Creative Something

What to do when the ideas stop coming.

What do you do when you lose the motivation to create? When the ideas seemingly stop coming and any task feels like a burden?

You can give up, call it quits, and put off creating another day. But that will only make the situation worse, as a creative individual you need to create. And putting off anything only makes you fall behind.

So, what do you do?

You should relax, because your cognitive load may be overwhelmed from trying to think so hard. Take a short (timed) break from whatever it is you’re doing, five or ten or fifteen minutes should be enough. After your break, talk with another creator. See if they can’t help you with your task or if they can help point you to some positive inspiration. If you’re still not motivated and the ideas still aren’t flowing at this point, look for new motivation. The web is great for this. Sites like Behance, Thought Catalog, and Vimeo, all have incredible work that is sure to motivate you.

If, after each of the above steps, the ideas still aren’t coming, you may just need to dive in, to overcome any excuse you can give yourself.

The ideas are all there in your mind, sometimes you just have to let them flow freely without worrying.

Photo by Pete Birkinshaw.

You have to take action if you want to succeed.

When Chuck Anderson was just 18 years old, he set out to become a creative powerhouse all on his own.

Chuck had just finished high school and knew that he wanted to be a part of the creative design process that set businesses like Nike and Burton apart from the rest.

But there was a problem with his dream. Chuck wasn’t an experienced designer. So he spent a lot of his time doing design work for himself, envisioning what his work would look like for bigger things. Then, with only a small amount of experience under his belt and a passion for creativity that was nearly uncontrollable, Chuck spent countless late nights browsing around the web and tracking down email addresses for creative publishers and major companies.

Day after day he would email anyone he could, occasionally having to guess what someone’s email address could be in hopes of getting in touch with them.

Eventually, it worked. Studios began to respond to Chuck and, once they saw his creative approach to design, they wanted more from him. Within a very small amount of time, Chuck became a go-to creative designer for companies like Target, ESPN, Google, Nike, Reebok, and hundreds more.

While most of the kids Chuck’s age had some of the drive to pursue their passions, none were as driven as he was. The biggest difference between Chuck’s success and his former peer’s drudgery? Chuck was willing to take action, do the work, and spend countless hours pursuing his success. He didn’t ask for permission from anyone, or wait until he had built a large portfolio of work. Chuck didn’t sit around and daydream about how great it would be to get a job with one of the largest design firms in the world. He jumped at the opportunity to do what he loved. He waited for no one and nothing, he simply took action.

Action is a crucial step to creative success. Anyone can have ideas, only those who actually do something with their ideas are the ones who will make it.

“Success comes from taking the initiative and following up… persisting… eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life?” – Tony Robbins

What pursuing your creative passion looks like.

Ian Ruhter fell in love with photography when he was younger.

But as he grew older he began to tire of the same old cameras, the same old photography techniques, and the same old photos that everyone was taking. So he did something truly creative: he took his life savings and converted an old delivery truck into a giant, mobile camera.

Ian’s creation isn’t just a huge camera on wheels, it’s a modern take on a classic photo process called “wet plate collodion.”

The process requires a single plate, covered in silver nitrate, to be sensitized and then exposed and developed before the plate dries.

What makes Ian’s project even more incredible is that it costs him an average of $500 to make a single print, and he had to give up everything else he had to make the truck a reality. But Ian says it’s all worth it, because nobody else is doing what he’s doing and there isn’t anyone else who can do it like he has.

Ian saw something he was truly passionate about and came up with a creative idea to make it happen. The truck is one of the best examples of using creativity to pursue your life passion. While you don’t have to give up your life savings to do something as monumental as Ian has, his example makes you wonder about what you would do for your own creative passion.

To quote Ian: “If you had been searching your whole life for something you love, and you found it, what would you be willing to sacrifice?”

Watch Ian’s SILVER & LIGHT video to hear more about his project. And follow Ian’s progress on Facebook.

Hat tip to Jeff Hamada.

The inspiration around us.

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” – Leonardo da Vinci.

There’s a favorite story of mine that belonged to a friend I knew while growing up.

At the time of this story, my friend’s father had just started a small advertising design studio out of Provo, Utah. With the help of a business partner, the studio began to swell and grow almost immediately.

But there was a problem with the studio, they had no name and, more importantly for a design studio, no logo.

For weeks the partners of the company ran through drawings of potential logos. They stayed up late at night trying to come up with a logo that would represent their company perfectly, but none of the ideas they came up with were good enough.

Until one day while getting out of his car, my friend’s father accidentally spilled a drink onto the warm concrete outside of the office.

When he looked down at the spill it immediately struck him. The spill had somehow splashed in a way that resembled the appearance of a wise old man, with his hands placed against his forehead as if in deep thought.

“Aha!” the father thought to himself. The spill resembled everything that the design agency wanted to portray, of knowledge and wisdom and the effort it takes to creatively work on great design. The logo that the design studio uses to this day is that of a wise old man with hands placed against his forehead as if in deep thought.

Leonardo da Vinci was right when he said that all of our knowledge (and inspiration, for that matter) begin with our perceptions. “Almost with apology, since it seemed so obvious to him, [Leonardo] advised people to contemplate the walls, clouds, pavements, etc., with the idea of looking for patterns and images to conceptually blend with your thoughts.” writes Michael Michalko on da Vinci.

Everything we see, taste, touch, smell, and hear, has the ability to inspire us. Everything from the walls around us, to the clouds in the sky, to an accidental drink spilled onto the ground, everything has the ability to inspire us, if we only make an effort to look.

Today, try seeking out inspiration in everything around you. Make an active effort to touch, smell, taste, see, and hear, at least one or two new things today. See what’s around you that you perhaps haven’t taken the time to see before, because that’s where you’ll undoubtedly find new inspiration.

Illustration by Andres Ramos.

Anthony Burrill has something he wants to say every week.

For an unknown reason, Anthony Burrill has been doing something fun since the beginning of this year.

Every week Anthony has been posting a “Message of the Week” to his website. With messages ranging from ambiguous quips, such as “I am sorry, I do not understand,” to motivational pieces like “Say what you mean!”

For such an ambitious project (will he post a weekly message all the way through the end of the year?), there’s a lot of fun inspiration you can take away from it.

For example: what’s something you can easily create every week? What if you set out to create one piece of inspiration for yourself once a week? Perhaps Anthony’s weekly messages can help inspire your own weekly work?

Be sure to scan the whole collection here and see if anything strikes you.