Advice from an Artist on How to Be Creative #1: Lighten Up!
This series of four ideas come from an email interview and conversation I did with Steve Thomas of curvefinder.com, and fellow altMBA alum. Curvefinder is a a personal project Steve launched to explore how people all over the world are innovating themselves, their businesses and the people around them. His aim is provide practical tools and inspiring insights, as well as profiling real people or every-day-innovators making positive changes for themselves and others.
Number 1: Lighten Up!
Be softer and kinder to yourself. More generous and understanding. This is something I have to work on all the time. When I get it, it’s the magical icing on the creativity cake. Don’t “push” yourself to be creative. Dance or trick your way there. Pushing can take the magic of creativity away all too easily.
— excerpt from Curvefinder interview
Telling someone to lighten up is very easy to say. It’s a much harder thing to do.
During altMBA 12, which I completed in the summer of 2017, there was a lot of talk about productivity, goals and business-like activity.
In this forum it was great to see people be so open and vulnerable with what they were struggling with. But also, it was a little bit heart breaking to hear how people were talking to themselves.
Behind the surface of what I was reading was a subtle undercurrent and tone of self flagellation. “I need to do better”. “What I’m doing isn’t good enough, fast enough, bright enough”. “If only I could get myself in order, then things would really work”. This gave me pause and made me aware that we all need to be kinder to ourselves.
Now I’m no saint or holy women and should be counted among this group too — we all have that particular something something that we struggle with — but I also work hard to watch the undercurrents of my thinking. Since going full time as an artist in September 2017, I’ve been grappling with this in full force.
I find the rub for me is between what I think I should be doing — how far along I should be, the kinds of results I think I should be getting — and where I actually am. I’m a bit of a mad dreamer and every idea I imagine, I imagine to the fullest — like where my idea will be when it’s perfect and all the kinks have been worked out. And then, somewhat foolishly, I measure where I actually am, which is usually way the hell from from this perfect idea, against this perfect idea.
Geez. No wonder I feel shitty. No wonder we all feel shitty.
Fortunately, I am also an old hand with the dance of creative process.
Whenever you’re making something, you are bringing something new into the world; you’re asking the universe to change. And if you are familiar with quantum physics stuff (my personal understanding is murky beyond this single point) you will know that when you create something new in the world, there is resistance in the fabric of time and space. Things get crunchy and off right before they get going. And we’re not used to this. We baulk at it. Because we’ve been taught that making something should be straight forward and consistent.
Working creatively is anything but.
So this is where I offer, again, lighten up!
It will always feel yucky and weird and off-putting at some point in the process. Being creative asks everything of you, including to be brave and persevere in these moments. And the only way to give your all is to be kind and soft to yourself. Allow yourself to breathe. To rest. To redirect and start again.
You will have to remind yourself of kindness over and over again, which if you get it right, is actually something kind of brilliant to remind yourself of.
