“The hardest part of the process is getting centered,” our instructor told us.
My wife and I were fifteen minutes into a pottery class, watching our teacher push on a piece of clay as it spun. “But if your clay’s not centered,” she continued, “it will warp and your piece won’t turn out right.”
Don’t make this mistake. Failing to “get centered” when throwing pottery will produce spectacular ugliness, but the results are no less disappointing in other creative pursuits.
Do you ever come to the end of the day frustrated because you didn’t get to the one thing you really wanted to accomplish? Do you ever feel like you just react to whatever’s coming at you rather than having a larger vision and direction for your work?
In this post I want to lay out what it means to get centered, what stands in our way, how to do it, and what’s possible when we are centered.
What It Means to Get Centered
I’m using “getting centered” to refer to a process whereby we get clear on our priorities and our values. People who are centered orient their lives around what matters most to them.
They’re less likely to waste time or do things that fail to move them forward. At any given moment they have a clear sense of their calling and the incremental steps they need to take to live out this calling.
The Things That Get in Our Way
Getting centered is just about the most countercultural thing we can do. Here are just a few things that prevent us from getting centered. Some are internal to us, some are external:
Internal:
- Anxiety
- Lack of discipline
- Fatigue
External:
- Social media
- Technology
- Entertainment
- Pressure to produce tangible results in the short term
One thing’s for sure. If we’re going to practice the discipline of getting centered, it will take decisive effort. If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.
5 Tips for Getting Centered
Following are 5 pointers to help you make progress toward getting centered.
- Get in touch with your WHY. Why do you do your art? In your best moments what is it that drives you? What drives me, for example, is a deep sense of calling to help creatives produce their best work. I want everything I do to be connected with this calling. Write out your WHY, and then revisit this regularly–daily if possible.
- Develop a system of daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly checkpoints. Daily checkpoints need not take longer than 15 minutes. Weekly checkpoints may take an hour, monthly checkpoints 2 to 4 hours. Ideally you would be able to block out a full day for quarterly checkpoints. The goal of these checkpoints is to get centered: to focus on what matters most and align your life (your calendar, your relationships, your resources, your goals) around this sense of centeredness.
- Pray or meditate. Regardless or your religious persuasion, it’s important to make space for hearing from your Higher Power. Just about every day I read from a devotional called Touchstones and pray for God to be with me and guide me.
- Give extravagantly. If your art is all about you, it will tend to hit dead ends and fall apart. Make generosity an integral part your work. You’ll be amazed at how invigorating this is, and how much focus it will give you.
- Commit to self-care. This is one I struggle with, but it’s just true that we can’t help others if we don’t take care of ourselves first–physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.
The Payoff
Back to our pottery class. The thing about getting your clay centered on the wheel is that once you do, it’s relatively easy to mould the clay into a reasonably good-looking piece. Alyssa and I are not master artisans, but we’re pleased with how our pieces turned out.
Take the time to get centered, and you’re likely to be more productive and more fulfilled in your work. I’m not saying it will be easy. I am saying that if you’re centered, the work will be worth it.[reminder]What’s one thing you can do to help yourself get centered?[/reminder]
13 Responses
Reading the Bible (where God speaks) first thing which directs my day and priorities…that prepares me for what His priorities are and sets the direction to follow.
This is a great kick in the butt for me. I think I let internal factors hold me back way more than external, for sure anxiety and self-doubt. It’s so important to be centered. I think it sometimes takes a back seat as a working Mom. I have a writing accountability partner and she always centers me back to what is important. I always think on my favorite verse too, Psalm 46:10 Be Still and Know that I am God.
Amen to that!
Chad – Great post. Very timely and useful. wish i could “Pin” it for later re-reference. For me, Praying always centers me. Not the hurried “I need” prayers, not even the intercessory prayers for family, friends, those in need, Israel, or the persecuted church – tho these often follow centering. No the prayer that re-centers me is thanksgiving & worship & praise. Re goal setting – at the moment I find that more counter productive and pressuring me to take my worth from activity & performance. So I am taking a sabbatical from that approach; instead entering each day with “What do You (Lord) desire of me?”
I know what you mean. I am starting to understand why Jesus began his prayer, “Hallowed be thy name.” God certainly tells us to bring him our requests, but prayer is much more than that. In fact, people who reject the notion of God altogether usually like to point to God’s failure to give people everything they might wish for as justification to doubt his existence. When I get quiet enough to be in God’s presence in worship without needing to ask for anything, that is my most profound prayer experience.
Amen. Katherine. I 100% agree. When we truly realize who we are speaking with, it is incredibly humbling.
I do a decent job of self-care and daily time with God, but I’m pretty unruly when it comes to daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly checkpoints. This is a great reminder that I need to not just take time to keep my self centered, but I need to take time to keep my art centered as well. Thank you!
Thanks Chad!
Funny you should post on the process of making pottery just now. I’ve recently begun to throw again after a long hiatus — with two children and a book born in the last five and a half years I’ve been scrambling.
The whole process is rich with metaphors for the spiritual life and the creative process as well.
As my wife taught me, it is hard to center a piece of clay when you, yourself, are not centered. But then the good news: centering a piece of clay has a way of bringing you back to a centered internal state. So working with clay is a fantastic way to get centered for other creative and spiritual pursuits.
Whether I’m in a season of throwing pots or not, prayer is what centers me. A few minutes of saying the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me”) along with my breath always helps, as does a regular participation in at least some part of the Divine Office.
Gary, I too pray the Jesus Prayer all the time, but it comes in handy particularly when I’m overwhelmed. I notice (especially when I’m driving) that when I’m feeling overwhelmed, something prompts me to begin praying those ancient words over and over again. Always helps. I typically add “a sinner” to the end of the prayer, which is just how I learned it, but I also like identifying with that poor humble soul who was praying in the temple….
What a fabulous post, Chad. I’m experiencing a bit of lack of discipline lately. I overwhelmed my schedule a bit, which is never good for productivity. One of the things I’ve done to help get me centered is start writing a tiny bit–once a week or so–about where I am with my writing. I blogged about my goals for 2014 at the end of December, so I check in once a month to see where I’m at. It’s definitely helped me write more. Now, if I could just stick to not blogging at my book blogs too much, I would be on the way to writing even more.
My centering point right now is learning to accept that this ability to create art is, indeed a gift from God, and that it might actually be something special – and treating it as such. Thanks for your insight!
I received this post at a timely moment. Yesterday a client managed to offload his own anxiety and urgency on me. He asked me to edit his manuscript as if it were headed from me to the formatter for publication. His manuscript is not ready for that step, and I could not figure out how to tell him. I was anxious about the situation and I felt pressured just to do what he thinks he wants. I have had similar stressful experiences any time I let the calendar or the clock drive my day.
I am grateful that I have learned that when I am feeling chaotic and panicked is no time to make a decision. I let him know that I would give him a price for the work this morning, without saying anything else in that mail.
All evening this problem was in the back of my mind, but when I went to bed, it jumped up front and I could not sleep. I prayed about it, and I gave the problem to Christ, and went to sleep. Part of me expected to wake up knowing what to do, but I didn’t.
I woke up, made a cup of coffee and sat down. My spiritual routine is prayer and Bible study each morning before things kick in. On this morning, things kicked in before I could even sip my coffee. They roiled and boiled in my mind, and I began to tell myself that I had better send my message to my client and get it off my mind before I tried to do anything spiritual. I felt I would never calm down for spiritual communion otherwise.
Then I realized that if I ever needed the centering I enjoy during prayer and Bible study, I needed it right then.
It was hard to calm down. The issue with my client stirred up concerns over other issues, and I was a stew of frustration and panic. I opened my Bible to my psalm for the day, and I read, “You are my hiding place.” Whew! did I ever need that.
Over the years I have learned some disciplines that help me to open up to the Holy Spirit in order to receive the peace I need. I began to use that experience as I read psalms. I personalized each psalm and made myself open to see how that psalm spoke to me individually in my time and my space. It was amazing to discover new aspects of time and truth and integrity that led me to calm down and give God priority.
For me, being “centered” means that I am in the center of God’s will, but that is not the same as observing that I am compliant with rules; it is simply reaching the understanding that God knows me better than I do, and I need to listen.
I reached that place by doing the thing I thought I didn’t have time for, because of the urgency to get done with the source of my stress. Instead of hurrying to get that problem out of my hair, I waited on God, and he led me to a response that I believe honors my client’s needs without compromising my work or my obligations.
Step 3 of your guide for getting centered is very important for me.
Wow, way to go, Katherine. I think we can all relate to the internal back-and-forth you write about here. It’s a good reminder for me that stopping for a few minutes of quiet and prayer is ALWAYS worth it. Thank you.