Get Your Creative Mojo On: Believing in Yourself Like a Boss!

We're diving deep into the importance of believing in ourselves, folks! This episode, titled "Don't Stop Believing," is all about that glorious inner cheerleader we all need, especially when tackling our creative projects. Inspired by Mike Brennan's book, we explore how belief can be the magical ingredient that turns our artistic dreams into reality. I’ll share a heartfelt story about a shy, 13-year-old Mike who bravely stepped out of his comfort zone to impress a crush with his art. Spoiler alert: it’s a classic tale of courage that reminds us all to take those leaps of faith in our creativity! So, grab your headphones, and let’s sprinkle some fun and inspiration into our creative journeys together!

Making Fun A Habit Series

30 days to add fun to your creative practice. I will be going through Mike Brennan's Make Fun A Habit workbook and help you make fun a habit. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike on my other podcast Find A Podcast About and talking about his podcast Creative Chats. This workbook leads you through steps to rekindle the fun in your life and get you into a space where you are your most creative. This is a 30-day book and I will tackle each day as if it were a week and provide insights on how to use his ideas in your creative practice. Each chapter is broken up with a short story, questions to ponder, action items, and tips.

Timothy Kimo Brien takes us on a heartfelt journey through the vibrant landscape of creativity and self-belief in this episode of the Create Art Podcast. With a casual vibe and a playful tone, he dives right into the essence of what it means to truly believe in oneself as an artist. This episode revolves around the idea that belief is not just a nice-to-have, but an essential ingredient in the recipe for creative success. It all stems from Mike Brennan's workbook, *Make Fun a Habit*, which Timothy has been enthusiastically working through, transforming each day’s exercises into a podcast episode.

As we navigate this episode, Timothy shares a touching story from Brennan’s book, one that captures the awkwardness and bravery of a 13-year-old boy who mustered up the courage to deliver a piece of art to his crush. It's a charming reminder of how belief can push us beyond our comfort zones. Timothy’s reflections on the importance of belief lead us to ponder critical questions: “What does belief look like for you?” and “How can belief enhance your creativity?” These questions serve as prompts for listeners to examine their own beliefs and how these beliefs shape their creative expressions.

But hold on—this isn't just an introspective chat! Timothy rolls out practical action items that listeners can incorporate into their lives to bolster their belief systems. From taking creative risks to visualizing success, he offers a buffet of ideas that are both accessible and engaging. He sprinkles in personal anecdotes that resonate with anyone who's ever struggled with self-doubt, all while maintaining a light-hearted, witty tone that makes the conversation feel like a chat with a good friend. By the end of the episode, we're not just encouraged; we’re fired up to embrace our creativity with renewed confidence and a playful spirit!

Takeaways:

• This episode is all about believing in yourself, so strap in and get ready to unleash your inner champion!
• Mike Brennan's workbook is a fun way to tap into your creativity and kick your self-doubt to the curb; you don't want to miss this!
• The podcast dives into personal stories that highlight the importance of self-belief, with humor and real-life experiences thrown in for good...

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Create Art Podcast CommentaryDon't Stop Believing part of the
Make Fun A Habit series hellofriends, this is Timothy Keem O'Brien,
your head instigator forCreate Art podcast where I bring
my over 30 years of experiencein the arts and education world to

(00:26):
help you tame your innercritic and create more than you consume.
So this is a continuation ofthe Make Fun a Habit series that
is based on Mike Brennan'sbook Make Fun a Habit. It's a workbook
to help you do what it says.It's 30 days and what I'm doing is

(00:47):
I'm taking each day making itinto a podcast episode. And what
it does is it reminds us thatwe need to have fun in our creativity.
Now I did do a podcast abouthis podcast, Creative Chats on my

(01:07):
other podcast, Find a Podcastabout and we talked about his journey
and all that good stuff. But Ireally loved this book when I got
it and I've been using it. Andtoday's episode is especially poignant

(01:29):
to me. I'll use a $64,000 wordthere, poignant. So let me tell you
about how the workbook is setup. Basically what he does is he
gives you like a storyrelating to whatever the theme is,
and then he'll give youquestions to think about, he'll give
you action items for you to doand then tips that will really drive

(01:56):
home the point of the ideahe's trying to get through to you.
So definitely check it out foryourself. The links will be in the
show notes for you to pick upa copy of that book and listen to
his podcast and listen to mypodcast too. So for this episode
we're going to be talkingabout belief in yourself. The actual

(02:18):
title of it is Don't StopBelieving. And Mike starts off with
a story of him being 13 andhaving a crush on this girl at a
school. And you know whenyou're 13 you get really shy, you're
really awkward. So he went andmade a piece of art for her and gets

(02:45):
it to her house. And I'm notgoing to ruin it for you. You need
to go ahead and read the bookon this. But the big takeaway is
that he believed in himselfenough to fight through his shyness,
to fight through being that 13year old boy. And he delivered on

(03:08):
something. Now, how it turnedout, you'll have to read and see
what happened. But let's goahead and jump right into the assignment,
into the question sectionhere. The first is what does belief
look like to you? And what doyou believe? And I Think this is
really an important questionthat we all need to ask ourselves.

(03:29):
You know, what does belieflook like to you? What do you believe?
Because if you don't know whatyou believe, then how are you going
to progress further? How areyou going to follow that? How are
you going to be able to usethat belief in order to help you
complete the task at hand, inorder to share your artwork and to

(03:53):
share your creativity? So I'llstart off, and I'm interested in
what you have to say, so makesure that you let me know. Email
me timothyreateartpodcast.comand I definitely want to hear what.
What's going on with you,because I think we. Well, we're going
to start off with belief. Ithink we all have tapped into this

(04:14):
collective unconsciousness,and I think we all have bits and
pieces of the truth. And whatI do is I try to figure out in my
head, in my perception ofreality, what is true, you know,
what I'm seeing. And I try toshare that with other people, to

(04:37):
kind of compare notes andfigure out what's really happening
in this world that we're allliving in. So that's one of my main
beliefs, is that we're alltapped in somehow, whether it's through
God, spiritual, thiscollective unconsciousness that I
kind of buy into the dao,whatever it is, it doesn't have to

(05:00):
be religious. For me, it's notreally a religious thing in the traditional
sense of the word religious,but that's kind of what I believe.
And I think my mission is totake a look at these things and share
it with everybody else outthere and compare notes. The next

(05:23):
question is, how has beliefhelped you in the past? And for me,
I know when I was doing jobinterviews or when I was teaching
job interviews, a skill that Ihave, a quality that I have is tenacity.

(05:43):
And where do I get thattenacity from? It's a belief in myself
that I can accomplish whatevertask is in front of me. Now, sometimes
that is also to my detrimentbecause I don't often ask for help.
And that's something that I'mcontinually working on, both in my

(06:04):
professional life and in mypersonal life. So belief has helped
me get to where I am, and ithas shown me that I can accomplish
whatever I set out to do. Now,it may not turn out the way I thought
it would, but it always turnsout to be something that puts me

(06:27):
in a more. More positiveplace, a better place than when I
started. So the next questionis, how can Belief help you experience
more fun and enjoyment. I'mnot sure. I am not sure this one.
I think that it can show methat I was right to believe in my

(06:50):
abilities. When I'm doing aproject or a task or something like
that, it's kind of thatconfirmation that I do have the skill
set, I do have theintelligence. I can tap into that
collective unconsciousness anddo, you know, if I have a weird idea,

(07:12):
I can do it now, how otherpeople respond to it, I can't control
that. But it's a lot of funwhen, you know, I initially think
or when people tell me, yeah,you can't do that. It reminds me
of high school. I'm going todelve into a high school story here

(07:33):
for you. So it was my senioryear in high school, and picture
this, if you will, me, leatherjacket, chains on the jacket, spiked
hair, ponytail, blackfingernail polish, eyeliner. And
going to honors econ class.And I have to take the class in order

(07:56):
to graduate. And the teacherthere said, there's no way you're
going to pass this class. Hetold me straight out, you're not
going to pass. And I told himthat I am going to get an A in the
class. I'm going to do pass.Not only pass, I'm going to get the
highest grade in this class.So I worked my tail off to make that

(08:16):
happen. I put it out in theuniverse, and sure enough, I did
get the highest grade in theclass. And weirdly enough, I used
the lessons and theinformation that I learned in that
econ class in my day job. Sothat definitely helped me out. The

(08:39):
last question is, what is anarea you need to grow your belief?
So again, I think it's theinitial. The initial action of doing
a project. Because, you know,there have been. I have a lot of
ideas for projects, but do Ihave the belief that I can accomplish

(09:04):
them? So it's the initial. Igot a lot. I got to stop letting
it swim around in my head andactually do it. And, you know, I
have a strong fear of failure.I don't want to fail at a top, at
a project. I don't want it toturn out to be a big old painting

(09:25):
that looks like a mud pile. Sofor me, that's an area that I need
to start at the initial. OnceI get it going, I can do it. But
it's that initial push that Ineed to work on. So now we're going
to be moving on to the actionitems. And the first one is to take
a risk and I just mentionedthis. That initial thing of, you

(09:51):
know, is it going to turn out?Is it going to be a big old pile
of mud? I need to myself learnto take more risks. And, you know,
I fully intend to and I'mtrying to with things. So I think
our first action item is righton the money. You know, take that
risk. Don't worry about theoutcome of it. You're not there yet.

(10:17):
Just take that initial riskand see where it leads you. The next
action item is practicepositive self talk. Oh boy, do I
need to work on this one. I,my worst critic. I know how to push
my own buttons and I know howto stop myself from accomplishing

(10:38):
things and from doing things.I can give myself a thousand excuses
of, you know, why waste yourtime with this? So I need to change
that to why not, you know,take a chance and do the project.
So something I need to workon. Maybe that's something you need
to work on. And then the lastaction item, which I think wraps

(11:02):
this up nicely, is visualizeyourself achieving your goals. So,
you know, that initial phaseof, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna,
you know, make my goal ofwhatever this is going to be. Let's
visualize that we do make thatgoal and backwards plan from that.

(11:24):
You know, what do I got to doright before I hit the goal? What,
you know, what's the, youknow, five steps I got to do before
I hit the goal? Okay, so whatdoes step five look like? What does
step four look like? What'sstep three look like on down, you
know, on down to step one andthen go do step one and start that
journey. So definitely thatcan take the initial fear right out

(11:52):
of it. You know, think aboutthat goal. Hey, if I achieve this,
wow, this is what it, this iswhat I want it to look like. Now
we're going to move on toMike's tips. First one is be open
minded again. That's goingback to that self talk. That's going
back to taking those risks. Goahead and do it. What's the worst

(12:13):
is going to happen? You fail.Oh, boy. You know, we fail every
day. We fail at things everyday. It's okay. Just give it a shot.
The next tip is to practicegratitude. So be happy with your
belief, okay? If you have agratitude journal, put that in your

(12:35):
journal. You know, be gratefulthat you have a belief in yourself,
even if it's not strong. Startthere and then grow with that and
get that belief even strongerby, you know, giving gratitude. To
have any belief Tip three isspend time in nature. Mike likes

(12:55):
to spend a lot of time innature, I find. So definitely getting
out of your studio and gettingout into the world and, you know,
maybe you go out and look atsome birds, walk through a forest,
whatever it is, get outsideand get out of your head and get
out of your space. Maybe it'syour, your space that you've created,

(13:18):
your studio that you'vecreated that isn't conducive to that
kind of stuff. Just gooutside, spend some minutes outside
and then come back to it. Stepnumber four is meditate or pray meditation.
I do, and I do it with a guycalled Yogi Brian that I found him

(13:39):
on TikTok and Instagram. Chrisis like a sailor and it's, it's the
kind of meditation that I canget into. So give that a try for
yourself. You know, whetherit's with Yogi Brian or with something,
you know, somebody else that'sa little bit more tame. I tend to
like mine on the wild side,but that's me. Number five is read

(14:02):
inspiring stories. There'sthousands of books created every
day. Find something thatinspires you. Find somebody that
has done whatever you want todo and read their story. And the
last tip, tip number six issurround yourself with positive energy
that can be with music that'sin meditation, that's going outside

(14:26):
in nature. You know, sometimeswe just got to turn off the news
and this morning when rightbefore I started recording this,
I was having a hard timesleeping and I got up about 5 in
the morning, came down to myman cave and I just, you know, couldn't
get back to sleep. So I threwon some Bob Ross on the TV and laid

(14:47):
down and crashed out for abouttwo hours. And, and it was great
and it really propelled me todo this episode. So maybe it's just,
you know, you throw in someBob Ross, you throw in some nice
jazz, you know, you're readingthe inspiring stories, getting in
your gratitude journal, doingthe meditation, but surround yourself

(15:11):
with that positive energybecause we have so much negativity
out in the world, especiallyhere in 2025. Turn it off and turn
on some positivity for yourlife. Alright, well, I hope this
episode and this chapter ofthis book has helped you out. It
definitely has improved mymood today. So this one was one I'll

(15:33):
be definitely going back to.If you got something out of it, I'd
ask you go ahead and share itwith a friend that may need, you
know, this, this kind ofencouragement. You can always reach
out to me.Timothyreateartpodcast.com and let
me know if you've bought thebook and are going through the book
and like to have your thoughtson this book, on this workbook or

(15:57):
if you want to, you know, talkto me about what's going on in your
neck of the woods and youknow, if you like to be on the show,
email me. Definitely go aheadand do that for yourself. Something
that I haven't been a friendof mine just, just yesterday was
telling me is that, hey Tim,you, you have a business that you're

(16:18):
running and you're not reallypromoting it on the socials. So the
new business I'm running isTKB Podcast Studio and that's where
I help my clients, you know,lead through the noise, through quiet
professionalism. Basically Ihelp them with their podcasts and
I am open for business. So ifyou want to go to tkbpodcaststudio.com

(16:44):
check out my portfolio thereand you can see what I've done with
other folks. I definitelywould love to work with you on whatever
project that you have goingon. So give it a look, see and then
the last thing I'm going toask is for the survey. I have a 2024
listener survey. Yes, I knowit's in 2025, but you can go to createartpodcast.com

(17:11):
survey and you know, give mesome ideas on topics that you want
to go ahead and look at orhave me look at or is the music too
long or do I need to change myvoice to James Earl Jones or something
along those lines. The surveyis there for you so that way I can

(17:31):
improve the show and make it afive star show in your eyes. So definitely,
if you've got a few minutes todo that survey, I would highly appreciate
you going ahead and knockingthat out because I want this show
to be the show that you'rereferring to other people to. Alright,
that's all I have for youtoday. I want to thank you for taking

(17:51):
a listening to this episode. Ihope you got something out of it.
I know I did. You know, justreading through this, through this
chapter of the book reallypumped me up today. So I'm gonna
let you get back to your day.I need to get back to my day and
go out there, tame that innercritic, create more than you consume.

(18:14):
Go out there and make some artfor somebody you love yourself. I'll
talk to you next time. Sa.