A while ago I wrote about what to do with old work that’s been hanging around the studio for too long (linked below), but what if the “old work” is more substantial than a few canvases, prints, or digital files? What if the old work is an entire business that’s limping along? Or a not-for-profit organisation that you’re now exhausted by? Or a book you’ve been writing for the last five years and is 99% complete? Or maybe you’re on a break from an expensive course and can’t decide whether to go back? What if the “old work” is BIG and impossible to ignore?
I’m in this situation with my “old” business, Wild Creative Studio. It’s nearly three years since I closed its physical space but I’m still dutifully filling out my quarterly tax returns and mostly ticking the box saying “No business in this period”, and at the end of each year I pay $71 to keep my business registration alive, but the business exists in name only - it’s not generating money and I’m not actively working in it.
It’s painful to let go of big projects into which you’ve invested time, money, and dreams. For a while, it’s easier to try and bring them back to life than to say a final goodbye. If you find yourself in this situation, here are a few questions that might help you decide whether that big work is worth the effort of resurrecting or just needs to be consigned to the compost heap this autumn:
1. Is the work still relevant?
This is important since the question is both for you and for those receiving your work. The world changes at lightning speed. If you finish the book, is there still a readership out there? Is there still an audience for your work? Is the work still relevant for you and how you live now or has the moment passed? Do you have something new to say about the work or would you be repeating yourself?
2. Do you still have ALL the resources you need to carry on with the work?
Do you have the physical space, the energy, the finances, the time to pick up the old work and resurrect it? Remember that it takes twice as much enthusiasm to bring something back to life than it does to work on something fresh, exciting, and new.
3. Have you already moved on to something else?
Has a new project already taken the place of the old work? If so, are you prepared to drop it in order to finish or continue the old project? What would it cost you (emotionally and financially) to put new work on hold? Is the old project worth it?
4. How would it feel for you to circle back around to your old work?
This may be hard to answer without trying but can you imagine picking up that old project and running with it? Does that excite you or make you feel heavy? Does the old work feel like a burden? Is it what you WANT to do or do you feel a sense of responsibility? Does it still fit you and the way you live now?
5. Is there an alternative to the binary choice of saying yes/no to the project?
Is there someone else who could finish the work for you, buy the business, take on the not-for-profit…? What would it take to finish the work? What would it take to leave it unfinished and walk away? Is there a part of the project that could be taken forward into something new?
These are the difficult questions I’ve been asking myself and sometimes the only way to find the answers is to try picking up that old project and breathing life back into it.
There’s no harm in trying on your old self for size - nobody will notice - and equally, there’s no “failure” in acknowledging that you’ve changed, the world has changed, and your big old work no longer has a place in your life.
At this time of year my inbox is full of messages about “releasing what no longer serves you” but what is often not said is that sometimes we have to say goodbye to beautiful, tender, deeply meaningful parts of our lives too (anyone who has lost a loved one knows this) and it’s not our choice. Sometimes life forces our hand. Sometimes Often we don’t get to neatly wrap up endings in a box and tie them with a bow.
Sometimes old projects just fizzle out like a damp firework.
BUT we must remember that even though the old work - the business, the nonprofit, the book, the dream - may end in name, what we learned in that process of creating is NEVER lost, we carry it all forward into new projects.
Creativity is iterative. Our ideas don’t just disappear when we finish (or don’t finish) a project, they morph and grow into something that’s perhaps even more exciting and rewarding than the work we initially envisaged.
If you haven’t already subscribed to Private View, please do! This coming Friday I’ll be in the Chat sharing ways of saying goodbye to big old projects. Chat is only seen by subscribers and I’d love to hear your Private View on this topic.
We help each other when we share and that’s what this community is all about.
Until next time.
JC
PS Wanna know what I’ve decided to do with Wild Creative Studio? Listen to my voice note, A Word in Private, to hear me talk about where my head is currently at with that old work.
A Word in Private is my new have-a-cuppa-and-a-chat-cast! You may receive a separate email just with this audio (I’m not 100% sure how Substack’s podcast format works). If you do, apologies for the duplication.
Some resources you might find of value:
I wrote a little ebook about how to evaluate a creative practice with exercises that help you figure out what to save, what to get rid of, and what to share. You can buy and download it by clicking the image below:
If you missed my article What To Do With Old Work, you can read it HERE
Thank you for sharing your decision on both text and speech. I find it lovely to listen instead of read for a change. Here’s to the book and more podcasts!
I haven’t listened yet but I am definitely there! I chose to move my big project to the back burner. It’s still there and I’m slowly moving it to YouTube while I keep my focus on the Substack publication. It was hard to do even that because I felt like a flake for going after the new shiny, but what I was doing also wasn’t sitting true for me any more, so I’m trying to see if scaling back will help.