“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?” – Isaac Asimov
Have you thought about this before? It’s a simple idea ‒ certainly an obvious one ‒ but many of us tend to forget it as easily as we hear it.
Particularly for creative individuals, the obvious solutions that escape us are typically the ones we are trying the hardest to find. But, for whatever reason, we often place barriers between ourselves and the very solutions we seek.
Why?
Too often we go out trying to create a solution for a problem. We gather the resources and make the time and settle ourselves down to pursue the creation of a solution. In reality: solutions exist, it’s your job to bring them to light. Sometimes that means simply presenting the problem in the right perspective.
To quote this great article from Creativity Post: “…The most creative people are actually the ones who point out where the problems are in the first place”
So, if solutions are waiting for us to simply discover them, why is it common to struggle in search of them? Sometimes you might be letting fear get in the way of the perfect, obvious solution. You’ll say “But it can’t be that easy!” Though it certainly is. Or other times you might find yourself getting entirely too “zoomed up” on the problem you’re looking at. Your focus is so tight that you fail to see the solution just a tiny bit outside of your scope. Other times you might be too concentrated to really focus clearly, or maybe you’re coming up with excuses, or perhaps you don’t understand the problem as well as you thought.
Whatever reasons you may be getting stuck, one very feasible solution is to first make sure you understand what it is you’re trying to do or address, then surround yourself with all of the inspiration and information about that problem, then take a break and relax. Let the solutions make themselves clear to you.
It doesn’t always turn out that way, but it’s always worth trying if you’re feeling stuck.
Photo by Vincent.
In the 1920s a vibrant Dutch painter set out his tools in front of him.
Because he was a painter, his tools were limited to canvases, paint, brushes, and a few various painting items. His constraints – these painting tools – were the same constraints that other painters of the time had to deal with. There were, of course, ways to create different types of artwork at the time, but those methods took away from the original purpose of painting.
To be creative, the painter would have to do something completely different. But how?
This painters name was Piet Mondrian, and his work has become widely popular since the early 1920s. How did Piet use creativity to improve his paintings and set a place in history for himself? He gave himself even more constraints.
Constraints are often viewed as negative aspects of problem solving. When you are placed into boundaries the first instinct is to kick and scream and say “how can I be creative if I can’t explore outside the rules?”
Interestingly, constraints can help spur creativity by forcing you to work on just a single focus, a solid goal. When you pile on constraints in exploration, you block out anything else that may take away from your focus. You allow yourself to really focus your area of inspiration, often discovering insights in the small crevices of your work that you otherwise wouldn’t have looked.
Piet Mondrian did just that with painting. He looked at his constraints – canvases and paints – and gave himself even more: only working with straight lines, 90-degree angles, and primary colors. The result: Piet helped to spur on a modernist approach to art and fuel the creation of Neo-Plasticism. His paintings are recognized around the world, even today.
If you’re feeling creatively stuck, try giving yourself more constraints. Limit yourself to only using verbs, draw out your ideas using only basic shapes, restrict yourself to painting only on a sliver of canvas, do anything that forces you to focus on the creation.
Constraints can feel overpowering, but it’s in the small area of space you have to work with that new insights can form.
A few days ago I had the opportunity to hear YouTube videographer Devin Graham speak about his creative success.
While Devin mentioned how a number of his videos have received more than 5 million views, what really mattered to him wasn’t the level of success he had reached.
What mattered to Devin the most was the fact that he was able to work on his projects day-in and day-out. It wasn’t even the pursuit of success that made him enjoy his work, it was the fact that he’s able to do it at all. To quote Devin: “The tools don’t matter, the ideas do.”
This struck a chord with me, because Devin made it so obvious that success isn’t really what makes creative individuals happy. While creative success matters, what’s really important for true creative individuals is the ability to simply create. The act of creating every day, of focusing in on a project or problem, is what drives true happiness for people like us.
Think of the ecstatic artist who abandoned a traditional career in exchange for a run-down studio and oversized canvases. Or the gleeful writer who had to spent every day for three years sitting down to write in a small studio apartment. If you were to ask any one of these types of creatives whether they would trade in their situation for a shot at fame, they’ll likely turn down the offer. For them: it’s never been about success or money or fame, it’s always been simply about creating.
Imagine being unable to write or draw or design or explore your creative passions. For some of us, a day job stands in the way 90% of the time. For others, disability or a lack of opportunity hinders our ability to create. But there are no excuses good enough! To be a happy creative you have to create.
So, if you find yourself feeling down, or if you have recently lost the motivation to be creative, or if you feel burdened by other aspects of your life, try finding time every single day to create something. Let it be anything, there are no limits: create something handmade, or a poem, a unique photograph, a new ebook, a drawing of people you see everyday, anything you can do to create something every day and replenish your creative reserves.
Not only will you have something to show for your efforts at the end of each day, but you’re likely to feel happier and more fulfilled as well.
Recently on Times.com there was an article about the benefits of struggling.
In a world where struggling – and, more importantly, failing – is looked down on, it’s important to remind yourself that the only real way to become successful in anything you do is to flounder.
If you want to become a master of anything, whether it’s painting or writing or photography or being a leader, you have to struggle in the beginning. It’s through those struggles and failings that you often discover what works and, to the point, why it works.
So get out there today and make some wrong moves, struggle, and embrace the idea that you might fail in the things you’re passionate about. But by doing so, you’re building an understanding of everything it takes to succeed.
When conceptual artist Anna Schuleit was invited to create a work of art for the closing of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in 2003, she was almost immediately struck with a remarkable and truly creative idea.
Anna and a team of 80 volunteers spent a matter of weeks gathering, sorting, and caring for nearly 28,000 potted flowers to fill the then cold and abandoned mental center. The hospital was opened to the public for four days, where old workers, patients, and friends and family all shuffled through the suddenly vibrant and soft hallways.
The result, called Bloom can be seen in these spectacular photos.
“I was hoping to create a work that would bring aspects of play into the seriousness of the institution, an element of the absurd,” Anna states. “It would have been infinitely easier to work with just a few hundred flowers, or a few thousand even, but I wanted to reach my goal of twenty-eight thousand, because it had occurred to me at the beginning of the project that that was the minimum number that was missing here. ”
What Anna did was take a missing element from her topic (that of color and warm, welcome feelings) and turn it into a project which spurred many mixed emotions. She didn’t stop with just a couple hundred or even thousand flowers either, she went all out with 28,000 flowers, all potted and in need of care.
In your own work and life, what are the elements missing that should be there? What scale would you have to work with to create your own Bloom-like project? What absurd ideas can bring wonder and beauty into your own work?
Be sure to view more of the inspirational photos, and read the exclusive interview with Anna, over on Colossal.
(Hat tip to Mind Hacks.)