I will always have fond memories of the time I spent completing The Artist’s Way; the exercises were a big proponent of that joy. Out of the hundreds of exercises and tasks provided over the 12-week course, there are a few that I would consider my favorites.
My 15 Favorite Exercises from The Artist’s Way
#1 Identify your blocks
Take a look at your current areas of procrastination. What are the payoffs in your waiting? Locate the hidden fears. Do a list on paper.
The reason I like this exercise and repeat it often is that I need to be reminded often that I am holding myself back and that there is a hidden clue in my current behavior as to why I’m doing it.
#2 Expand your capacity to dream
Buy yourself a special creativity notebook. Number pages one through seven. Give one page each to the following categories: health, possessions, leisure, relationships, creativity, career, and spirituality. With no thought as to practicality.
List ten wishes in each area. All right. it’s a lot. Let yourself dream a little here.
It’s so much fun to have a dream book! I have transferred this idea to my Second Brain (Evernote) as well but nothing beats having your dreams contained in a book that you can page through and keep referring back to. I also like adding images where I can and you can keep a visual version of this in Pinterest as well.
#3 Improve your self-care
Take out a piece of paper and plan one week’s nurturing for yourself. This means one concrete, loving action every single day for one week: please binge!
You think this is going to be easy and then you realise what an absolute tyrant you are to yourself. We should all do this all the time! Why does no one teach us how to be nice to ourselves? The world would be a better place.
#4 Get your priorities straight
Priorities: List for yourself your creative goals for the year. List for yourself your creative goals for the month. List for yourself your creative goals for the week.
This is a shorter version of exercise #6. Do this every month to keep yourself on track.
#5 Revisit your old thoughts and insights
Read your morning pages! This process is best undertaken with two colored markers. one to highlight insights and another to highlight actions needed. Do not judge your pages or yourself. This is very important. Yes, they will be boring. Yes, they may be painful. Consider them a map. Take them as information, not an indictment.
Clear your week for this one. I was shocked at the time it took me to read through a month’s worth of Morning pages. This is why I now keep a highlighter handy as I’m writing my pages.
If you are wondering what the hell are Morning pages…I explain it all here.
#6 Search for your Goals
Goal Search: You may find the following exercise difficult. Allow yourself to do it anyway. If multiple dreams occur to you. do the exercise for each one of them. The simple act of imagining a dream in concrete detail helps us to bring it into reality. Think of your goal search as a preliminary architect’s drawing for the life you would wish to have. I am indebted to Barbara Sher and Shakti Gawain for the inspiration for these tasks.
The Steps
- Name your dream. That’s right. Write it down. “ In a perfect world. I would secretly love to be a ________________. ”
- Name one concrete goal that signals to you its accomplishment. On your emotional compass. this goal signifies true north. (Note: two people may want to be an actress. They share that dream. For one. an article in People magazine is the concrete goal. To her. glamour is the emotional center for her dream; glamour is true north. For the second actress. the concrete goal is a good review in a Broadway play. To her. respect as a creative artist is the emotional center of her dream; respect is true north. Actress one might be happy as a soap star. Actress #2 would need stage work to fulfill her dream. On the surface. both seem to desire the same thing.)
- In a perfect world. where would you like to be in five years in relation to your dream and true north?
- In the world, we inhabit now. what action can you take? this year. to move you closer?
- What action can you take this month? This week? This day? Right now?
- List your dream (for example, to be a famous film director). List its true north (respect and higher consciousness. mass communication.) Select a role model (Walt Disney. Ron Howard. Michael Powell).
- Make an action plan. Five years. Three years. One year. One month. One week. Now. Choose an action. Reading this book is an action.
This exercise is so powerful and is perfect to do at the end of a year or quarter to recalibrate. Everyone should do this, not only creatives. Imagine if you could do one of these each year and keep a record of it so you can compare and see how your dreams have evolved…These exercises are helpful in the moment but also in the long run.
#7 Make a Vision Board
Collage: Collect a stack of at least ten magazines, which you will allow yourself to freely dismember. Setting a twenty-minute time limit for yourself, tear (literally) through the magazines collecting any images that reflect your life or interests. Think of this collage as a form of pictorial autobiography. Include your past. present. future. and your dreams. It is okay to include images you simply like. Keep pulling until you have a good stack of images (at least twenty). Now take a sheet of newspaper. a stapler. or some tape or glue. and arrange your images in a way that pleases you.
Once your board is done:
●Quickly list five favorite films. Do you see any common denominators among them? Are they romances? adventures. period pieces. political dramas. family epics. thrillers? Do you see traces of your cinematic themes in your collage?
●Name your favorite topics to read about comparative religion. movies. ESP. physics. rags-to-riches. betrayal. love triangles. scientific breakthroughs. sports. .. Are these topics in your collage?
●Give your collage a place of honor. Even a secret place of honor is all right — in your closet. in a drawer. anywhere that is yours. You may want to do a new one every few months. or collage more thoroughly a dream you are trying to accomplish.
I find that a piece of cardboard from a box works great (and costs nothing) especially if you don’t want to stick your board to a wall. Framing it in a nice vintage frame or something else you’ve got lying around is also a great idea to elevate your project and make your board mobile so you can move it around as you like.
I have started doing a more digital version of this exercise using a combination of Canva and Pinterest. I’ve also recently looked into using a vision board app. but I prefer looking at my vision board on a large screen or printing it out once I’ve created the digital board.
#8 Take a break
Give yourself time out to listen to one side of an album (half the album), just for joy. You may want to doodle as you listen, allowing yourself to draw the shapes, emotions, and thoughts you hear in the music. Notice how just twenty minutes can refresh you. Learn to take these mini–artist dates to break stress and allow insight.
I think this is so underrated and seems quite obvious but when do you just listen to music and do nothing else? If you are anything like me, you are usually driving, working out, or cleaning the house while you listen to music. So this exercise of just absorbing the music and doodling or writing while you listen is novel and truly rejuvenating.
#9 Excavate your dreams
ARCHEOLOGY, AN EXERCISE
The phrases that follow are more of your sleuth work. Very often. we have buried parts of ourselves that can be uncovered by some digging. Not only will your answers tell you what you missed in the past; they will tell you what you can be doing. now. to comfort and encourage your (inner) artist child. It is not too late. no matter what your ego tells you. Complete these phrases.
As a kid. I missed the chance to ________________.
As a kid. I lacked ________________.
As a kid. I could have used ________________.
As a kid. I dreamed of being ________________.
As a kid. I wanted a ________________.
In my house. we never had enough ________________.
As a kid. I needed more ________________.
I am sorry that I will never again see ________________.
For years. I have missed and wondered about ________________.
I beat myself up about the loss of ________________.
It is important to acknowledge our positive inventory as well as our shortfalls. Take positive stock of what good you have to build on in the present.
Finish these phrases.
I have a loyal friend in ________________.
One thing I like about my town is ________________.
I think I have nice ________________.
Writing my morning pages has shown me I can ________________.
I am taking a greater interest in ________________.
I believe I am getting better at ________________.
My artist has started to pay more attention to ________________.
My self-care is ________________. I feel more ________________.
Possibly. my creativity is ________________.
I still love reading my original answers to these, so much has changed in a year. If you want to complete The Artist’s Way you can download my Companion Workbook from Etsy for under $10. You can use it to do all the exercises on your IPad or tablet so you can redo them as many times as you like and always be able to look back and see how much you’ve grown.
#10 Get in touch with what you enjoy
List twenty things you enjoy doing (rock climbing, roller-skating, baking pies, making soup, riding a bike, riding a horse, playing catch. shooting baskets, and so forth). When was the last time you let yourself do these things? Next to each entry, place a date. Don’t be surprised if it’s been years for some of your favorites. That will change. This list is an excellent resource for artist dates.
From the list above, write down two favorite things that you’ve avoided that could be this week’s goals. These goals can be small: buy one roll of film and shoot it. Remember, we are trying to win you some autonomy with your time. Look for windows of time just for you. and use them in small creative acts. Get to the record store at lunch hour, even if only for fifteen minutes. Stop looking for big blocks of time when you will be free. Find small bits of time instead.
I have decided to make this a daily task that I do in my Morning pages. Every morning, I jot down a couple of things that I want to do or have. I am practicing approaching life from a place of want not need.
#11 Imagine an alternative life
Imaginary Lives: If you had five other lives to lead. what would you do in each of them? I would be a pilot. a cowhand. a physicist. a psychic. a monk. You might be a scuba diver. a cop. a writer of children’s books. a football player. a belly dancer. a country singer. a performance artist. Whatever occurs to you, jot it down.
Do not overthink this exercise. The point of these lives is to have fun in them — more fun than you might be having in this one.
Look over your list and select one. Then do it this week. For instance, if you put down a country singer, can you pick a guitar? If you dream of being a cowhand, what about some horseback riding?
This exercise is so revealing of what is lurking and hidden deep inside of you! I’m always very surprised at some of the stuff I come up with.
#12 Identify changes you want to make
Ten Tiny Changes: List ten changes you’d like to make for yourself, from the significant to the small or vice versa (“ get new sheets so I have another set, go to China, paint my kitchen, dump my bitchy friend Alice ”).
Do it this way:
I would like to ________________
I would like to ________________
As the morning pages nudge us increasingly into the present. where we pay attention to our current lives. a small shift like a newly painted bathroom can yield a luxuriously large sense of self-care.
This one links up with exercise #2 but it is more specifically about the changes you need to make. You could use the same categories you used in #2 if you need to narrow it down a bit.
Remember to add it to your Personal Knowledge Management system so you can schedule the changes you want to make. This way they won’t just lie and rot in a notebook.
#13 Uncover your dreams
BURIED DREAMS. AN EXERCISE
As recovering creatives. we often have to excavate our own pasts for the shards of buried dreams and delights. Do a little digging. please. Be fast and frivolous. This is an exercise in spontaneity. so be sure to write your answers out quickly. Speed kills the Censor.
- List five hobbies that sound fun.
- List five classes that sound fun.
- List five things you personally would never do that sound fun.
- List five skills that would be fun to have.
- List five things you used to enjoy doing.
- List five silly things you would like to try once.
It’s very useful to keep a record of this somewhere and make a point of trying to incorporate it into your life. This also helps to keep as a reference guide for Artist’s dates when you do The Artist’s Way course.
#14 Reset
READING DEPRIVATION, AN EXERCISE
Reading deprivation casts us into our inner silence, a space some of us begin to immediately fill with new words — long, gossipy conversations, television bingeing, the radio as a constant, chatty companion.
We often cannot hear our own inner voice. the voice of our artist’s inspiration. above the static. In practicing reading deprivation. we need to cast a watchful eye on these other pollutants. They poison the well.
Take the next 7 days off from reading and outside chatter.
This exercise was life-changing and I turn to it every time I start feeling stuck in a rut. I shut down all reading and consuming ANY content. No Youtube & no Netflix. Until I shift out of the rut. It’s good to regularly reset your consumption. Give your brain some time to integrate and breathe.
#15 What if?
If I were twenty and had money…
List five adventures. Again. add images of these to your visual image file.
If I were sixty – five and had money…
List five postponed pleasures. And again, collect these images.
This is a very potent tool. I now live in a house that I imagined for ten years.
This is another dreaming exercise – These are my favorite. I guess it’s because all my goal-setting flows from first identifying my dreams and sometimes you are not even consciously aware of what they are. We are all the creators of our reality so I guess it’s important to create it with intention.
