My Creativity Process (head on a wall to idea in the shower)

Creativity is a process, at least for me. It’s often messy and sometimes it looks like procrastination. I argue it’s all a part of the creativity process.

I’m not encouraging that we all sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. We certainly can’t wait for the muse to hand us a completed successful project on a silver platter. I do believe we are all creative and that we have to do the work.

AND I believe that sometimes it requires patience, silence, and dare I say faith? Sometime you just have to keep trying, keep churning out work, keep making failed attempts. You have to believe that your breakthrough is right over the next mountain.

the professional creator

Being a professional creator is hard because you have to create good work even when you don’t feel creative or inspired. That’s when you rely on your practice, your habits, your skills, and your instinct. Because creativity isn’t always optional.

But what I’m talking about now is new ideas and inspiration that makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning. Maybe you’ve spent weeks banging your head against a brick wall doing the work and making the effort. You’re relentlessly writing your morning pages, taking your photos, or sketching your ideas but all the while stuck in quicksand.

fertile ground for flow

That’s different than when the words flow effortlessly or composition comes easy or the drawing simply emerges. Creativity is both throwing ink at a canvas and making something new while also making intentional deliberate brush strokes. Creativity is thinking up a new idea that seems perfect and also trying a crazy one that probably won’t work.

It all connects, it all combines, and it all works together to be the end result.

You have to create fertile ground for flow to happen. I don’t expect inspiration to strike every day I sit down to create. However, I have to sit down to create if I expect inspiration to strike.

fail first… and second

One of the biggest lessons for me in the creative process has been realizing the failure is key. If we fail and quit we will never create. If we get really good at failure then eventually we’ll break past it.

Inspiration will strike when we’re not stressed, when we’re in the shower or right after we watch a good movie or grab lunch with a close friend. Inspiration will strike because we’ve trusted the process.

So trust it.

Trust the process.

Create, fail, try, throw ink, get messy, procrastinate, and repeat.

let me know how it goes

Seriously! Drop me a message, comment, e-mail, or vibe and let me know what your process looks like right now and how I can help.

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