You can’t always do the work that makes you happy.
Ar least, for most of us, life doesn’t work like that. You have obligations to keep, bills to pay, relationships to maintain, and expectations to fulfill.
Someone who wants to live soley as an artist, for example, but who also has a family to look after, might not be able to be just an artist.
But that’s an excuse.
Life isn’t fair, of course, but if you work hard consistently you will undoubtedly encounter success. In-fact, Steve Jobs once spoke of success as being the ability to endure.
Running a side-business when it keeps you up at night is an aspect of enduring towards success. The artist who works a full-time job, takes care of her family, and still dedicates an hour of every single day to her craft is bound to encounter an opportunity to change all of that, to become the full-time, world renown artist she dreams of being.
It’s not magic. It’s certainly not a trick or a “secret.”
Creativity works this way especially. Dedicate yourself to your passion and within time (usually shorter than you expect, but often longer than you would like) you will succeed at achieving your dream. The creative who dedicates him or herself to a lifetime of ideas will undoubtedly come up with something that changes the world. It’s a guarantee.
Success in creativity (as in any other aspect of life) simply takes dedication, passion, and persistence. When others give-up or say “I can’t,” you simply have to be there to press on.
If I can do it, and if historically great artists and writers and designers and photographers around the world can all do it, why can’t you?
Photo by Greg Westfall.
I had this realization when I first woke up this morning. The image here is what creativity looks like. (If you can’t see the image click here.)
In the center is a problem, or issue, or topic, whatever you want to imagine there. It can be something you need to do at work, or your relationship with a best friend, or a goal you want to reach this year.
The outer points are the possible solutions, or answers, or outcomes.
For every problem or topic we have, there are a seemingly infinite number of solutions and answers. Creativity is connecting the problem to the solutions, and the outcome of any creative endeavour always includes more than one connection.
Your goal is to seek out those connections. They exist, they are out there, you simply have to look for them. That’s what creatives, artists, entrepreneurs, teachers, managers, and brilliant thinkers do: find the connections. It’s easy on the cover.
Of course, the same tool we use to find those solutions is the same tool that tends to get in our way, to convince us that we can’t do it or that an answer is too crazy or too boring to work. Even when they’re not.
The trick, I think, is to embrace the boring and crazy and unknown, and focus on finding as many connections as you can until you find one that you just can’t say no to. That’s where you’ll find success.
What is standing in your way from creating something right now?
That’s not a trick question, take a minute to consider it if you have to. Try to nail down one or two things that are preventing you from creating something, digitally, physical, or otherwise. If you can’t move forward what can you do?
The typical thing to do when there’s something in your way, is to give up or put off doing the work.
Even the most veteran creatives will attest to putting off something that they should be doing. Daniel Pink, Seth Godin, Steven Johnson, Scott Belsky, they all encounter situations where something stands in their way from creating. So they stop, or they wait, or they come up with excuses.
It’s natural to find excuses.
But that’s what sets those who are successful apart from everybody else. Realizing that excuses are just that: excuses.
It can be hard to try and find your way around excuses, the obstacles we see before us, or beat them down, or get help when you really do need it. But that’s what makes the work all the more worthwhile. More often than not – especially with access to an unfathomable resource of information and help and tools on the internet – all you need to do is go around what’s standing in your way.
The artist without arms simply uses her mouth to hold the brush. The writer with no ideas simply writes about not having ideas. The designer without the right software on his computer uses the free tools available online.
You have no good excuses, you can’t tell me that you do. If you feel like there’s something in your way, just walk around it. Find a way (there really is always a way). No excuses.
“Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub, It is the centre hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel, It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room, It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there, Usefulness from what is not there.”
Ideas which are almost seductive, that are symmetrical, ideas that have the right pieces missing, and which are sustainable, are ideas that win.
If you look back at any of the most successful ideas over the past hundred thousand years, you’ll notice that they each have these attributes in common.
It is elegance that sums up these commonalities. Elegance is what can make or break your ideas in the real world, and the book “In Pursuit of Elegance” by Matthew May is chock-full of anecdotes on how to create elegant ideas.
I just finished reading the book and it instantly became a classic in my personal library. In‒fact: I think this book is so worthwhile that I want to give you a signed copy. Read on.
Want to win a signed copy of the book?
Simply subscribe to get Creative Something articles by email using the form on the left side of the website and that’s it. If you’re already subscribed, you’re already eligible to win!
On Friday, January 6th, 2012, I’ll randomly select winners to receive a signed copy of Matthew’s remarkable book.
Be sure to share this with your friends so they have a chance to win a copy of their own too.
UPDATE: Winners have been selected and contacted by email. Thanks to everyone who subscribed!
Disclaimer: I have not been paid for this post. I merely read the book and enjoyed it to the point where I just had to give it away. After contacting the author, Matthew May, he offered to mail signed books for me to give away!
Posted December 28th, 2011
January 1st is a defining moment. On that date, four years ago, I started a small website dedicated to creativity. Today, after almost half a decade, Creative Something now stands as the leading blog for creative ideas and inspiration.
Thanks greatly in part to you.
When you read these articles and feel some sense of inspiration or motivation, then I’ve done my job. When you share anything you find on this website on Twitter or Facebook, through Google+ or email, that means you’re finding value here, which is ultimately the goal of everything I do here.
So thank you for making this all worthwhile. Come January 1st, 2012, Creative Something will officially be four years old, and I hope to continue sharing tidbits and insights of creative ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and news with you (which means, if you haven’t subscribed by email or RSS, do so now on the right column of the website).
Now, let’s look back together on some of the highlights of Creative Something during the past year, 2011.
1. The rules of a creative’s life.
Nine simple rules that help propel creatives (that means you) to success. Whether you’re an artist, a writer, a craftsperson, an entrepreneur, a student or a teacher, or anyone in-between: these rules are for you.
2. Yes! Your creativity is what the world needs.
Really, artists and creative geniuses, successful entrepreneurs, famous writers, all of the people you looked up to and still do, they are all exactly like you when it comes to creativity.
3. Why your brain is utterly creative just before sleep.
You’re just about to drift off to sleep after a long day, and your brain will not shut down. Rather than going comfortably to sleep land, your brain starts to run around and you find yourself coming up with ideas or solving problems. Why is that?
4. What is creativity, and why should I Care?
Think of everything in your life that you use regularly – the coffee maker, chairs, books, computers, phones, paper and pencils, cars – and suddenly you realize that all of these things, all of these tools and resources were created as a direct result of creativity.
5. Everything is easier once you start.
Whenever someone asks me how I was able to write a book, or become a world‒reknown designer, or start a number of companies, or work with some of the most creative people in the world, my answer is similar: I just did. And you can too.
Thank you again for reading, sharing, and being a part of this rapidly growing creative network.
I look forward to seeing you next year!
Fireworks photo by Kenny Louie.