet I couldn’t appreciate or even remember them because my focus was elsewhere.

It actually wasn’t until I had a conversation recently with an old friend that I realized just how creative we had been together as teenagers. She reminded me of an improvised short film we’d made at my birthday party with our theatre friends and how I was so proud of the thing that I burned DVD copies of it for everyone to take home. Now imagine if you could have that same kind of enthusiasm for the small things you make, and how that would encourage you to keep on creating, through the good and the bad, the silly and the serious. 

Of course the film probably isn’t that great and is now at least slightly embarrassing for us all but I couldn’t help but feel incredibly proud of us for going for it and finally making a film because it was something we had wanted to do for years. We stopped planning and obsessing and we just went for it. I think the best part is that we had so much fun, and now we have our creation to look back on and laugh at for years to come.

It doesn’t have to be perfect (and it never will be)

Perhaps the biggest hurdle I’ve had to overcome is my desire to be perfect. Even in writing all of this I’ve noticed just how much pressure I’m putting on myself to make it come across a certain way. I’m overthinking and taking the fun and lightness out of the process, and now that I’m aware of it I can change that. Once we come to terms with the fact that we’ll never be perfect, because perfection does not exist, we will be truly liberated to create freely. 

If your fear of not being perfect is the only thing left holding you back from creating then I want you to ask yourself this: am I okay with never creating anything for the rest of my life? Because if you’re waiting to be perfect you’ll never get there. I know from experience. We aren’t being fair or kind to ourselves when we think this way and some part of us knows it. We would never hold a child or someone we love to this unattainable standard so let’s stop holding ourselves to it. Allow whatever you make to be good enough, or great enough; it’s much more interesting that way anyhow. 

When it’s your time you’ll know

Around 10 months ago I woke up at 4:30 am in Costa Rica and I couldn’t fall back asleep. I tried but to no avail since the roosters were already awake and crowing. I tossed and turned for a while but then remembered a dream I’d had that I wanted to remember. I begrudgingly pulled out my laptop to write it down and before I knew it I was filling pages and pages of word documents with thoughts I’d been holding in. I had a lot of ideas that had been brewing for months but I kept coming up with reasons to put off writing them down. Some part of me had had enough. My time had come and once the floodgates were opened that early October morning there was no going back. My dream had waited for me to get nice and ready but it couldn’t wait any longer and neither could I. I was a writer through and through, only now I had the courage needed to truly be one.

When you wait to create for many years you just might be lucky enough that you build and store up all sorts of ideas. Once you are ready to tend to them you will be blessed with a seemingly never ending fountain of material to work with. This will hopefully propel you into a consistent and rewarding creative process. 

I think that those of us who have to work to be vulnerable and take up space can also appreciate showing up fully as ourselves much more. Once we are ready to finally take up space and speak our truth there is no going back, because we know the alternative. We don’t want to go back there and we won’t. No matter what happens, good or bad, we followed a desire we had and created something entirely our own. 

You’re the only one who has to live with you. You might as well be proud of the things that you make and do. Personally, I want to live in a world where everyone feels confident to create whatever it is that their heart desires and to share it with the world if they so choose. I’m starting with myself. It’s time.