Are You a Chaotically Passionate Person?

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter about navigating creativity in the 21st century. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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I'm terrible at sticking with habits. I always have been. 

Whether trying to drink a certain amount of water or building up my creative practice, I've tried to build many habits over the years because I believed it was the only way to achieve my goals (I consider myself a goal-setter but not a habit builder). It doesn't help that practically every goal-setting system and method emphasizes the idea of habits as building blocks to reach your goals. 

Building habits support the methodology of making "1% gains" towards your goals. James Clear emphasizes this in his bestseller, Atomic Habits, where he defines an atomic habit as "a tiny change, a marginal gain, a 1% improvement." He emphasizes that you don't need to set goals but rather systems built upon habits.  

That said, I've never found success in 1% gains, and yet I still have achieved many of the goals I set for myself. 

I always thought something was wrong with me, like I wasn't disciplined enough because I couldn't keep up with the habits I wanted to build. Until I learned that I was a chaotically passionate person.  

Last year, I came across this video from creator Elizabeth Filips titled "You're Not Lazy: How to Live a Chaotically Organized Life." In the video, she discusses a concept she coined "chaotically passionate" people. 

Chaotically passionate people have difficulty with consistency and sticking to habits. Because of this, they are often perceived as "lazy" because they don't operate the same way "normal" people do when striving to achieve their goals. 

Let me tell you, I've never felt more seen than in this video. It changed how I view success and goal setting because that's exactly how I operate, especially with my creative practice.

Chaotically passionate people don't optimize for consistency; they optimize for passion. 

They prefer 500% gains over 1% gains. Achievement happens in a hyper-focused way. Chaotically passionate people will pick something up, put it down for a while, and pick it up again when passion strikes to catch up and get ahead. 

Let's say you want to learn how to draw. Someone who thrives on 1% gains will set a goal to spend 30 minutes a day on drawing practice, whereas someone who thrives on 500% gains will wait until the mood strikes and plow through a 4-hour drawing course on Skillshare. 

This happens a lot to me and my creative work. I've tried to set habit-based goals like "write 1 hour per day" or "spend 30 minutes a day creating" and find that it does not work for me. Often, I prefer working in longer, more hyper-focused chunks. This happened to me over the weekend; I worked on my manuscript for 3-4 hours and cranked out about 4,500 words. Whether you spend a half hour per day or knock it out in a few sessions, you're still spending the same amount of time on your creative practice. 

Another characteristic of chaotically passionate people is that they achieve action subconsciously rather than through tracking. Writing down goals stresses me out, but I know exactly what I want to achieve and often achieve it. When I write my goals down, I don't check back on them for a while, but when I do, I find that I achieve most of what I set out to do. 

I think there's something to be said about building habits rooted in passion. I've stuck with any habit consistently because I genuinely enjoy doing it. A few examples for me are journaling (I'm a morning pages stan), reading, and writing. I don't have to think about doing these things; I just do them. 

We often pursue habit-building because we want to be more consistent at something. But consistency looks different for everyone, and everyone has their own definition of what consistency means to them. Being consistent doesn't mean showing up and giving it your all every day—it just means showing up. You're still consistent whether you do something once a day or once a year. 

There's no right way to build a creative practice. You're still a creative whether you make 1% or 500% gains. And you don't necessarily need habits to reach your creative goals. But you do need passion.  

So, if you, like me, struggle to set habit-based goals for your creative practice, maybe it's time to follow your passion and see where it takes you. You're likely to see the same results. 

CREATIVE CORNER

• 🎞️ What I’m Consuming: I finished Iron Flame, the sequel to Fourth Wing. I already can’t wait for the third book to come out in January.

• 💡 What I’m Loving: I went to my first alumni event for my alma mater here in Seattle, and it was so much fun! I also learned that “sailgating” (tailgating but on a boat) is a thing here so there’s that.

• 🎨 What I’m Working On: I cranked out another ~4,500 words in my book during a 4-hour working session over the weekend.

• 💭 Weekly musing:

Thank you 💕

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