3 Mindsets to Help You Thrive as a Creative
Fix the gaps in your creative process.
Are you a budding creative? Or even if you’re not budding (yet), do you aspire to be one? Does it haunt you that there are millions like you who want to be one but fail?
If your answer was yes to any of the above, this one’s for you.
Mindsets can make or break your game. Michael Phelps used visualisation to prepare his mind to win. As his coach, Bob Bowman says, “for months before a race Michael gets into a relaxed state. He mentally rehearses for two hours a day in the pool. He sees himself winning. He smells the air, tastes the water, hears the sounds, sees the clock.”
“The brain cannot distinguish between something that’s vividly imagined and something that’s real.” — Bob Bowman (U.S. Olympic Swimming Coach)
Tony Robbins always emphasises fixing your inner belief systems to change actions on the outside. Beliefs create a subconscious path towards our goals, which is why it's so important to fix them.
Forming a mindset can change your approach to how you do things and make you do them better.
You could be a writer who always struggles or a writer who thrives, the choice is yours. You and a fellow writer could both be making the same money, yet one of you could be miserable. What's the difference? Your mindset.
I have failed for years trying to “lose my tummy.” I could lose 25 kgs, yet never get rid of my belly fat. I criticised it every day as I looked into the mirror to change. I fat-shamed myself while hanging out with friends. Now, I am the happiest I have ever been with my body.
Instead of criticising a part of my body, I appreciated it. Instead of working out to get rid of fat in a certain area, I started working out for overall wellness. I appreciated my body for being strong and healthy, and I was so grateful for the million things it does right every second.
Because of always feeling happy and showing gratitude, I got in my image of an ideal body. I also changed things in my routine out of happiness and not force, which helped me get there.
Doesn’t this sound similar to the two writer story? Same goals, but one is miserable and one is happy because their approach is different. Let's check out mindsets you can cultivate to thrive as a creative.
Figure Out Your Big Why
Why you want to do something has a bigger answer than “I enjoy it” or “it’s my passion” if you introspect. Your Big Why is the biggest motivator to get you through the days you don’t want to be creative, as that's when enjoyment and passion aren’t powerful enough to pull you in.
Whatever creative work you want to do, ask why five times and answer it. It’s okay if you stop at three times and can’t go any further. But dig deep.
Let me do this publicly to show you.
Statement: I want to be a writer.
- Why? I love to write. It’s one thing I’ve been doing since I was 7.
- Why? I enjoy it and am good at it.
- Why? I love putting everything in words.
- Why? It helps me tell stories, I always have a lot to say and a brain bursting with ideas.
- Why? It can help improve other people who read it.
So, I don’t want to be a writer because I love to write. That's not my driving factor and won’t get me to wake up early and get typing every day. My reason for waking up early each day is to create art that can help improve someone’s life.
Find your Big Why now.
Practice Outcome Detachment
Let's say you want to be a Youtuber.
Your month one is all about learning, so you upload videos, and with each video, you upload you get a better sense of how to edit it and the tools to use. A month later, you feel a little confident.
Three months pass, you’re constantly creating and taking tutorials to create better, but the stats are negligible. You have a few subscribers, but with all this frustration you’re also running out of ideas. You want that one idea that will produce a viral hit.
You check stats every day, which makes your body heated with frustration.
Six months of being a YouTuber are now over, and most people will see their zero or dipping stats and will quit. They’re convinced that this was one unachievable dream.
You can either worry about how much money you’re making and keep refreshing your stats, or use that time and energy to create. Our brain has a limited capacity to use and process information. Consider it as precious and use it for good.
Your first 100 blog posts and videos may be shit, but that's because of this thing called growth. After creating 100 times, your hands flow more easily towards the art you want to create. So use it as a journey of exploration to know yourself better.
Set Milestones, But Be Empathetic.
You need to set mini-goals. Only if you know where to reach can you have directions to take you there. These milestones are the small steps to reach the door you eventually want to get to.
Steal my goal-setting method:
- Each month, set a goal of what you want to accomplish.
- Set a weekly goal on what can you do this week, which can help get you there.
- After each week ends, reflect on what went well and what did not, and what can you do better.
- With that reflection, create your weekly goal for the upcoming week.
- After your month ends, do a monthly reflection on what went well and what did not.
This will help you build a strategy. If you write to produce 4 videos a week, you may produce only 3 and that's okay because it's better than zero.
The second part is more important than the first one. Be empathetic.
There is a fine line between motivation and giving yourself shit, don’t move to the latter. If you don’t reach your weekly goal, that's alright. It’s why you do weekly reflection to re-strategise. Don’t give yourself flak for not reaching it and push yourself to reach a certain number. Appreciate what you’ve done and move on.
What we could not accomplish always teaches a lesson. Celebrate small wins. Celebrate your first 100, 1000, 10000 followers. Celebrate getting 5 likes. Happiness helps us perform better.
Finally
“The magic of the creative process is that there is no magic. Start where you are. Don’t stop.” ― Seth Godin
Your contentment and happiness is a state of mind. What may be enough for you may not be enough for somebody else, but how will that help? The lack mindset will always make you feel that you’re in lack, no matter how much you earn.
The abundance mindset can make you realise that there isn’t a deadly competition but there’s space for all of you to succeed. What you produce is what no one else can, it’s what makes you unique. Your Big-Why will get you to your table each day to produce.
Don’t focus too much on the metrics of stats of money, they seldom move by just staring but move by doing. Create, instead.
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