[2022-12-29] Creativity

In today's Atomic Habits newsletter, James Clear quotes author Patricia Digh:

At the end of each year, I ask myself two questions:
1) What do I want to create in this New Year?
And, perhaps even more importantly,
2) What do I want to let go of?

Creativity is challenging for many reasons, but two that come immediately to mind are these:
  1. It's hard work to create something new.
  2. And it's hard to silence the negative voices in our heads.

These negative voices are, of course, our own, but they have been informed by many critics: parents, siblings, teachers, friends, bosses. We start out colouring in our colouring books and are quickly encouraged, ridiculed or shamed into "doing it the right way": colouring within the lines, choosing the right hues, representing what we see in conventional ways.

In just about any creative pursuit—writing, dancing, singing, painting, crafting—there is always a judge telling us how we could do it better, or in a different way, or in a manner that is more in keeping with their views.

It's little wonder we become less and less creative as the years go by. Our lives get busier, we lack the energy to overcome creator's block, and the ever-present critiques echo in our ears.

Rebelling

Caroline Cardwell said: "In a society that profits from your self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act."

So, what if you rebelled? What if you said, "In 2023, I'm going to create something I like"?

What would you create? A children's story, poem, painting, song, garden, wood carving, quilt, design, podcast, playhouse, game, cartoon, flower arrangement, model airplane, cookbook?

What would you need to let go of to make time for your creative endeavour and to silence the naysayers?

Inspiration

If you need inspiration for how to stay motivated, you might like Leo Babauta's The Little But Really Useful Guide to Creativity. When I wrote a related post many years ago, I selected a subset of Babauta's 31 tips. Twelve years later, I've chosen a slightly different set of ideas:
  1. Play.
  2. Look for inspiration all around you, in the smallest places.
  3. Start small.
  4. Ignore the naysayers.
  5. But let criticism help you grow.
  6. Teach and you’ll learn.
  7. Apply things in other fields to your field, in ways not done before.
  8. Write all ideas down immediately.
  9. Get out, move, see new things, talk to new people.
  10. Read wildly different things. Especially stuff you disagree with.
  11. Get lots of rest. Overwork kills creativity.
  12. Allow your mind to wander. Allow distractions, when you’re looking for inspiration.
  13. Then shut them off when you’re going to create.
  14. Do it when you’re excited.
  15. When you’re not, find something else to be excited about.
  16. Don’t be afraid to be stupid and silly.
  17. Small ideas are good. You don’t need to change the world—just change one thing.

In his full list, Babauta recommends creating and putting your stuff out to others as quickly as possible, even the crappy first draft, and then learning from the feedback. While there's nothing wrong with that advice per se, I don't think it's mandatory that you share your creations with others. And I say that as someone who does share her content with others—daily. But there can be huge differences between what we create for ourselves and what we create knowing that others will see it, judge it and perhaps share their negative feedback with us. When we change our products to meet the tastes of a fickle public, to get more clicks or to monetize our outputs, we risk losing the essence of our art and watering it down to meet the appetites of the masses.

So don't be afraid to create for yourself. And if you do share your work, follow Leo Babauta's advice to let the critiques help you grow but to ignore the naysayers. They're easy to spot. They're often the ones criticizing others without doing the hard work of creating and putting their own work out to the world.