How to stop your inner critic from holding you back

Your inner critic is the annoying voice inside your head that whispers mean things to you. It’s holding you back from trying new things, putting yourself out there and living the creative life you dream of – so I made this video to help.

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Have a lovely day xo

How to stop your inner critic from holding you back
TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever thought you were good enough?

The Inner Critic is a name for the voice we all have inside. You know, the one that says you don’t deserve this, or you can’t do that…you’re no good, you’re bad, wrong, inadequate, worthless.

Inner Critic: “Ughhhh, who do you think you are anyway?”

Laura: “Yeah ok, but I was just talking to this person about -“

Inner Critic: “And what do you know about popular psychology? You’re supposed to be a musician aren’t you?”

Laura: “Well yes, but I want to help this person here with -“

Inner Critic: “And not a very good musician either, are you HAHAHA…”

Laura: “Come on now, that’s just mean…”

Inner Critic: “And you’ve got funny teeth and your hair is rubbish and your nose is too small and -“

Laura: “Enough! Enough! Okay, okay. I won’t do it, I give up. You win. Again.”

Inner Critic: “HAHA I knew you didn’t have the guts to try something new.

===

I think I tricked it…it’s gone for now, but I’d better be quick before it gets back and starts up again.

Let’s be frank here: your inner critic, your inner voice, your ego, Steve – whatever you want to call it – can be a nasty little monster – and like opinions, everyone’s got one.

It can really get in the way – increasing our feelings of anxiety, lowering our self worth, even making us hate ourselves. It can stop us from feeling brave enough to try new things, and tell us all sorts of lies about ourselves.

I’m not saying that every single person watching this video isn’t an awful human being – statistically speaking, there have to be some arseholes tuning in, but you’re obviously not one of those, so I’m here to help.

What are we going to do about this gross, intrusive little creature? We’re going to slay it. Not in the modern sense of the phrase “to slay”…but in the medieval sense, you know? We’re going to fight back, basically.

It makes me really sad thinking about all the music, drawings, photographs, videos, books and who knows what else that might not get made because their potential creators feel unable to get started.

On Instagram Stories recently, I asked the question: “What’s currently stopping you from embarking on your next creative project?”

The answers were interesting…and quite repetitive:

I don’t have time
I don’t have any talent
Lack of money and equipment
Children
Money and time
My day job
A loss of confidence
Talent and ability
Fear of the unknown
Lack of time
Time
Lack of energy from my day job – and money
Learning how to use my equipment
Me and my brain

Now these are mostly lies – lies and excuses. Now, I don’t blame the lovely people who wrote these to me, not one bit – they’re great people, and so are you! BUT the more I read through that list and thought about what those simple sentences were really saying, the more I realised…that bloody inner critic was speaking for them!

I really am here to help, so I worked through the list and divided the lies and excuses into four categories:

Lack of money / equipment
Lack of talent
Lack of technical knowledge
Lack of time

I get it, I really do. I’ve told myself all of these things in the past, and more, and truly meant them. Let’s take a closer look at this list:

Lack of money / equipment

You need equipment to do your creative thing, and you need money to get the equipment. Or, you need more money to give you the time off work to spend on your creative thing. You don’t have the money, so you can’t do the creative thing.

Why this is your inner critic talking, and how to shut it up.

The fanciest camera, shiniest guitar or poshest pen in the universe does not have the power to make your work good. Only you have that power, and you can absolutely find a cheaper way of getting started. Could you borrow equipment from a friend, or save up gradually over time and get a second hand version off eBay? I think you could. That’s how I got started.

We can’t always start off with the perfect set of tools, but we can start. I am so thankful to have this room to work in now, but when I started recording my own music 16 years ago, it was in this corner of my bedroom in a shared flat above a cafe in South London, and I made it work.

2. Lack of talent

“But I wasn’t born with the innate ability to write the novel of my generation, or play the trumpet, or paint a photo realistic picture of a dog wearing a crown!”

Me neither, me neither. Guess what – my first dozen songs SUCKED. Seriously. But why should they have been great?

Why this is your inner critic talking, and how to shut it up.

We see the finished versions of other peoples’ projects, and compare what we think we’re capable of to that. What we think we’re capable of is very often far below what we’re actually capable of, or could be capable of if we pushed ourselves, or studied the thing we want to get good at, or worked with a coach.

Talent is seriously overrated – what actually matters is doing stuff. Turning up consistently and doing the work. You only get better by doing stuff. So…do stuff.

3. Lack of technical knowledge

It’s overwhelming when you want to do something but you know you don’t know how to do it. Perhaps you need to learn how to use some software, or hardware, but you’re not sure which software to get and anyway if you did get it you don’t know how it works and – “Screw it, I’m not doing it! It’s too hard, and that voice in my head keeps telling me I’d be no good at it anyway”.

Why this is your inner critic talking, and how to shut it up.

There has never been a better time to not know how to do something, because it couldn’t be easier to learn how to do pretty much anything, usually for free, on the internet.

Are you absolutely sure you could never learn how to do that new thing? But…you learned how to do that other thing, didn’t you? In fact, everything you can do now, you learned at some point in your life. You can learn. You have learned. You will learn again. And look, you’re in exactly the right place to actually do some learning – for free! Are you…learning now?!

Every time I realise I don’t know how to do something in whatever software I’m using – Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Logic, Apple Notes – whatever – I take a moment to formulate the question I would ask a tech support person, if there was one to hand, and then I type that question into YouTube. You just have to figure out what the question is, and the answer usually isn’t too far away. Someone else has learned the thing you want to learn, and has had questions about it too.

Other places you can try include online course platforms like Skillshare and Masterclass – I have a paid subscription to both of those – and of course, books and teachers and whatnot. I know your inner critic wants to catch me out and tell me I’m wrong, or I’ve forgotten one but hey, I’m just saying it’s very easy to dip your toe in the water of learning new things right here, for nought pence, or in those other places, for some very well spent pounds, if you have them.

4. Lack of time

You’re so busy – life is full. There’s so much to juggle – you need to earn money to pay for food and housing, perhaps support a family. There’s no time left to do anything that doesn’t support that – you might even feel that putting aside time for your own interests would be selfish.

Why this is your inner critic talking, and how to shut it up.

I’m not going to try to be charmingly rude about this one, because it’s a very sensitive subject. But here’s how I look at it: I believe that I only get one shot at life, and I want to make it count. When I’m older I don’t want to regret all the things I never tried – I find that idea very depressing. This is not to say that I have no care for personal responsibilities; I have always earned all my own money and paid my own way in life, but I have made it a priority to show up consistently and put a bit of time in here and there to inch slowly – sometimes very slowly – towards my goals.

We have so much more choice than we might think about how we spend our time. Be really honest with yourself. What could you cut back on?

It might seem like we need long stretches of uninterrupted time to be creative: the perfect day where we don’t have to do anything else; where we wake up on exactly the right side of the bed after exactly the right amount of beautiful, restful sleep; where the weather is exactly as we like it, with the temperature is just so; where we have access to every single piece of shining equipment we could ever dream of, which we know exactly how to use, and is all set up and working perfectly, ready to respond to our great inspiration… But if everyone waited for these pretty weird conditions to be met, next to nothing would ever be made.

So many great novels have been written in half hour chunks before the writer went to work for the day, so many songs written in snatched moments between work time and family commitments.

Creativity is all about limitations: mediums, formats, edges. Carve out 15 minutes here, half an hour there, two hours over there, and just keep chipping away at it. It’ll feel way better than waiting for the perfect day, I promise.

How to slay your inner critic

I’ve gone through all four of your top creative barriers and neatly debunked them all, but it’s not as simple as all that, is it? Watching a woman talk at you on the internet will not fix all of your problems, though I do hope it’s helped a bit to find out that you’re not the only person dealing with this nonsense on a daily basis.

Can I tell you a secret? When I was planning this video I suddenly found lots of time to tidy my room, clean the kitchen and get the laundry done, which are the three things I probably care about the least in life. I know from experience that whenever I start fussing about in the kitchen I’m really just putting off doing something more important.

So, completing this video and uploading it will be a major achievement for me, and will really piss my Inner Critic off.

Speaking of which, it’s time to face up to that horrible creature and actually do something to…if not get rid of it, at least forcefully shush it so you can figure out what you’d like to do and actually get on with it.

It’s quite simple.

The next time you notice your inner critic saying something mean to you – take a pen and a piece of paper, and write it down. Then when it says something else – perhaps “Why are you writing this down, you weirdo?” – write that down as well. Keep adding to the list as and when you are informed by your Inner Critic that you don’t have the talent, the skills, the ability to learn new things, the time, the energy, the right gear, face, hair, teeth, shoes, or left earlobe to get going with whatever it is that you want to spend your precious, precious time on.

You’ve now reached the choose your own adventure part of this video. Only you can choose your path ahead.

Here’s the first option: rip the page or pages out of your notebook and crumple them up, while laughing derisively. You can tear the pages into shreds, you can (safely) light them on fire – you do you. Life is short! Have fun! Be careful with matches!

The second option is this: find a quiet 10 minutes to sit down in private and read through the list. Imagine that your closest friend has presented this list to you, saying it’s how they think about themselves. What would you say to them? Write that down. Be honest – no-one else is going to read this but you.

Next, imagine that someone you sort of thought you liked has presented this list to you, saying it’s what they think about you. What would you say to them? Write that down.

Then, go back to option 1 and laugh like a Bond villain.

We’re very good at telling ourselves all sorts of stories, which are usually presented as facts. But please try to remember – thoughts are not facts.

Your inner critic is a real thing to contend with, but it’s coming from inside you. The more you can identify, challenge and at least quiet down the chatter, the more you can give yourself permission to spend time on the things that really matter to you.

I hope this video helped you today. I really would love to hear about your creative goals, dreams, hopes and schemes in the comments below, and if you have any creative barriers I haven’t covered here, feel free to let me know about those.

I’ll be sharing more on creativity, mindful productivity and digital minimalism in future videos, so if you have any suggestions or questions, I’d love to read those too.

Thanks for watching, and good luck in the fight against your Inner Critic. You can do it.

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Why I won’t be playing in-person gigs in 2021

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Mindfulness Music News Process

For everyone who’s been asking me whether I’m going to be touring in 2021 – here are my thoughts on the matter.

We’re all missing live concerts, artists are floundering and the live music industry is running on hope fumes, but I believe there’s an ethical decision to make here on a personal level. We are part of something much bigger than ourselves, and we have to do what we can to protect every member of our community.

Please watch the video and let me know where your head’s at on all this. Respectful discussion is always very welcome in the comments.

Thanks for visiting my website!

New to my musical world?

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Have a lovely day xo

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I’ve been finding everything really hard lately

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Mindfulness Productivity

Friends, I’ve been finding everything really hard lately.

I have a lot to feel fortunate for – not least the ongoing generosity and support of my Correspondents, THANK YOU! – but there’s really no getting away from the fact that this global pandemic continues to have a dramatic, far reaching, unpredictable effect on all of us, however grateful we are for our health, a roof over our heads and the ability to keep buying the groceries we need to survive (thank you again, Correspondents!).

Despite knowing better, over recent months I allowed my work hours to expand to late nights and most weekends, and even though I had a feeling something was going to snap at some point, I kept pushing myself until OOPS, snap it did. Yep, the warning signs were there – noticeably slower brain function, tears flowing every day at little provocation, being quicker to anger…

Since that awful night I’ve been thoroughly reassessing the way I, as the boss of my own company, treat my workforce – me. Pretty poorly, it seems. I know the kind of work I do is like a gas – it’ll expand to fit whatever container it’s in, so the main change I’m making is to set strict boundaries. I start work at 10am and am not allowed to work past 6pm. I don’t work on the weekends. I’m experimenting with taking half days on Wednesday and Friday (that’s a scary one, because it feels like I’m skiving off, but what’s the point of working for yourself and not creating your own schedule, right?). I’ve made myself work long hours on enough gloriously sunny days in my life, it’s time to live a little!

*Evidence of Half Day Wednesday, but the details are just for me 😉*

The irony that I started reading Greg McKeown’s “Essentialism” a week before my crash is not lost on me, and I picked out some really useful concepts that I’m working to implement going forward.

1/ Editing – rather than adding more and more detail to to try and explain something, you take things away to get to the true message.

2/ Uncommitting – in the book he uses the example of someone who creates a time consuming detailed weekly report for his team that no-one needs or reads, and suggests experimenting by stopping doing that thing for a while to see if anyone notices.

3/ What’s Important Now? (WIN) – a very helpful question I’ve started asking myself whenever I start feeling overwhelmed.

Relating these three ideas to my current situation, it was clear that some tweaks needed to be made. I was planning a short break from making my podcast anyway, so the timing was great for taking a step back. I’ve been reassessing how I can use the limited time, energy and mental bandwidth I have as one human person to do the things that only I can do to the best of my ability, and what non-essential things I can reduce my time on. Kicking my bad social media / phone scrolly-scrolly habits over the past year massively helped with this already, but I was still very obviously doing too much and expecting too much of myself.

Alongside music making and podcast making, my other major commitment is, of course, The Correspondent’s Club. Its predecessor, Supersub Club, was set up as a yearly subscription with quarterly deliveries, because I knew I didn’t have the capacity for, and didn’t want the stress of, delivering things monthly. While there are many ways of approaching music making and releasing these days, I still believe in the artistic power of an album to contain a collection of songs that say something together as well as individually. My focus will always be making the very best next album I can rather than creating new stuff and rushing it out just because there’s a schedule.

So, four months into running The Correspondent’s Club feels like a good time to make some minor tweaks, now I’ve had time to see what works and figure out which perks people are responding most warmly to.

It turns out the two most time-consuming perks, the monthly voicemail and monthly online gig, are the things I can dial back on most easily, that will actually improve if they happen a little less often and that I feel will consequently be enjoyed by more people. These will now move to happening quarterly, in line with the music and art bundles. Everything else will stay the same.

As always, monthly members can up-or down-grade their subscriptions at any time, and I will never be offended if you decide to change yours. It blows my mind that people are so invested in my music making that they want to subscribe in this way, I value each and every one of you who do so, and urge you always to ensure that 1) whatever you choose to pay is a comfortable sum that doesn’t adversely affect anything else in your life and 2) that you always make sure you feel you’re getting value for your money.

There will always be a physical limit to what I, as one person doing this, is able to give in return for your patronage, but I promise what I do deliver will always be of the highest quality, made with love and care, focus and attention.

I’ll leave you for now with the latest quote I’m going to be taping up on my studio wall. I picked it up from “Essentialism”, but it’s actually from Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

Despite dialling back on everything for the past couple of weeks, somehow I still seem to be on track to complete the album recording this month. That’s the main thing…but is it really? Workwise, yes of course. But even when you love your job, as I love mine, there’s more to consider.

A wise friend texted me last week that in a crisis like Covid-19 “our only task is to stay healthy, sane and alive…until we have a surplus of energy and resources all we need to do is live”.

And that’s really the main thing.

Here’s to surviving. Please let me know how you’re doing here in the comments.

Sending love,
Laura xoxo

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Chasing the mountain

by Laura Kidd Creativity Homepage Feature Letterbox Mindfulness Productivity

Sometimes I wonder why I spend my time in the ways I do. A life’s primary occupation builds up through an infinitesimal series of decisions – what we wanted to be when we grew up, which subjects we chose at school, what the careers advisers told us we could aim for (secretary, in my case), influence from books we read, friends we had, good and bad relationships with good and bad people, exam results, the necessity of earning money to live on, and on and on.

I don’t need or even want to get immediate results from the things I make, but I like to stand back occasionally to get a better view than I’m able to have in my busy day to day life. I’ve never liked the idea of doing things just because I’ve always done them.

I spoke to Bec Hill on my podcast recently about goals and dreams – how we define them, and what we do if we achieve them. She talked about how pursuing a full time career in comedy was The Dream, and once she’d managed that, she didn’t replace it with a new one for a few years, because she was too busy keeping that dream alive. Once she realised, she started setting herself new goals, and because of course the only way of achieving goals is by setting them and working towards them, the wonderful news that she’s just been announced as the host of a new CITV crafting show is no surprise to me. Bec defined her dream, did the work, and now it’s happening. Massive congratulations to her!

Maintaining a career in the arts once you’ve carved one out for yourself is a separate challenge to creating it in the first place, and a lot of work has to go into that, but I do like to remind myself to check in every now and then and take a longer view. What am I trying to achieve with this thing? Am I spending my time wisely? Am I able to keep a roof over my head this month? Ah, but is this part of my daily or weekly work schedule seemingly frivolous but personally enriching? And how about proper time off?

I find it helps me to have solid reasons for why I’m deciding to spend time on something, and if it’s something to be shared, it’s important to have an idea of the effect I’d like it to have on others. I didn’t start thinking about that second part until I started listening to the Creative Pep Talk podcast last year on tour.

After a recommendation by the show’s host Andy J Pizza, I read Seth Godin’s book “This Is Marketing”, in which I learned first and foremost that marketing is NOT advertising, it’s about making a positive change in the world through the things you do, the skills you offer and the things you make and share. I started learning about the idea of “serving your audience / community” by thinking about what your core values are and, in Andy J Pizza’s words, “owning your weird”, and “baking” all of this into what you do, in order to attract likeminded people to your world, people who will get the most from the thing you make because it resonates with them and mirrors their personalities and experiences. It’s a world away from trying to work out what people want to buy and making that – BLARGH. No no no no no.

It was nice to learn that I’d been instinctively doing quite a lot of this stuff throughout my solo music career, but with my new knowledge, I could see how haphazardly I’d been spending my time. I think I know why – my goal to become a full time artist wasn’t clearly defined. I thought a lot about how nice it would be “one day” not to have to work for others, but I also couldn’t imagine that little old me would one day “win the prize” of getting to decide exactly how I spent my days. There are some deep-seated self-confidence issues going on there that would be more suited to a therapy session, but you get the idea.

Spending time thinking more deeply about the ideas I’ve been learning about has enabled me to take a huge leap forward in my life as an artist running a creative business. The reason I’m writing about it here is that I know it doesn’t only apply to careers where people make things and tout them on the internet.

I don’t think a lot of us give ourselves the time and space we need and deserve for self reflection, to ask ourselves simple yet difficult questions like “what are my core values?” and “are they reflected in the things I spend my time doing, both in and outside of work?”. These can be very challenging ideas, and for many reasons we can find ourselves in situations that really don’t fit, but are necessary to sustain our finances.

It’s important for me to keep my goals and my reasons for pursuing a project in mind so that when I feel tired, or low, or like everything I do is frivolous and pointless, I can easily remind myself of them. I need these reasons, that aren’t linked to short term ideas of success like money, or followers, so that on the occasions I do step back and wonder why I’m putting so much time and energy into something, I can remind myself, and keep going.

I started reading “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Victor Frankl this week, subtitled “the classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust”. In the preface, Frankl writes “I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”.

I’m very happy with the concept of defining my own measures of success, unrelated to finances or acclaim. It’s a topic I’ve spoken about at length during various panel discussions, seminars and talks to students as a visiting guest over the years, and something I regularly ask the guests on my podcast.

So, what struck me most about Frankl’s quote – aside from the obvious incredible generosity of spirit, coming as it does from someone who lived through such horrors – is the first line – “listen to what your conscience commands you to do…” – that mysterious, tantalising “call of adventure”, as Joseph Campbell would describe it in his “Hero’s Journey” framework, the elusive thing that gives us the enthusiasm, energy and drive to do something, make something, learn about something. We can’t put our finger on why we’re interested in that thing, but we are, and there’s so much adventure in indulging that, putting in the minutes and the hours, starting to break a big dream down into manageable chunks, working gradually towards a goal and being open to whatever exciting avenues open up to us along the way.

In “Art Matters”, Neil Gaiman writes about your goal as being a huge mountain in the distance. It’s not necessarily clear how to get to the mountain, but you can tell if you’re getting closer or further away with every decision you make. Since reading that book, I’ve practised asking myself questions, whenever something comes along to pique my interest, or I’m invited to do something I hadn’t planned on – will doing this take me closer to the mountain, or send me further away? Is this thing a diversion, or a way of getting closer to where I need and want to be?

Are all diversions bad or worthless? Of course not. But we have to set our own priorities. It’s up to us to define our own mountains, and there can be many that sit under different categories of our lives – a health and fitness mountain, a creative mountain, a “one day I’ll do X” mountain.

Just under two years ago I eloped to Canada with my beau to get married by a waterfall in a mountain range just outside Vancouver. It was glorious. The day after the wedding we embarked on an epic driving trip that took us all the way to Banff and back via stops at Kamloops, Vernon, Revelstoke, Lake Louise and Canmore.

As we left Vancouver on day 1, I remember my jaw dropping as I gazed at the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen. I couldn’t imagine anything more lovely, and yet as we drove, they got prettier and prettier.

I used to think that I didn’t need to reach the mountain, because it was too far away and the journey towards it was so beautiful anyway – and it is – but I now know there are always other beautiful mountains to aim towards, and only by taking those steps will I ever learn how to keep trying to reach them.

So – what’s your mountain, and what’s your first step towards it?

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Inspiration is for amateurs

by Laura Kidd Creativity Homepage Feature Letterbox Mindfulness Process Productivity

The thing that’s got me through the ups and downs, the fear, the uncertainty, the confusion, the anger, the frustration and the sheer bizarreness of 2020 is the daily routine I established for myself in early January.

I spent the last chunk of 2019 hopping from tour to tour to tour, winding down a long running music project, wondering what to do next, and how. I played 35 gigs around the UK, France and Germany between September and Christmas. There were ups and downs; some great shows, some awful ones and, as always, a hell of a lot of travelling time to ponder life, the world and my place in it.

I realised that, above anything, I was craving structure, routine, something I could be in control of. Time to develop ideas, time to reflect, time to get fitter, healthier and happier. I’ve always been a bit of a productivity nerd, reading all the major works on the topic throughout my years of freelancing, trying to learn how to run a small business and, in more recent years, how to be a better, nicer boss to my one employee (me!), with varying results.

For me “productivity” isn’t about being the most efficient machine possible, squeezing every last drop of usefulness out of yourself in an effort to “kill it” or “smash it”. If, like me, you’re someone with a lot of ideas and a burning desire to make or do things, getting organised is essential – however you do it.

Over the years I’ve tried different ways of trying to be able to make steady progress with long term goals while having manageable and enjoyable daily and weekly plans that incorporate exercise, reflection and introspection, deep work on the things I care about and healthy food that gives me the energy I need to have the most pleasant day possible. This is the ideal and, while I’ve occasionally managed it, I’ve often felt like the classic duck on the pond analogy – giving off the impression everything is calm and under control, all the while paddling wildly just beneath the surface.

I love the fresh start of a New Year, so in early January I set up some new daily routines for myself, started The Artist’s Way for the third time (and actually completed it, woop!), got serious about being consistent with exercise and meditation, and almost immediately started feeling fresher, clearer headed and more galvanised than ever to make my best work possible. On bad days, I trundled through the hours, tried my best and then moved on. On days when it all seemed utterly pointless, I tried to do a little exercise anyway, knowing that every deposit of good faith I put into myself would do *something* positive, whether I felt it immediately or not.

So, what’s my secret? Planning, showing up, trying my best, tracking my progress and then showing up again tomorrow. That’s it.

There’s something about drawing a tick on a piece of paper that just makes me happy. I get a jolt of satisfaction that makes me want to keep going so I can do it again. Where the dopamine hits we get from seeing notification alerts on our phones can actually make us feel worse, there’s something wholesome about crossing off a task in my bullet journal. Knowing that I’m one step closer to reaching a goal is part of it, but I think the knowledge that I’m living an intentional life full of useful things is also a big driver.

I’ve been keeping a bullet journal for a few years, and would highly recommend it (I use it alongside Trello for longer term goals and moving tasks around easily, Evernote for storing information, Bear for writing without distractions and Google Calendar for scheduling things), but how I do things isn’t perfect, or fixed, and I’m always interested in tweaking and improving.

Last week I happened across this video by Thomas Frank about habit tracking. At the start of the year, I had added columns in my bullet journal for tracking exercise, meditation, drinking enough water, taking my vitamins, stuff like that, all of which really helped me be continue to be consistent with all the ingredients of that happy, healthy life I was aiming for.

The key difference between my old system and this new one is the accountability aspect. If I didn’t manage to meditate three times a week in June, I just shrugged and thought, “I have to try harder to do that next week”. This month, every time I don’t manage to achieve one of my small goals, I have to write down why that happened.

One of my July goals is to get to bed by 10pm (so I can read for longer!) and another is to get up at 7.30am to exercise. The latter I can usually manage, the former I find really hard. So far this month I only have three + signs in my “go to bed by 10pm” row, and by the middle of the month when I make the next tracker page to take me to the end of July, I might choose to revise that goal, if it’s clearly not working, or have a think about how to achieve it, if it’s something I still really care about trying to achieve. I like this. Instead of feeling like I’m failing at a simple thing I think will improve my life, I can look at whether it’s actually achievable given everything else I’m doing, and adjust it for the next batch of 15 days if necessary.

It’s easy to feel like we have no control over our futures, but we all have at least some control about how we spend some of our minutes, hours and days. I work in the nebulous art of translating feelings and ideas into audio that moves other people, which is why it’s so appealing to me to be able to do concrete things every day that have an effect on how I feel, and therefore how well I’m able to move through my day, working on the things I have decided are important.

Getting back into running has been one of the best things I’ve managed this year, because it shows me that’s true every single week. Every time I run up my local steep hill I’m able to take a few more steps before stopping to walk for a minute, and every week I consistently run twice a week (21 in a row so far, yay!), I can write that down and feel proud of myself just for showing up, again and again.

You may not be able to run, or want to, but I’m sure you could find a little something to do for yourself every week, or every Monday and Friday, or every day, that you can feel good about ticking off each time, and that will show you what you’re capable of as time goes on.

It’s not about being the best at something, it’s about showing up, trying your best and then doing it again. I feel the same way about making albums. I could make the best album in the entire universe, and I still wouldn’t have any control over how it’s received in the world. Once my work is “out there”, all I can do is go back up to my studio and make some more.

I choose to keep turning up because, as photographer Chuck Close so wisely said, “Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

Over to you:

What could you do towards your big goal next month?
What could you do towards your big goal next week?
What could you do towards your big goal today?

Let me know in the comments. I believe in you x

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Album update: how not to get overwhelmed by big projects and the danger of endless lists

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Mindfulness Process Productivity

“Old Tape” image by Ozant Liuky from Pixabay

Suddenly, I find myself with only a little bit of an album to complete.

You might know I started writing this new collection of songs in February 2019, and the next six months proved to be such a transformative period that I ended my longtime music project to start this new one – and I’m so thankful you’ve decided to join me on Mission: Penfriend.

I recorded and mixed six songs by the end of the summer then set off on various tours, spending long solitary driving hours pondering my musical future, making plans and gradually figuring out the best way to make my transition. Recording stopped, pretty much, til December, but snippets of songs were still being recorded into phone memos.

This February I wrote four songs in one day, egged on by my friend, guitarist Charley Stone. We were playing the 20 Song Game, which I love, and I went from being sure which 6-ish more songs I was going to finish and record to being a bit overwhelmed by choice. In music, this is very much a “high class problem”, but it was a problem nevertheless.

Last week I sat at my desk and listened to all the things I’d chucked into my Works In Progress (WIP) folder and made a shortlist. It’s not very short, but it’s a list and I’m going with it!

I find that with any self-motivated project, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the little decisions that need to be made. You can’t write “make an album” or “write a book” on your to do list and expect to get anything done. Your brain sees the words and runs away to hide in tasks that are easy to conceive of and easy to complete. I joke – though it’s not really a joke – that the only time I start thinking about cleaning the house is when I have a day free to make music. My brain just can’t handle such a tenuous concept. I have to sneak up on it, breaking down the massive inconceivable task into tiny pieces. Sit at desk, make list of potential songs, plug in guitar…

Deadlines help, but it’s hard to obey self-imposed deadlines, especially when there are so many other things I “need” to do, not to mention scary world events to deal with in some way. I recently hired myself for the pretty hefty part time job of podcaster, which is going really well, and could easily engulf my entire week if I let it.

I’m also acutely aware that I’m a terrible workaholic, more than happy to dive into my endless schemes and dreams at the expense of having any time off. I love what I do so much and have always been really bad at stopping, ever. I’m trying to get better at that.

There will always be more stuff I’d like to make and do and, because of how my mind works, that will never come to an end, so I could feasibly work 12 hour days forever and never be “finished”. I write this here to remind myself, more than anything else, and perhaps to nudge you to be good to yourself, too.

I spent part of Sunday reading through the daily diary I wrote in the year I turned 18. It was a disappointing read, to be honest, the amount of times I wanted to shake my younger self and say “please just break up with him once and for all and do NOT go back!” was kind of painful, and I closed the book feeling really sad for this confused young person who was already displaying the workaholic tendencies I mentioned earlier. Why I was working 3-4 very late nights a week at a pizza restaurant around supposedly revising for my A levels I don’t know, and I wish someone could have stepped in and explained a few things to me about sleep, priorities and focus.

This week I’ve been trying to meditate those futile feelings of frustration, anger and sadness out of my body, alongside trying to set myself up for a successful week. I’ve mentioned Cal Newport tons of times before, but I listened to episode 1 of his new podcast “Deep Questions” on the weekend and it was so timely for me. My phone is now switched off and sitting behind a closed cupboard door, I turn it on once a day to check for voicemails and WhatsApp my sister and a few friends and that’s quite enough. I’m not checking email til the afternoon, and only once if I’m not waiting for something from someone.

Evenings are for dinner with my husband, snuggles with the dogs, reading and board games. I have two days a week booked for podcast work and three for music making. I have an album to finish!

What are your weekly priorities these days? Have they changed since COVID-19? Do you have any productivity / focus tips or links to share?

I have one more before I sign off for the week – check out my favourite YouTube channel by Matt D’Avella. I highly recommend his videos on minimalism, essentialism and getting things done while living a balanced life. He’s great. I’m a bit addicted…

Take care, and I hope to get to play for you at my upcoming online gig:

Next Thursday 25th June at 8pm BST I’ll be playing my monthly Correspondents-only online gig. Digipals and up will receive a link by email on Wednesday which you can use to watch live on the night or watch again later if you can’t make it. Leave me any questions in the comments and I will answer them!

Love,
Laura xoxoxo

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – choose the Freewheeler tier or upwards to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer” are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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You are not a number (and neither am I)

by Laura Kidd Homepage Feature Letterbox Mindfulness Minimalism Process Productivity

NEWS THIS WEEK

“Attention Engineer” episode 4 is available now, featuring my conversation with songwriter Frank Turner! Recorded on the precipice of the UK lockdown backstage at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Frank talks very candidly about the highs and lows of touring, the importance of giving a leg up to other artists and the unsustainability of being an arsehole in the music industry, alongside his love of Chas ‘n’ Dave and a surprising story about an ex-Prime Minister that leaves me speechless.

Thanks to everyone who’s rated and reviewed the show so far, it’s massively helpful especially over on Apple Podcasts, because that’s how new listeners find out about things.

YOU ARE NOT A NUMBER (AND NEITHER AM I)

On 1st June I made a birthday promise to myself to meditate three times a week, after managing to completely let it slide for several months. Of all the things I put into my new morning routine at the start of the year, I know that meditation is by far the most nourishing, and so I have done 6 x 10 minute sessions in the past couple of weeks.

Meditation grounds me, energises me and focuses me. It’s an opportunity to reflect, to notice what’s jumping about uppermost in my busy thoughts, to process immediate stress, to feel like I’m doing something caring for myself. But the problem with being more self aware is…being more self aware!

Day to day, I’ve been feeling pretty much totally fine for the last little while. I’m very good at setting myself seemingly impossible tasks and focusing on them to the exclusion of all other things, which is a brilliantly effective coping tactic short term, but not a very grounded or holistic way to live life.

It would be pointless to put in time to meditate and then ignore the things that come out of it, so I’ve been trying to be more aware of how much I’m using work (fun work, this work, the work of making music and podcasts and communicating with this wonderful community of people) to deal with or minimise my emotions around this lengthy lockdown, and that has led to some wobbly days this week.

I think I’m generally doing a pretty good job in pacing myself during this long distance race with no clear end, but every now and then I just want the world to stop so I can get off. I’m nervous about lockdown rules easing in this vague and confusing way, of other people deciding it’s fine to walk right by me when I’m out because the government has told them it is. I’m wondering whether it will be possible or safe to celebrate my Dad’s 70th birthday with him in August.

How are you getting on with all of this?

Following my notes last week about assessing my social media use, I decided to bite the bullet and take a proper look at Facebook this week. I don’t think I can deactivate my personal account without it having affecting my ability to spread the word about Penfriend on there, so instead I started hacking down my “friends” list.

A few years ago I decided to say yes to every friend request. As I didn’t want to share my deepest secrets anyway, I thought it could be a good way to spread the word about music-related things. Unfortunately, that led to my feed being chock full of strangers and their thoughts. I’m not someone who can casually glance through a timeline of personal loss, political bile and images of animal cruelty without feeling lots of feelings, even when I don’t know the people posting, so I had to stop looking. I actually weaned myself off looking at feeds for quite a long time last year, and my brain felt so much better for it.

When I started scrolling down the list of 3000+ names the other day, I felt creeped out by how few I actually recognised. It was easy to start with, unfriending people who I’d never met, never engaged with in any way, people who seemingly cruise Facebook collecting people. I regularly have upwards of 70 friend requests a day from men around the world, and it’s not because I’m at all well known. It’s…odd.

The criteria became a bit more complicated as I went on. Someone I’d met once, years ago, befriended online and then never talked to again doesn’t need to be linked to me forever, do they? What about primary school friends who I haven’t spoken to since then? Or fellow musicians who use the site for networking? There’s nothing wrong with that, but as I’m not using the site for that purpose, why am I privy to the inner workings of their minds, and they mine? What about people I do know in real life, who wouldn’t say hello to me and have a chat if we saw each other offline? Why on earth are *we* still connected?

Ultimately, we all have to make our own decisions about whether to use certain sites and how to use them. When I read “Deep Work” by Cal Newport last summer, it changed my mindset entirely. He writes about how people use social media services because they’ve become convinced that at some point, there will be some benefit. Newport suggests we should view them as a tool, dispassionately, figuring out what we’d like to use them for and assessing whether that tool is the right one to achieve those goals. For instance, if I want to use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, but I can’t see their posts in my feed, and we never exchange any words, am I getting what I want from Facebook? No! Is there a more effective way of achieving that goal? Perhaps. Do I know what that is? Not yet, but that doesn’t mean Facebook wins by default.

What I feel very strongly is that it’s unmanageable to subscribe to so many other peoples’ lives.

Have you heard of Dunbar’s number? Evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar shared approximate numbers of relationships the human brain can handle: 5 intimates, 15 good friends, 50 close friends, 150 friends. Beyond that, he surmises 500 acquaintances and 1500 people whose faces you could put a name to are the limits of what we’re able to manage. So you can see why 3200 people on a friends list was becoming stressful.

I eagerly jumped aboard the social media train and have had many positive experiences over the years, made real friends, had fun and shared my music. That may even be how we first came into contact, and that’s a wonderful thing! I’m not here to judge anyone else’s actions or to give unsolicited advice (that’s ALWAYS annoying), and I really don’t give a hoot what anyone else does on Facebook.

What I do care about is having energised, clear headed days where I balance my need for sociable interactions offline and online with time to make the things I care about. I want to have proper conversations with those 5 intimates and 15 good friends, and keep up with what my 50 close friends are up to, cheering them on from the sidelines.

As for the rest of it, I’ve found ways to communicate which suit me better. I write a weekly email, The Correspondent’s Club has its own forum, I have a Penfriend Facebook page, I dip into Twitter and Insta, I blog and now I have a podcast, too. I’m sure that’s enough of me for anyone!

If you used to be my Facebook friend and discover you aren’t any more, please rest assured it’s not because I don’t want to be in touch with you, it’s because I don’t think that’s a very good way to be in touch.

I always love to hear from you in the comments or by email.

Thank you for reading, have a great week and take good care.

Love,
Laura xoxo

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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I wasn’t going to write this til I realised silence was worse

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Mindfulness

I am not a celebrity or a pundit (thank GOODNESS), or someone who thinks their “hot take” on every topic needs to be shared on all platforms. I’m on a complicated journey towards healthier internet and social media use; I go through phases of tweeting loads and really enjoying it and then hating everything and wanting to hide.

I’m planning to delete my personal Facebook profile in coming weeks, prompted by how weirded out I felt last Monday when so many people I didn’t know wished me “happy birthday, friend” (not YOU (if you did), I’m talking about people I genuinely don’t know. Facebook is weird). I want to have better relationships with the very small group of friends I would share secrets with over coffee, and also with the larger group of friends slash fans of my music who I communicate with through The Correspondent’s Club, my mailing list and social media. Hello, you.

I want to keep trying to be a better person. I’m very thoughtful. I read a lot – and widely – and try to learn about the world without getting sucked into the relentless 24 hour news cycle (because I don’t feel like that’s the best way to be properly informed). I meditate. I reflect. I think deeply. I ponder. I write my Morning Pages every day.

Tim and I talk all the time about what we’ve read and how we feel about it, how we can be better and do better. We nudge each other to explore new things. I care about people so much, and I see it as part of my life’s work to encourage self expression and creativity from those I am fortunate to be in contact with. I’m interested in your stories, as well as in sharing my own.

I don’t think I’m better, more important or more interesting than you.

While I believe strongly in the power of individuals, and in empowering people to feel like they can make change, I often prefer to stay quiet on big issues if I don’t think my opinion adds any value to the discourse. I tend to have my “hot takes” in private.

I spend my time making things and sharing them – that’s just what I do (and every time I feel guilty for that being the thing I do I try to remind myself I’m just going to work, and I’m allowed to go to work).

I don’t want to spend all day online telling you what I think, or what YOU should think, but I do try to share useful things that might help you on your unique journey.

I’d like to share three things with you today that I have found useful.

1) “The Good Immigrant” – 21 writers explore what it means to be black, Asian & minority ethnic in Britain today

I used to be someone who thought that by not being racist, and by being someone who would speak up if I saw or heard someone else being racist, I was doing enough. When I woke up a few years ago and realised that wasn’t true, I started reading, and I started with “The Good Immigrant”.

Actor Obioma Ugoala wrote a great Twitter thread which I shared last week: “SO YOU DON’T LIKE RACISM, BUT YOU’RE IN THE UK AND FEEL POWERLESS TO DO ANYTHING?”

I’ve been reading a lot of threads like this because I want to do something more useful than simply not being a racist. Obioma’s statement “education is key” is echoed across them all, alongside the very reasonable suggestion that white people need to do the work to acknowledge, understand and usefully empathise with these systemic issues.

How do we do the work? We read. We listen. We expose ourselves to ideas that make us uncomfortable or that we find challenging, rather than shutting them down and deciding it’s nothing to do with us.

It’s everything to do with all of us.

Obiomi tweeted yesterday:

“Whatever you can do, in whatever sphere you are in, please do

But through all of this, and this is essential,

-Listen to black voices
-Try not to centre conversations about you
-Do not expect black people to educate you for free

Thank you for reading
Welcome to the struggle”

In terms of educating myself, “The Good Immigrant” was a really helpful starting point for me. Before I read it I believed I empathised enough, but I really didn’t.

2) If you’ve ever asked the question “what is white privilege?”, this video by Kyla Jenee Lacey might help, and is a beautiful piece of work:

If you think you’re a good person (and don’t we all?) it’s hard to be told that you’re not being good enough. If you feel like you’ve struggled in life, it’s hard to be told you’re actually lucky. I feel that. But I keep trying to learn.

If you have to ask the question “what is white privilege?”, you are probably benefitting from it.

Being challenged is hard and often upsetting, but it’s a very small discomfort compared to the daily fear and anguish this causes others. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to start watching, reading and listening to things that can educate you on the subject – and if you have, we can all do more.

Please share any books, articles or videos you’ve found useful in the comments!

3) Finally, British musician Ghostpoet tweeted this clip yesterday which swiftly ended my week of assuming that the world didn’t need my input on this matter. While I do prefer to stay quiet, listen and learn and make space for other, more knowledgeable voices, I realise my silence isn’t helping – in fact, it’s just another sign of the privilege I enjoy. I get to choose what to be angry about.

Here are the key points which stood out for me:

“White people cannot just say, any more “I’m not racist” and think that that’s enough…this is our problem to solve.”

“How can the black community dismantle a problem that they didn’t create?”

“We shouldn’t just be trying to understand the rage. We should feel the rage.”

Watch all the way through to witness an extraordinary performance by British rapper Dave that left me in tears.

I feel the rage. Do you?

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Beware Of Darkness, online gig this Sat + why I’m launching a podcast

by Laura Kidd Creativity Letterbox Mindfulness Music News Podcast Process

Art by @grandfunkrev

This morning I got up early to do yoga in the living room before walking the dogs round the block in the blazing sunshine. On returning home I was overcome with wistfulness and felt compelled to put on George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness”. By the end of the first verse I had burst into hot tears.

I don’t know what exactly prompted me to find that particular song today; I knew I needed to listen to George, and I knew I needed to head to “All Things Must Pass”, then of course “Beware Of Darkness” was just perfect. There’s something about certain pieces of music that enable a sort of metaphysical circuit closing, they act as the missing connector between the things I need to feel and the means to feel them by unabashedly sobbing into my overnight oats.

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness

Reading the lyrics properly for the first time, I’m struck by how spookily appropriate they are today. Isn’t the brain an amazing thing? Thank you brain, and thank you George, for your beautiful songs.

Sitting at my desk now with the sun streaming through the attic window, birds chirping melodiously out the front of the house and perched above me on the roof, I feel lucky…but also a little lost. Life feels a lot more chaotic than it did a week ago, and I’m finding it hard not to let the UK news permeate my protective forcefield at the moment.

I’d love to hear what your go-to songs are for feeling your feelings, whether they’re happy or sad (my cheer up tune is “Sexx Laws” by Beck, btw). Let me know in the comments!

ONLINE GIG THIS SATURDAY 4pm (UK time)

The first Penfriend gig ever, hooray! This will be for members of my Correspondent’s Club (DigiPal members and upwards), streaming live from 4pm UK (GMT+1) this Saturday 30th May. If you’d like to attend, just pick your tier from the options on this page, and remember you can up- or downgrade your monthly membership at any time.

In May, eligible Correspondents received a bunch of member perks including analogue welcome packs in the post, two free studio recordings, one live recording and a members-only podcast episode plus access to our delightful forum, which has fast become my favourite place to hang out online. We already have our own weekly Spotify playlist, with members taking turns to introduce their favourite songs to the group, and I’m interested to see where this is going.

Please browse free and paid monthly/annual tiers if you’re interested, but know that it’s a privilege and a delight to send things out to you, paying guest or no. Thank you for making this connection with me.

ATTENTION ENGINEER PODCAST – SUBSCRIBE NOW

My weekly podcast series “Attention Engineer” launches next Wednesday 3rd June with a bumper crop of three episodes at once!

Visit this page to listen to the trailer and choose your preferred link to subscribe so the episodes pop up in your preferred podcast listening platform as soon as they’re published.

I should be on all the major platforms by now, but please do let me know if I’ve missed one!

If you’re new to podcasts, the main place to go is Apple Podcasts, or you can listen on my blog every week if you prefer.

WHY A PODCAST?

I’ve been on quite a journey over the past couple of years, exploring my relationship with social media. The internet has undoubtedly helped me find my people, but I needed to step back from this hyperconnected, information-saturated world to protect my own happiness, check in with myself and see if I wanted to keep making music.

The answer was YES, and that checking in process led to the idea for the Penfriend project and The Correspondent’s Club. So, how does “Attention Engineer” fit in?

My podcast is an attempt to slow down, go deeper and focus on the things that are most important to me in a thoughtful and mindful way. I’ve met so many interesting people over my music making years, and opportunities for a proper conversation are very rare, so I wanted to create this space to us all to stop for a while and reflect on why we do what we do, and what it’s all for.

My only criterion for asking someone to be a guest is a deep respect and enthusiasm for their work. I’m fascinated by the magic of the creative process, and always intrigued as to how other artists balance things like touring and home life, creative introspection and happiness.

I have the Plato quote “A life which is not examined is not worth living” scribbled on a Post-it note on my wall. As someone who embraces the positive changes that regular quiet reflection has brought to my life in the past two years, this is my contribution towards thoughtfully examining the whys and wherefores of this strange and wonderful thing that connects us all on such a deep emotional level.

BE ON THE PODCAST!

Alongside the artist to artist interviews, I’ll be shining a light on YOU – the audience. Without you we would be nothing, truly, so I’m looking for volunteers to answer questions about your musical passions. This will be in recorded audio format (not video), for inclusion in future episodes.

Please email me if you’re interested in having your voice included.

BIG LOVE, have a great week.
Laura xxxx

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every week – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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