When I was in school I wanted to be smart about what projects I worked on. I didn’t want to “just do the homework”. I wanted to work on projects that had meaning to me. Something I actually cared about. That’s when I started to develop my own personal projects that aligned with assignments I had. I found people in my life that I respected and believed in what they were doing. I found people that were just as passionate about something as I was about photography and video. I reached out to them to plan projects that would benefit both of us. I wasn’t looking for a buck. I was looking for a chance to make something I would be proud of and happy with. Even better yet, I was able to incorporate these projects within my school work. I found the time and the energy to make room for creative growth and projects I knew I would put 200% into. To this day, folks still love those old projects because they were personal and had meaning.
For some reason creativity has become a race about who can create more cool “stuff” faster than everyone else. We feel like we are being watched every day so we push ourselves to just create, make and build. That pressure does have its benefits for some, especially the hustlers, but what about our well being and happiness in being creative?
We live in world that is fast paced and competitive. We see what everyone else is doing pretty much all of the time. It’s awesome, overwhelming and at the same time stressful as hell. We constantly see others producing great work as we sit here reading about it all and just wishing we were better at what we do. Just hoping that the light will turn on in our brain and stay bright forever.
That is no way to live. Honestly, that’s a road destined for discontent.
We tend to forget that when it comes to personal work, creativity is not a race. Sure we have clients and deadlines to deal with, but that’s not the focus here. The focus is personal growth in our work. Are you happy with where you are? There is nothing wrong with wishing you were better at something, but you have to learn to appreciate the journey to a greater point in your work. As we see everyone around us making cool things and getting a ton of attention, we just keep wishing that was us.
We tend to grow impatient with ourselves as we see everyone else pumping out things we wish we were doing ourselves. Just so you know, the biggest difference between you and them is that they aren’t distracted by social media and other things. They are busy doing work and developing their creativity. They put hours, weeks and years into what they are making. Their techniques were not formed in one day. You have to step back from comparing ourselves to everyone else and really start focusing on yourself for once.
Now I want you to think about this for second. When it comes to creating personal work, why are you doing it?
Are you doing it for yourself? Is it an idea and concept that you are very passionate about, or is it something you just want people to praise you for? Is the mission behind your project flawed with the pursuit of popular success vs the pursuit of embrace? It’s easy to get distracted by the numbers, the likes, the shares, the popularity. Is it a project that could help others? When we are focusing energy into helping others oddly enough we can surprise ourselves and what we can achieve. My Fragments Project is a prime example of that.
Is your pursuit in personal work a true pursuit of who you want to become?
If your end goal is always reaching for a pedestal or a soapbox of attention, then maybe you need to rethink your focus. I am not saying you shouldn’t be reaching for personal success. Just hear me out. I find this next part the most fascinating.
When creatives focus on who they want to become through investing personal work that they truly want to do, they grow substantially more than any other type of work. One of the greatest parts about that is that new opportunities organically present themselves. When you do great work with your heart and not your head, the reward is usually much greater. It influences your work and people begin to notice. This series of events has happened time and time again for many professional and even nonprofessional creatives. They work on projects they have a personal attachment to and the rest is history.
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.
-Alan Alda
True success in our creative work is not something to be rushed. At the same time we must learn to push ourselves and devote time and energy to our crafts. It is important to give ourselves some sort of timeline, but we can’t beat ourselves up over comparing ourselves to others all the time. Are you pursuing something because it is “cool” or are you doing it because you truly want to?
Is it something that is a true part of you?
When you focus on just creating you learn to not worry about who’s in first place. You worry about creating. We tend to forget that creating things is success in itself. You have to throw away the dollar signs, blue ribbons, retweets and likes.
If you do it for you, those will come naturally. People are going to like great work, especially if it has a deeper meaning beyond the presentation of the work itself.
The best way to predict the future, is to create it.
-Peter Drucker
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