“That depth of perception is a huge part of what makes our creative work so rich.”
In the months before the wet season here in North Queensland, the air thickens and the paddocks dry out, and then, often, the rain arrives all at once. I think of this when I'm working with highly sensitive creatives. So many of us take in a great deal of information, emotion, ideas and pondering long before anything shows on the outside. We often notice the shift in someone's voice before they've said what's wrong, and the beautiful, faint lavender colour lining the edges of a cloud in a grey sky that many others walk straight past. That depth of perception is a huge part of what makes our creative work so rich, and it shapes how we need to run our businesses too.
The term highly sensitive person, or HSP, comes from the research of psychologist Elaine Aron, who found that roughly 15 to 20 per cent of people process the world more deeply than most. Aron describes it as an innate trait, and in my experience it shows up again and again among painters, writers, makers and the people who are drawn to creative work in the first place.
Designing your business around your nervous system
Much of the business advice we absorb was written by and for people who find visibility energising. When a sensitive creative tries to follow it, the result is often a cycle of big pushes followed by long stretches of recovery, and a lingering sense that we're simply not cut out for this. In coaching, we start from a kinder assumption. Your nervous system is part of your business, so we plan with it in mind.
In practice this can look like building recovery time into your calendar after anything visible, whether that's an exhibition opening, a market day or a launch week. It might mean batching emails and admin into one or two sessions a week so they stop leaking into your studio hours. Some clients choose to offer support by email or voice note in place of live calls, or to cap the number of clients they see in a week. These are business decisions, and they not only deserve to be made as carefully as your pricing, in doing so, they will help you build a business that feels like home and is sustainable through the ups and downs of your energy and capacity.
Some of us are also living with chronic conditions alongside our sensitivity, and a plan that works on a good week needs a gentler version for the harder ones.
Signs your business might need a gentler design
You dread checking your inbox, even when the messages are kind
Launches leave you exhausted for weeks afterwards
You avoid opportunities you'd love because the energy cost feels too high
Your studio time keeps getting squeezed out by everything else
You feel as though you're always catching up
If a few of these sound familiar, it's usually a sign that the structure needs adjusting, you may need more support, or your ideas around what is sustainable and ‘sucessful’ need a gentle audit. The important thing to know is they aren’t a sign that you're doing anything wrong, they are just information you can use to help you shape a business that works for you and fits your needs.
Image: Sketching beside the water.
A recovery plan for visible moments
Big, visible moments are part of a creative business, and they can be wonderful. Planning around them makes an enormous difference. Before an event, it helps to prepare as much as you can in advance, from your price list to a few sentences about your work, so there's less to think about on the day. During it, give yourself small pockets of quiet, even five minutes outside or in the car, (or, as I’ve done many times, in a toilet cubical!). Afterwards, keep at least one to two days clear of commitments, and choose something nourishing to do, like a slow morning in the garden or simply an early night.
Sharing your work when visibility feels tender
Many sensitive creatives tell me marketing feels icky. Often what feels uncomfortable is a particular style of marketing, the loud and urgent kind. When we think of marketing as sharing what we love with people who might love it too, it becomes something we can do with integrity. We can write long, thoughtful posts in place of daily videos. We can build a small, warm audience who genuinely care, and let our evergreen content keep working while we rest.
We can also give ourselves permission to be seen in stages. Some of us need to share a piece of work with a trusted friend first, then with a small community, and only later with the wider world, and we can let that pace set the rhythm of our marketing.
A few practical ideas that suit many sensitive creatives:
Schedule posts ahead so you don't need to be online when they go out
Turn off notifications and check messages at set times
Choose one, or maybe two, platforms you enjoy and let the others go
Write newsletters in your own voice, as though to a friend
Image: One of my atmospheric oil paintings.
Pricing with a big heart
Highly sensitive people tend to feel other people's circumstances keenly, and that empathy can quietly creep into our prices. We imagine someone struggling to afford our work and may lower the number before anyone has even asked. Coaching gives us a place to look at this gently and to price in a way that honours our skill along with the recovery time our work requires, so we can keep creating for years to come. My post on how to price your art goes into this in more detail.
A gentle exercise to try
Over the next week, keep a small note at the end of each day of what gave you energy and what drained it. Include everything, from conversations and errands to studio sessions and screen time. At the end of the week, read it back with curiosity. You'll often find one or two small changes that would make your working week feel much kinder.
You don't need to do this alone
If you're a highly sensitive creative building a business, it can help enormously to have someone in your corner who understands the terrain. My private coaching is tailored to sensitive, heart-led creatives, and we move at a pace that suits you. You're warmly invited to apply for a complimentary 90-minute session on my Business Coaching page, and if you'd like company along the way, the Creative Hearts Community is full of people who feel things deeply too.
About Nicola Newman
I'm a Creative Business Coach, Award-Winning Artist & Mentor for Creative Hearts who want to flourish, flow & prosper.
My passion is inspiring and supporting Creative Hearts to trust their inner wisdom and carve out a life that’s personally meaningful and fulfilling to them.
I share practical, evidence-based tools for Creative Hearts seeking to improve their lives or businesses. My work draws from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), mindfulness-based techniques, body-based practices, and neuroscience -- and my own creative living adventures -- among other approaches.
My mission is to support Creative Hearts to:
Dissolve creative blocks, develop a loving relationship with themselves, nurture their creativity and reframe the beliefs and patterns that keep them from following their heart and making the creative contribution they would love to make in the world.
My approach is to embrace gentleness, playfulness and self-care to navigate self-doubt and instead cultivate deep self-trust so you can truly enjoy the creative process, bring together your body of work, make money doing what you love and leave a creative legacy you’re proud of.
Let’s pour a cuppa and get to know one another, shall we? :) Read more about my story here.
