Yesterday I decided to do what so many experts tell us to do in order to develop our material, and that was to write every day. It’s a great idea, but here is where I screwed up…
As I didn’t want to be distracted I put my phone on silent. I turned on my computer’s “focus” mode, which stops all notifications, and blocks access to numerous websites, social media sites in particular (just in case I felt tempted).
I had Alexa play my “classical music for studying” playlist.
I opened a Microsoft Word document, typed in the draft title of my blog post…. and stared at my blank document for what seemed like an eternity.
Then I felt like a failure and told myself I had nothing new, creative or original to say on the topic, which didn’t exactly feed my creativity. And I called my writing effort done for the day. Not exactly a success.
Today was entirely different.
I got up early and had a cup of tea while reading a colleague’s new book. I met a friend at the gym at 6:30am for a great workout (which I also did yesterday). But here’s where it was different…
When I got home, instead of feeling the pressure to get into my office and start producing, I took my breakfast into the room generally assigned to watching movies. I flipped to the YouTube Channel and quickly found what I hoped would be an inspiring interview to set the tone for the rest of my day.
I chose to watch Marie Forleo interviewing Seth Godin. Awesome interview! (I’ll be sharing some tidbits from that interview in another post.)
And here is what happened… By the end of the approximately 20-minute interview I had outlined 3 juicy blog posts AND written numerous pages detailing a new program I am going to create for entrepreneurs (more about that later too). My mind was exploding with ideas.
And some of my ideas (the program in particular) were not in any way related to the actual topic of the interview.
So what happened?
Creativity is really connecting things together… often things that have not been connected exactly that way before. So really, it’s connecting and synthesizing to create something new.
My brain connects more when it is stimulated, and the conversation in the interview got my “connection” juices flowing. From there it took off.
I also disrupted the routine of going to my office to write, and instead went into the room I associate with fun and relaxation.
And finally, I was not attached (or even expecting) to create anything. With the pressure gone it happened naturally.
Before, I was coming at a creative task with a linear, logical approach. After all, I can at times get distracted, so turning off possible sources of distraction seemed like a good idea.
But it was the wrong approach for that phase of my creative process. I needed the stimulation to get my ideas flowing so I could capture the essence of them on paper.
Interestingly, now that I’ve had the creative flash of what I want to write about, I am back in my office “downloading” the words I want to share with you, with the same “focus” app turned on, notifications off, and my “classical for studying” playlist humming away in the background.
And now that works!
So what about you? Have you ever had a creative project where you felt stuck? If so, try these three things. Hopefully they will help you too…
- Have a source of inspiration to stimulate your creative process.
- Find a way to change things up and disrupt your routine or usual way of doing things.
- As much as possible, let go of any attachment to the outcome (yes I know this one is hard, but you can do it).
I can’t wait to see what you create. I’m sure it will be magnificent. Do let me know.