Unblock Inspiration – Unlock Your Creative Mind
Books like The Artist’s Way promise to guide “you through the process of recovering your creative self”. Personally, I’m a bit suspicious of anything which promises to make you a better person, if you just follow simple steps.
One problem is that if you don’t meet these lofty expectations, once the course is over you are likely to fall back into old self-defeating ways. You’ll then probably feel even less inspired and less creative.
The book or the course led you to believe you needed it to be creative. But once you’re without that comfort blanket, you are abandoned once more to face your inner demons alone.
Born to create
As my parents are artists and art teachers, I was born into a creative way of life. As a child I was told repeatedly that expressing yourself through art was the one of the most important things in life. So, in the proceeding 50 years I’ve rarely had to reach for that process.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t fought the demons of self-doubt, myself. Those demons raise their voices on a regular basis. At least a few times a week.
But despite those demons, I have managed to get on with my creative projects. I might not be wealthy in terms of numbers in my bank account, but I believe this way of life is worth more.
Humans are creative
I’m no more special than any other human. I believe we can all live a creative life if we want to; if we find a way to unlock this potential within ourselves.
Well, in fact, you’re already leading a creative life, you just might not realise it. When you speak, for example, are you copying someone else? Or are you making it up as you go along?
Just simply talking to each other (in whatever way we can) is one of the most amazing acts of spontaneous creativity.
The problem is, when we sit down to create something on purpose, we can be afraid to be spontaneous in this way. Our minds can become filled with the fear of inadequacy.
Our goal then becomes not to express ourselves but instead to reach an accepted level of artistic competence.
And that’s where everything starts to go wrong. This way of thinking, which is very human as well, is what stops us taking the next step. We then become our own worst self-defeating enemy.
Building up too much expectation
When we are born, no adult has too much expectation of us. We are helpless babies. We can’t walk, we can’t speak, we can’t even feed ourselves let alone paint like Michelangelo.
At that age, as we scribble with crayons on paper, or splash paint here and there in a seemingly random fashion, our carers are full of smiles. They’re just (all going well) happy that we’re happy.
But then, as we start to get “better” at things, expectations start to arrive in our relationships with other humans.
This really kicks off once we arrive at our first school. A place where we are expected to “do our best”. Here, we are expected to strive to reach set levels of ability. We’re supposed to try to be good at stuff.
Those who reach or pass these levels are held up as the best and admired. Those who don’t…
And in this way, the first self-doubting demons are placed into our minds.
“What if I’m not good enough?” says the voice.
Don’t worry, it’s human
Would you be a better artist, or even a better human, if you didn’t have that voice in your head? Probably not. Most likely, this is a useful, healthy voice. As long as it doesn’t get so loud it’s the only thing you can hear.
When the voice of self-doubt is this loud, that’s when we might find ourselves creatively paralysed.
Trying to create with this dominating fear inside us is a bit like trying to have a natural conversation during a job interview. It’s one thing expressing yourself to your friends over a casual coffee. It’s another thing expressing yourself when you feel under intense pressure to impress the people you’re talking to.
In an intimate conversation with a trusted friend we’re more likely to be fluid, funny, reveal our inner feelings, authentic and generally tell better entertaining stories.
Switch that to the stressful interview situation and most likely we are terrified of saying the wrong thing. What if we make a mistake? So we rehearse everything before hand, trying to second guess what might be asked of us.
And this is very similar to what happens when we approach creative activities like writing a book, a short story, a poem, a song or a screenplay. Or when we are trying to act well in a film or on stage. Or when we are trying to paint or take the perfect photograph.
Rather than letting the idea come freely, we start to try to second guess. “What do I need to do to impress people? What do they want me to say?”
And the biggest block of all, “I must not make a mistake.”
The fear of being judged
Once we show up at school, we are almost instantly graded and tested to see how good we are at stuff. You thought learning was fun? Forget about it – this is all about being judged, ranked and placed in an order from bad to good.
No wonder, then, when we decide we want to write a book or paint, the biggest obstacle in our minds is the voice that says “But am I good enough?”
And by listening to this voice, and only this voice, we have already completely undermined ourselves. By letting this voice take over the creative process we distance ourselves from authentic creativity.
We are more likely to become plagiarists too. Because if our goal is to be masters of our art, then we may as well just copy those who are already recognised masters. And – importantly – recognised by the great authority, be it art buying masses or art critics.
Art by Ego
When you were a toddler, happily scribbling bright colours on paper, your mind was focused on the paper. And you were briefly possessed by the sheer excitement of seeing colours appear on it.
As an adult, that paper can appear a thing of gut wrenching horror. We no longer focus on the paper, we focus on what the depiction on the paper says about us.
Rather than focusing on what we are creating, we start to focus on ourselves.
“What will people think of me by this thing I’ve created?” we ask ourselves.
“What if people see it and judge me as not good enough?”
“What if I don’t pass the test?”
And this is a process that happens from childhood to adulthood, whereby many of us become detached from the creative process. Instead, we become attached to a process of approval.
Some people become so detached from the creative process they were born with, it’s like a treasure they buried on a desert island decades ago. And now they’ve lost the map and they can’t find it again.
We’re going on a treasure hunt
How do people find secret buried treasure?
Why, they go on adventures, of course. They take risks ordinary people wouldn’t take and set off into the unknown, to seek places as yet undiscovered.
They don’t paw over endless theory books on adventuring or spend their free time reading 5 Best Pirate Ships for Adventuring articles (actually, that would be a fun list to read). Do they worry whether they’re adventuring correctly?
No. Because you can’t measure an adventurer’s skills. There’s no way to quantify the success of an adventure. And there’s no PhD in Finding Buried Treasure.
And that’s why it’s so liberating.
But if you want assurances and guarantees, you’re looking in the wrong place. There are no guarantees when you go on an adventure – that’s the whole point of them. That’s what makes them exciting.
If you want certainty, then that’s probably why you’re struggling to motivate yourself to get started on your creative project. Because certainty is the complete death of creativity.
Tips on how to become a creative adventurer
Creativity is a conversation. But try to make it like the one you have with your best friend over a few drinks.
There’s a reason why you reveal your secrets and your feelings to your best friend – you trust them not to judge you. You feel like they accept you for who you are. So you relax and are able to be yourself.
Your best friend isn’t going to tell you you’re not good enough. They going love what you do and encourage you to do more. By the way, if you have a best friend who says you’re not good enough and discourages you from following your passion (it happens), I suggest they might be part of the problem.
On the other hand, if you approach your creative project like going for a job interview or passing a test, you will actually stop being creative. Instead, it all becomes about trying to second guess what people want and which hoops you have to jump through to succeed.
If fact, you don’t stop being creative. It’s just that your creativity gets redirected thinking up imaginative excuses as to why you can’t be creative right now.
Thing is, humans can’t stop being creative. The core of being human is to invent. However, once we learn to fear being judged, that creativity gets employed everywhere except when we are sitting at our laptop trying to write. Or at the canvas trying to paint.
So the first step to becoming a creative adventurer is to realise you already are one.
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