Learnings From The Process of Creating Story Class – Behind The Scenes
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I kept putting off making the thing that would become Story Class. I wouldn’t even let myself have an idea for it, wafting away every thought saying “no, that’s not enough”. With everything I have made over the last year I have taken a high stakes approach: “this has to be it. This has to work”. I pinned all my financial hopes on big, untested risks, my expectations sky-high, and was invariably left scrabbling in a shortfall afterwards.
But with Story Class, the stakes were even higher. The point of this launch wasn’t to make money (I knew there was a limit to how much I could make from a £35 product, and this was intentional). The point of this launch was to fall back in love with creating things for sale (because I’d developed a weird guilty block about it), and most of all, to start re-building my belief and confidence in myself. High stakes indeed.
Here I want to show you the process I went through to create Story Class, what happened, and what worked.
Approach
So I had that high stakes goal for the thing that would become Story Class. I wanted to make a product that would get me back into flow and get me feeling confident about my own abilities again. It is little wonder that I kept avoiding ideas and putting off starting – because to confirm the idea and begin would mean saying “yes, this is The Thing that is going to be the start of making things better”. It would mean committing, trying, believing. Better to be in limbo than try the wrong thing and fail.
What I am realising now is that it was not the product that was The Thing that would turn things around – it was my approach to the product.
I had to simply decide to do the idea I had or I wasn’t going to do anything. Decide to get out of that limbo. But mostly I had to decide to let it be easy. I remember one morning saying to myself “this is just a small, £35 product, this isn’t going to make or break you – just chill the hell out about it”. And once I chilled out, it started to flow.
Making
Chilling out lowered the stakes. It made room for enjoyment – with my imagination not distracted with the future results, be they excellent or terrible, it could simply create. The chilling out was a constant throughout the making of Story Class. I would feel the stakes start to rise inside me, I would sometimes worry that what I was making wasn’t “enough”, and every time I got better and quicker at saying “that doesn’t matter right now, let’s get back to it”.
Having an incredibly clear focus on the point of Story Class, how people would experience it and what they’d have at the end, was absolutely crucial to the making of it. I knew that what I do as Simple & Season was help people make a work worth living; therefore Story Class contributed to that overall mission by teaching how to use storytelling to inject more creativity into content, make marketing more fun and fulfilling, and therefore make work a better experience. That was all it had to do – be an enjoyable and informative way to inject a bit more creativity. That was enough.
With this focus, the making of Story Class was one of the most flowy experiences I’ve had. I remember coming from an afternoon walk and surprising myself by wanting to go and do some more work on it – not because a deadline was looming but because it was the most enjoyable thing I could do in that moment. It all just spilled out, the words, the slides, the workbook, in one lovely week.
Launching
It could have all gone wrong at the launch. Those old mindset habits of “this has to be it”, of gripping onto unrealistic, imagined results, could have very easily snuck back in. But again, I had a clear focus for the launch - and it was not to make money. I wanted to simply follow through on what I’d planned for the launch, proving to myself that I could do what I set out to, and I wanted to sell one product.
I think because I was pleased with what I’d made with Story Class, because I was still very much in it’s fun, creative energy, and because the price point was lower, I was able to do the launch without overthinking what people were thinking or pinning untoward hopes on it. I was able to show up and say “I’ve made this great thing, you can buy it if you like”; something that felt, to me at least, less desperate than I have felt with launching in a long time.
What can this teach us about creative process?
Bringing awareness to our stories and fears (like “this isn’t enough”) and deciding to make a path around them, is the first step towards a flowing process
Gaining perspective (like “this £35 product isn’t make or break for you”) helps to stop working from panic and desperation
A simple, clear focus on the point of what you’re making gives you somewhere to always return to and keep the boundaries of the project
Focus attention on the work and following through on it, rather than on “getting results” – the results will come by virtue of the work being done
A positive energy, mindset and flow are something you have to create – not by gripping and striving, but by loosening expectations, accepting limitations, and allowing room in your making for joyful creation
If you’d love to dig deeper into your own creative process, I have a free audio lesson Your Beautiful Do-Able Work Day, available here.
