It’s never very clear what you’re supposed to do instead – only that pursuing creativity is lofty, selfish, or even naive.
We’ve been trained to avoid creative obstacles rather than risk trying to surmount them.
You’ve heard poets talk about, poems flowing out of their bodies; painters, they get on a roll. You all have seen the musician, when they are in that state, the guitar, the piano, whatever instrument just becomes part of their body, their ego is completely gone and it is just their connection to the art, their connection to the emotions they are trying to share with the audience- that is pure flow.
The problem is that the human brain evolved to keep us safe, not happy – it will resist your efforts to walk your own path because creativity challenges certainty.
When we are operating in shame, we too easily believe the awful thoughts about ourselves that we hear in our head. But that is not who we are. Meditation has taught me that I am not my thoughts. Practicing meditation over the years has made it much easier for me to observe and identify the voice of shame and call it out for the fraud it is.
In creative expression, unlike any other arena of human behavior, there is no objective measure of success, no One Right Way to do something. This means we’re always vulnerable to the lure of the easier, safer road. It’s counterintuitive, but if you value money, comfort, or convenience over your own creativity, you jeopardize all four.
When I grew up, and even as an adult learning photography, pursuing learning was seen as a sign of weakness and vulnerability. Needing to learn something meant admitting you didn’t already know it. There was shame there. You tried to keep it quiet. “Hey, if you’re a photographer, why do you need to take that Photoshop class? Don’t you know your job?” Since then, willingness to learn has gone from a weakness to a strength. But the number of options can be overwhelming.
Every aspect of you is fuel for your creative fire.
Have some empathy. Acknowledge that it’s scary to watch someone you care about change in significant ways. It’s even worse to watch the person you love go where you’ve always been afraid to go yourself. It’s understandable that other people want you to be safe, but that doesn’t mean you should let them deter you from pursuing your dream.
The new obstacle is figuring out which dream to pursue and then cultivating and applying the necessary energy to engage in that pursuit. The internet provides access to all the world’s libraries, but it also provides access to World of Warcraft – limitless knowledge but also limitless distraction.
You can love your family. You can trust your friends. You can listen to their encouragement. You can hear their concerns. But in the end, you must decide what works for you. Your life is not a democracy.
Next time you aren’t able to do something as well as you’d like, simply enroll yourself in Me University, plan out your semester, master the information, and award yourself a PhD in The Problem You Just Crushed. You’ll rarely be intimidated by another learning challenge once you’ve done this a few times. It’s empowering. In fact, it’s addictive. It’s the secret weapon of the highest performers. There is nothing you can’t learn, no matter where you’re starting from right now.
For Starters, the excitement about the next idea masks the reality: they are abandoning their current idea.
That’s why we call it work,” he said. “We’re not here to make sure things already rolling downhill keep rolling.
Your goal should always be to become the best you, not a pretty good – or even damn good – version of somebody else.
What most of us are really doing when we try to anticipate every possible failure is masticating our once playful, powerful, smart idea into a lifeless paste. As the life of an idea is leached away by “preparation,” we become overwhelmed. Trying to avoid every possible pitfall before your idea has any substance either neuters it or leads to its abandonment before anything even gets made.
In the words of the choreographer Twyla Tharp, “Skill gets imprinted through action.” Assign yourself daily drills to practice the mechanical basics of the skill, whether reviewing flash cards or working with a kitchen knife. Learning all the recipes in the world won’t make you a great chef if you can’t chop, dice, and julienne those veggies.
As Richard Branson once told me, “Opportunities are like buses. There’s always another one coming.
As you look to your own inspirations, try this: Deconstruct other people’s methods. Emulate the different elements. Analyze those parts to see which ones work for you. Then put the winners together and Repeat with the new formula.
This is the danger of any collaboration. Sometimes the collaborators don’t share the same incentives or the same vision. Their vision was based on their experience.