I am by nature a creative person. Since when I was young, my mind has always been submerged in personal fantasy and abstract thinking. While many people wish they were creative, there is something that creative people struggle with – Consistency.
For creative people, our minds work a mile-a-minute and actually implementing one of these million ideas can be quite a struggle. More difficult, is starting with something and not being able to stick to it since your mind already generated thousands of new ideas to add to the original concept.
The Cycle
Creative people, at least in my experience, have spurts of productivity and then a ‘downtime’ which many people call ‘laziness’ or procrastination.
This happens to me quite often. I come up with many fresh ideas, start on one and then somewhere in the middle of the process of implementing the idea, become de-motivated or start to procrastinate.
I eventually come back to the work, dabble with it a little more, then put it back on the shelf. Sometimes I’m working on 10 projects at the same time, bit by bit inching closer to completion. In some projects I have had months in between work, but eventually I get it done.
Setting Goals can help
I think one of the biggest issues with creative people is their ability to set tangible, actionable goals. In my case, I sometimes do create tangible goals, however they are not realistic in terms of execution. You cannot force creativity as you would be watering down the essence of what you are creating. You cannot rush the process.
What you can do, is set achievable goals. Something that you know will be within your creative threshold to complete. When you have big projects, smaller goals tend to help move the process along.
Sticking to your own commitments
Another big issue is that creative people aren’t paid for their creative processes, but for the end result. A Musician isn’t paid by jamming in his room, but rather once the song is polished and ready for sale.
This means that there is no economic incentive to creating new works. Thus, the creative person requires more discipline in creating their art. I find that by focusing my ‘satisfaction’ on the ‘completion’ of my projects as opposed to economic incentives help me stay motivated and continue to produce good work.
The idea is to create small ‘rewards’ for finishing a milestone. Buy yourself a new jacket or treat yourself to something you like every-time you finish a new goal in your process to creating art.
There are no set rules to being creative, but you can learn to train yourself to take advantage of your spurts of creativity.
Keep up the good work!