For a few weeks now, I’ve been craving an easy return to the drafting board — a way to come back to creative rhythm without pressure. Something light. Something like a doodle.
That’s where the idea of a 100-day challenge came in. I thought: This could be it. My tiny way back. Just one scribble a day. Simple.
But before I even started, the project began expanding in my head. It wasn’t just doodles anymore — it was a series. Then came the decisions: what medium, what format, how I’d share it, what kind of pad, whether it should live on my site or turn into something bigger. The weight of making it mean something sent me right back into the stall I was trying to climb out of.
Week 9 of The Artist’s Way — Recovering a Sense of Compassion — met me right in that stuckness. Julia Cameron writes, “The blocked artist does not know how to begin with baby steps.” I felt called out. My “simple” idea had turned into a production before I even touched a Sharpie. The desire to reconnect with my artist child had morphed into trying to build a mountain — again.
This wasn’t new. The previous week’s reflection — “Most of us hate to do something when we can obsess about something else instead” — had already unearthed a pattern: I often quit joyful things before they even begin. I make plans, stack them with complexity, and then freeze. Suddenly, I’m not lazy — I’m blocked, tangled in performance logic disguised as creativity.
Reclaiming the Baby Step
This week reminded me that the smallest start is often the bravest one. That beginning again doesn’t have to look like a comeback or a declaration — it can just be a doodle. A sticky note. A corner cleared on my desk.
Compassion, for me, looks like releasing the need to frame everything. Letting something be unremarkable. Letting it live.
The 100-day challenge is still here. But now, it begins one day at a time, with one sketch that doesn’t need to justify itself.
Optional Reflection Prompt: Archive Your Avoidance
Here’s something I tried that helped me connect the dots:
I wrote out three past projects I planned but never started.
For each one, I asked myself: What was the point when joy turned into strategy?
I noted the shift — and then imagined what a baby version of that project might have looked like.
It wasn’t to guilt myself. It was to understand how my creativity tries to protect itself through expansion. And how I can meet that instinct with a boundary that says: This is allowed to stay small.
If that feels helpful, try it. Or make up your own version. Just let it be light. Let it be yours.
🌿 Milna Cultivates
Good Things Good Days — essays on creativity and becoming.
Originally published on Medium by Milna Cultivates.