5 Powerful Mindsets That Can Make or Break Your Christian Creator Career

Are you making decisions about your life as a creator while being influenced by a mindset you don't realize you have? If so, you could be limiting your success and fulfillment as you pursue God's creative call - and it's all because you didn't stop to evaluate your creator operating system. 

In this episode, we unpack the 5 mindsets that govern everything you do as a Christian creative, and you'll learn how these mindsets can make or break your chance at success in whatever goal you are trying to achieve. 

Want to find out which of these mindsets you're operating in right now? 

Take the Christian Creator Mindset Quiz at https://godandgigs.com/quiz. 

Transcript

Allen C. Paul - God And Gigs (00:00)
Is it possible that there is something that is affecting the way that you are making creative decisions and you're not even aware of it? Maybe some kind of mindset, some kind of thought process that's actually possibly limiting your creative success, even though you are believing that God has given you a certain talent, gifting or ability. In a recent live stream that we did,

on our creator checkups, that's something we do every Friday on YouTube and on LinkedIn. We discussed the five creative mindsets that are kind of like our operating system, the way that we approach our creative life and the fact that each one of these has a different impact on the way that you actually pursue your creative calling as a Christian creator. We got into each one of them and I want to share them with you now so that you can make sure

that you're aware of what might be impacting the way that you look at your creative gift and more importantly, how you can do something about it. That's what we're gonna explore today in this episode of the God in Gigs Show. I'm your host, Allen C. Paul, and we're here to help you to become the creator that you are created to be. And in this episode,

we're going to unpack the five creator mindsets that might be impacting every decision that you're making as a Christian creator.

Allen C. Paul - God And Gigs (01:29)
So let's talk first about the whole point of a creator mindset or what I also call.

a creator operating system. There are certain ways that we look at the world, look at the world as creators. And when we integrate our faith, it then affects the way that we actually look at what we do as creators. Now, here's what I mean by that. You may already know you have a gift and a calling as a creator. You may know you have a ability to write, the ability to sing.

That's known to you. You know what your gifting is. I'm aware that I'm a musician and that music is really like the way that I express myself to the world. And it's a God given gift that I've decided to cultivate. So my actual gifting is not in question. What I do with my gift.

⁓ is not necessarily in question, right? But how I perceive myself and my gift then has a huge impact on whether or not I pursue my gift to the best of my ability as a unique creator that God gave a certain unique pathway in order to fulfill the gift that He put it within me. So there may be unseen or kind of operating systems. That's why I like to say operating systems because

an operating system works in the background. Your mindset works in the background. You're not aware of it. It really kind of constitutes what works or what creates your mindset and the way that you think, the way that you do things. And because that is the way that you do things without realizing that that's your mindset, your operating system, you are making certain decisions that are impacting the way that your gift is.

being used, the way that you are interacting with the world, whether you're even using your gifting or not, whether you're trying to go full time as a creator or not, those decisions are being based on the way that you look at the world and the way that you look at your creative life. Is this making sense? If that is the case, that your creator mindset and your creator operating system really defines the way that you are pursuing your creative calling, whether or not you're aware of that,

It makes sense then to dig deeper and to look at how are you actually thinking about your creator gift. So we're going to look at these five creator mindsets. I'm actually going to go ahead and kind of break them down one by one. And then we're going to share where, like I said, in the quiz, where you might have one of these characteristics of one of these mindsets and how it could impact your daily creative life throughout 2026.

So the first one I'm going to talk about is the closet creative, the closet creator. Now the closet creator is the person who knows they have a gift and a calling, but for whatever reason they feel like, Hey, I'm not supposed to share this in public. The closet creator has a mindset that people are not supposed to

They usually have this mindset of humility. That means that they should hide the gift because if they were to go out there and promote themselves or share that it would be trying to draw attention to themselves. It doesn't always mean that they are introverted, but usually or many times this means it's an introverted person that feels like their gift is not supposed to be seen. They may be pursuing their gift in private, in secret. You might be writing

for yourself writing your own poems, writing your own books, perhaps even ideas for a book, but you never share them. You might be ⁓ singing in the, maybe the back of the choir. You do sing in the choir, but you would never consider a solo. You would never consider singing out in public. These are the kinds of things that a closet creator kind of puts on the top or the lid of their thinking, which means everything they do flows from being a closet creator.

And let me once again say none of these are bad. You can be a closet creator and that might be exactly where you're supposed to be. But you have to be aware that you are operating from a closet creator mentality because you may be feeling some frustration. You may say, why can't I get out of my own way? Why can't I go out here and actually pursue this calling? Why do I feel like every time that I get ready to post something that I get so nervous and I

I want to shut down was because you're operating from a closet creator mindset. So once you are aware of the closet creator mindset, now you can actually go forward and say, Hey, I want to adapt, change, evolve, grow into a different operating system. don't want to operate as a closet creator in 2026, but you got to be aware that that's what your mindset is. So that's the first one of the mindsets you got to be aware of. If you are

Fearful if you are doubtful that you should be seen if you feel like everybody else is singing dancing playing drawing writing creating No room for me. That's a closet creator mindset that you're starting from And that's why I to make sure we point it out once again You want to learn more about whether or not you are that you can always go to our quiz the second type of creator mindset or creator operating system is the conflicted creator

Now the conflicted creator is also aware of their gift. They're aware of their calling. They know God gave them a particular gift or ability, but they are conflicted. And the reason why it's called conflicted is because they don't know if God is okay with them sharing their gift outside of a ministry, church, a secular versus sacred kind of position. They are worried that

If they are to share their gift in the mainstream arts, content creation and entertainment space, that God will judge them that they are only supposed to do this for ministry. And even if they do not kind of feel that kind of conflict, they're still kind of up in the air on whether their purpose is to serve the world and to share their gift in this area of kind of like giving yourself this platform. It's kind of like the closet creator, but a little different because now the conflict is your faith.

and your ability to see God using you in this area. So conflicted creators, if you are sensing this, even as I'm talking, the problem is, is that you've got to reconcile that God calls each one of us uniquely. And you may be struggling as a conflicted creator with the idea that God will give you a unique path that does involve what I get. I hate to use the word secular, but that's kind of the way the mainstream is where I like to say it. You may be.

kind of feeling this pressure to conform to a strictly religious, strictly church-related, strictly ministry creator lifestyle, and that might not be what God is calling you to. He definitely called me out of a solely worship music, church-only position into a unique creator lifestyle that includes performing jazz, blues, R &B, includes traveling, includes playing all these different genres of music.

and never feeling anymore guilty about it. So conflict creators, you might be already kind of in the space and making decisions based on that conflict that's already kind of running into the background all the time and not realizing that you have the choice to modify, to think of things differently from a different mindset if you are aware that you're starting from a conflicted creator mindset, okay? So the third.

the mindsets is the complicated creator. Now complicated creators, your mindset is not necessarily that you're in the closet nor that you're conflicted. It's that you're doing all the things. Complicated creators are struggling with the idea that how am I supposed to pursue God's call for my creator life? So whatever it is, dancing, singing, drawing, acting, screenwriting,

⁓ songwriting, whatever that is, you are like, how am I supposed to do that and be a promoter on social media? How am I supposed to do all that and be able to be there for my family? How can I do all this creative stuff and still make an income and not leave my full time job? The complicated creator feels and is operating from a place of it's always too much. There's no way I can handle all of these things.

And so because you are starting from that standpoint, once again, think about the mindset that you're starting from. You are already starting from a place that you assume that creative lifestyles for a Christian creator always involve too much on your plate, too many things to deal with. You're not sure how to handle the business side of creativity. You're not sure how to handle, how do I balance this with my ministry? All of the things kind of keep getting poured in and you assume from the get-go, from that point.

that this is going to be complicated forever. And so once again, recognize from the beginning of this mindset that if you are already thinking this way, it's affecting the way that you approach everything about your creative lifestyle. It's impacting the way that you decide or not decide not to take on opportunities, that you decide to ignore certain things or that you get kind of under so much pressure. When you see a potential opportunity, you're worried whether or not you can even handle it.

This is why it's so important again, to be aware of your mindset of your operating system so that you can see in 2026 if opportunities come and you're thinking like a complicated creator, you're going to have a lot of trouble simply unpacking all of that. We want to do that on the front end. That's why we're talking about it right now. So remember we talked about closet creators, talked about the conflicted creators and we talked about the complicated creators. Now you might say, okay, well what else is there? There's a fourth one called

the corporate creator. Now, I'm really, really, really honestly very grateful for the people in the God in Gets community who have shown me that being a corporate creator is not a bad thing necessarily. A corporate creator is simply the person that is keeping their nine to five, who continues to really focus on whatever their particular business is inside. It doesn't have to be a corporate space, could be any kind of work that they do.

but they are definitely not deciding to leave behind their full-time work to pursue this full-time creator lifestyle at this time. The thing is they are struggling. Corporate creators are struggling with the point of who am I? Am I this creative person or am I this corporate nine to five person? You're feeling a tension between the identity of being a full-time worker in whatever field you're in that has nothing to do with creative work.

and this kind of other life you're living as a creator, singer, songwriter, dancer, whatever that is. And you're really kind of wrestling with the who am I of it all. so corporate creators, you might be making decisions based on one of those two identities. One minute you're making a decision saying, Hey, I'm a creative. got to go this way. But then the next minute you're saying, no, I can't do that because I am a corporate person. I'm a boss. I'm an entrepreneur in this particular area that has nothing to do creativity. So that can't

It's always a dichotomy or a yes or no, black or white kind of mindset that you're making your decisions from as a corporate creator. Once again, this doesn't mean that corporate creators can't exist or can't thrive. It just means you have to be aware that that is your mindset and your operating system before you go into making decisions about your creator lifestyle going into 2026. And finally, there are the confident creators.

Now, yeah, you might think that, okay, obviously a confident creator means there's no problems. You're kind of right. I don't mean that any of these are the only ways that you should be conducting your creative lifestyle. I'm saying that in this case, the confident creator is aware of all of those different forward possibilities and they have approached it now where they understand how to integrate everything into their creator lifestyle in a way that does not ever make them feel like they're moving in the wrong direction.

that they're in the wrong place. The confident creator is completely sure that they are following God's unique path for them. Doesn't mean that there aren't issues where there's problems with income, problems with building a community, problems with trying to find the next gig, problems with that does not mean that the confident creator does not have problems. It just means that they have the mindset that there are solutions out there that God has called them and they are aware of.

where to go to find the answers to their creative problems. The confident creator is not necessarily the person who's full time. It just means that they are very aware of what they're trying to accomplish, how they're going to accomplish it, and they feel a sense of fulfillment and joy in pursuing their God-given creative calling. The confident creator is the person that you can go to and they say, ⁓

No matter what, I'm confident in who I am as a believer, as a follower of God, as a creator, and I am looking forward to expanding and growing and learning what's next. So the confident creator, again, doesn't mean life is perfect, but if you're operating from this mindset, you have the confidence that you can pursue new goals, that you can continue on with what you were trying, that you can kind of make things, of, you know, fit things in and figure things out, and you have a can-do mentality as a creator.

And so I really hope that more and more of these other four will realize that, I can kind of deal with what that is, but I'm going to move into the confident creator ⁓ category and my mindset. Now, I hope that has blessed you and helped you to see that all five of these mindsets, again, whether or not you're in one or the other, they can be managed and they can be turned into an asset so that you can end up, the whole goal, of course, is to end up as a confident creator.

If you would like to pursue or check out any of these particular mindsets, go to Godandgigs.com slash quiz. That's where you go to take the confident creator quiz to see if you are a confident creator. And then you can go find your scores. You can sign up for our newsletter at the same time to get more additional resources to see what will help you in each one of these mindsets.

So God bless you guys. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been amazing starting off 2026 with you. And as I say all the time, until next time, continue to become the creator that you were created to be. God bless.