While I’m quite used to a relatively solitary life, especially in my work, the corona crisis is surely the director’s cut; longer, more challenging, and with unexpected new angles that only the diehard fans would watch. In short, I’ve been struggling to make my online school, a project that lay dormant for years but that now has found the perfect time to be created, thanks to all of my other work vanishing over a day or two. Happily I’m now in my flow, and making a lot of classes and content. I talk about how I’ve beaten back the parts of me that were getting in my way, as well as how this crisis has been a really priceless moment to get this and other things done. Unstuck is a personal podcast about how we often get ourselves stuck in all sorts of ways, both in general ways as well as ways more specific to freelancers and creative people. I’m a musician and a photographer, and I share what I’m learning as I learn it. As openly, honestly and in the most vulnerable way I can.

In this podcast about getting unstuck as a creative person, I had set myself the target to make one episode a day. With no end in sight, I inevitably tripped up and failed. Here’s why that’s absolutely fine, and a reminder to look past the simplistic headline of “I failed” and understand why you can now move on, much the better for it. I’ve started many projects that then arguably failed, and I’m quite glad they did. This is the last episode in the first series. I’ll continue making my vlog on my YouTube channel, look for my name: Andri Søren. Go get yourself unstuck!

In conjunction with this podcast I’ve also started making a weekly blog, and weekly music videos, ignoring my own advice of making proper time for things and keeping them modest in their ambition. Turns out we keep having to learn our own lessons :)

I once heard that Barack Obama kept just two suits - grey or blue - meaning that he could just choose one or the other and get onto more important decisions. Steve Jobs just had one outfit. What they were doing was taking a few decisions out or simplifying them so that they could avoid losing any mental energy on them. I’ve been doing the same by organising my week in such a way that I don’t face decisions about what to do on any particular day. I’ve also reduced my wardrobe! Applying this principle to various parts of our lives really can make space for other things, and reduce the decision fatigue that seems to be overwhelming so many of us. Go get unstuck!

Over coffee with a filmmaker I realised that I’ve taken one passion (photography) and ‘sacrificed’ certain aspects of it, in order to protect my other passion, making music. By verbalising this I’ve seen that this has made so much space in my life and ‘creative soul’ and is a compromise I’ve come to accept. Often when talking to people frustrated by their current career, they tell me they’d like to find ‘that one thing’ that they can do to both feel fulfilled as well as paying the bills. In this episode I ask the question if we shouldn’t find ‘two things’ and use one to do something we like while the other is kept free of external pressures to be anything other than what we want it to be. In a way I’m talking about having two supercharged hobbies, and not just ‘a job’ and a ‘hobby’ fitting in-between the cracks between the job and your life.

The last two weeks I’ve achieved more than in the last two years. By this I mean those projects I cared, thought and talked about the most. I actually can’t tell you exactly what came over me. But I can tell you this. It feels great. Now, I’m a firm believer in taking a brief look at the risks involved in doing anything, well, risky, but ultimately everything is a judgement call in that respect. Taking a hold of our passions in life and giving them some oxygen and giving them a chance is a risk worth taking. Just like before jumping, you have to let go of something else. It’s Now or Never. Go get yourself unstuck.

A few moments in my life changed everything. They were actually very humble, very calm, and full of reflection. The first time was in Italy, sitting in a café, and I decided to write down the moments or projects where I had felt closest to “me”, closest to doing what I want to do in life. That first time already gave me many clues of the directions I should explore further. The second and third times, the list became shorter and shorter, and the answer more and more clear. In the end I was faced with that which I had perhaps felt for a long time, but not been able to really know or admit, and on paper it stared me right in the face. It’s not easy finding these moments sometimes, and you have to think quite hard and be frank with yourself to identify them sometimes. If you can’t think of any, consider trying something that is just outside of your comfort zone, but that you’re curious about. It can even be something quite private. Wait a few weeks and see how you feel about that moment. Once you have two or three put them down on paper and look at them. Score them out until you are left with one. How do you feel? Does it feel right? If you’re not sure try again. Writing things down is like saying them out loud; you can stand slightly further away from the idea and get some perspective. Good luck, and go get unstuck.

While it might feel like we’re alone in our “stuckness”, it just ain’t true. I’ve had really nice feedback from people reaching out from various corners of my life sharing how this topic affects them, and it gives me energy to not only continue, but to know that it’s such a shared feeling. Of course being stuck can take many forms, but what often links almost all of them are time and energy - we often have too little of either of them. The answer is to take stock of our lives and actually and honestly check whether there are any “spots” free or that we can make free to undertake that which we want to do, and if not, to be brutal and make some time. If you don’t put it on a calendar or into a certain part of the day, it ain’t gonna happen, 9 times out of 10. The next thing we have to keep in mind is setting ourselves a reasonable expectation for what we can do with that time, and just as importantly find a workflow that will allow us to realise what it is that we want to do. Making this podcast is made possible because I plan to make time in my day to do it and because the method I’m using is very simple and I refuse to over complicate it. So people, you’re not alone - go make time for your passion or whatever it is, and make it so that you can achieve it, no matter how modestly. Go get unstuck!

My phone has slowly but surely sabotaged my ability to concentrate and get things done. Finding a place to put it, out or reach and out of mind, has made be happier and more productive. When I do reach for it I know I’ve “earned” it, and I quickly yearn to get back to my projects.

For the last 3 years I’ve been tormenting myself with one topic (Brexit and my future in Belgium, where I live) and it’s drained me of energy for so much else. Here I talk about the way I found to stop letting it block everything else in my life.