The Myth of Creative Balance with Nina Lenton

What if chasing creative balance is actually what’s throwing you off course? In this episode of The Creative Switch, creativity coach and former marketing project manager Nina Lenton unpacks the myth of balance, and shares how embracing life's different phases, custom systems, and imperfect rhythms can unlock deeper creative flow.

From her Friday morning ritual to her journey through regulated industries and motherhood, Nina offers practical insights for creatives navigating idea overload, neurodiverse planning challenges, and the tension between paid work and passion projects. Whether you’re stuck in overwhelm or resisting structure, this conversation invites you to rethink what balance really means—and how to reclaim your creative agency on your own terms.

Guest Bio:

Nina Lenton is a project manager and coach who works with creatives and creative thinkers (who have a lot of ideas). She helps them to get clarity, take action and find headspace so they can achieve their business goals AND enjoy being creative.

She believes that we are all creative, and that we all have our own form of creative expression and unique mix of creative thinking styles.

As well as untangling creative brains, she enjoys writing, photography and drawing penguin doodles.

Her creative rediscovery started over 10 years ago when she signed up to do a ’30-day challenge’ and started a blog - writing a post or poem every day during that time. That challenge led to more creative experiments with photos and writing, as well as helping her realise that her project management skills were really useful to people who have a lot of ideas.

At the time she was freelancing in marketing and communications, which she still does occasionally. Her focus changed last year when she trained in coaching skills and also gained a certification which enables her to use Creative ID (creative thinking styles) with her clients.

She now offers coaching, practical planning and mentoring sessions, gives talks and runs workshops about creativity and creative thinking styles. She recently published a book of her penguin doodles.

Episode Chapters with time stamps:

• 00:18 - Finding Creative Balance
• 01:28 - The Edge - Creative news
• 04:10 - Balancing Creativity and Work
• 05:15 - Nina's Definition of Creativity
• 12:15 - The Origin of Nina's Coaching
• 15:15 - How Creativity Coaching works
• 19:58 - Overcoming challenges in a creative business
• 26:03 - Untangling Creativity: Structuring Support for Aspiring
• Creatives
• 29:09 - The turning point of earning from your creative passion
• 35:40 - Understanding the Balance of Creativity and Business
• 37:38 - Exploring Creative Expression
• 40:06 - What's next for Nina's own creative projects
• 42:26 - Creative Adventures - Finding balance

Four Creative Nuggets:

"I see it as phases… sometimes I’m doing something more for the money than the love. You need a foundation to be able to do the playing—until that playing makes you money." —Nina Lenton

"Everyone’s creative. And when you know what your way of being creative is, find ways to do it!" —Nina Lenton

"For me... from a freelance perspective... I see it as a portfolio in an ever changing balance.'—Nina Lenton

"You're not likely to get me to do anything on a Friday morning because that's when I will go for a walk and take some photos… it's just become a thing." —Nina Lenton

Links:

Nina Lenton

https://www.ninalenton.co.uk/

https://www.instagram.com/ninalentonbusiness/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninalenton/

https://creativeweirdness.substack.com/

The Edge

Creatives unite | Longstanding Health Crisis In Creative Industries Linked To Passion-Driven Work, Research Finds

How creatives are surviving the 2025 slowdown | Creative Boom

Skills Mismatches in the UK's Creative Industries - Creative Industries Policy andE vidence Centre

Creative Adventures

Episodes mentioned

Theo Michaels

Pernille Hughes

Nikki Vallance

https://nikkivallance.com/the-creative-switch-podcast/ 



https://www.nikkivallance.com/

https://www.instagram.com/nikki_vallance/

https://podchaser.com/TheCreativeSwitch/ 

Afflliate Links

Alitu: https://alitu.com?fp_ref=nikki-53

Captivate: https://www.captivate.fm/signup?ref=njg4ytq