Overcoming Creative Inertia
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đ 5 Minute Read
Contrary to our highly individualistic conceptions, creatives often face the same challenges and difficulties that those before us have conquered, or at least effectively managed.
Things like conquering "impostor syndrome", getting stuck in the weeds with merging creative and business, attracting and retaining valuable clients, and building a lasting career. But, we like to pretend that our âuniquenessâ is what keeps us from following suit with proven solutions.
The result is perpetuating the very problems that we struggle to absolve. Thinking so âdifferentlyâ that we miss the obvious solutions. Innovating so hard that we skip over the next step, leaving us with unstable footing. Helping others with such sincerity that we pretend our own problems donât exist.
Iâve yet to meet a creative who doesnât fall into this sort of self-sabotage in one way or another. But, itâs only a problem if we allow it to continue.
Here are a few guiding principles that I consider to be the hallmarks of overcoming creative inertia, and building a life and career thatâs powered by creative intuition, not held back by it.
1. Youâre not special.
Though it sounds trite and borderline offensive, itâs unavoidably true. We subscribe to these counterintuitive thoughts about ourselves that are often unproductive and uninformed â they derail any meaningful progress we make, and laugh in the face of tried-and-true methods, simply because we think we're the outliers.
For example... you will get by in your craft by devoting obscene amounts of practice to its mastery, as those before you have. Yet, we easily fall into the trap of the "overnight success", choosing to believe our uniqueness will compensate for the hours.
Similarly, we tend to think that inconsistent sharing of work & process will result in anything less than obscurity, when the very people we follow have been sharing consistently for years, before finally reaping the rewards.
Just like everyone else, clients come from actively promoting, marketing, sharing, creating, and networking in the same fashion that other successful creatives constantly do. Contrary to what we think, Google isn't on our side by default, distributing our valuable work because it's supposed to.
As creatives, we have this killer intuition to notice and follow âthe path not takenâ â which is great in some cases, like discovering the unseen solution to clientâs difficult challenges! But what it also does, if left unchecked and unfocused, is find the lazy way out of hard work; Is shape personal beliefs around invalid experiences; Is feel âstuckâ because our weird way of tackling the challenge of growing a business didnât pan out the way we thought.
Just because youâre naturally talented doesnât mean youâre exempt from the grind. You still have to do the hard, uncomfortable work that everyone else does. You still have to persevere in droughts like everyone else does. Creative business doesnât run on inspiration, it runs on hard decisions and dedication.
Youâre not the first and last creative the world will ever know, so donât be held back by thinking as such.
2. Always be sharpening your axe.
If youâre going to cut down a single tree, you might get by without sharpening your axe more than just once â after all, itâs made for that singular task, so without any extra work, itâll get the job done.
But, if you plan on cutting down a small forest, and continuing to do so for years to come, youâve got to keep that axe sharp.
The same is true of creative work. Your skills, intuition, experience, and personality might get you a couple initial clients â itâll feel good to somewhat effortlessly accomplish their goals without stretching yourself very far. Itâs the low-hanging fruit of client work, and it tricks you into thinking that all creative business will be this easy.
But then you want to charge more, or get more clients, or face more challenging problems. Your low-effort approach no longer works, and you start to believe that maybe youâre just not cut out for this kind of work â but in fact, you just need to sharpen your axe.
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3. Stay the course.
Youâve heard the saying⊠âEvery overnight success was actually 10 years in the making.â
And itâs true. But then why does it feel so bad? It might be the uncertainty, or perhaps the sheer amount of work that we assume is involved. But I would submit that what weâre actually afraid of is time.
Weâre slow-averse people, us creatives. We want to see those âlikesâ pile up in the first five minutes after posting. We download the buggy beta version of macOS just because we want those new features, like yesterday. We order Jimmy Johns four days in a row for lunch because driving a few blocks away would take too long.
And, itâs what we expect of our own careers. The destination weâre driving towards is on the map: Weâve got instructions from people who have been there before, clear landmarks that youâre heading in the right direction, and even autopilot for some of the stretches that can be automated.
What we really fear is the ETA changing. Weâre afraid that our well-prepared, well-intentioned attempt at a career will just never get to that destination, and all of our efforts will be for nothing. Fear not, you will get there eventually. Stay the course, and just keep going. The ETA to success might change to âtodayâ, but youâll never know if you stop too early.
4. Optimize strengths, outsource weaknesses.
Weâve all got those one or two things that weâre innately good at. It may not even be a particular skill set or ability, but more of a concept or process that weâre particularly keen to.
Creatives like to etherealize this concept by attributing it to a âmuseâ or a âgeniusâ⊠but Iâd like to believe itâs the most human thing about us. Weâre the same in many ways, but we each have something genuinely unique that contributes to the whole of society and gives our lives some intricacy of purpose.
Whatever that thing is, triple down on it. Itâs the key to your unique success, and itâs what differentiates you from the competition more than any nice branding will. The idea isnât necessarily to get so good at it that you crush the competition, or some kind of intense outcome like that. Rather, the goal is to be measurably more focused on what intuitively progresses your goals than the things that donât.
And for the things that are the exact opposite of that â the things that take you absolutely forever to do, and that drain the life out of your very bones â pay someone else to do that, especially if itâs their area of greatest strength. It might be accounting, social media, marketing, or even selling. Whatever that thing is, the sooner you get rid of it, the sooner youâll be able to grow your greatest strength to its fullest potential.
Parting Thought:
While there are surely an infinite amount of platitudes that aim to improve your life, these four truths have gotten me through more than a couple rough times, and helped reorient my perspective. Pursuing a creative career isnât always easy work, but it doesnât always have to be as arduous as we pretend it to be.
