Creativity

The 3 Essential Trials Of The Creative Process

Creativity isn’t always comfortable

As creators, especially those of us who produce content every day, we often find ourselves walking a tightrope between ambition and practicality. On the one hand, we have all these inspiring, earth-shaking ideas that we want to get out into the world. And on the other, we have all those pesky distractions like sleeping and eating and trying not to die alone.

On the tightrope itself, aptly enough, we have doubts. We wonder if we’re capable of seeing our ideas through. We question whether we’re talented enough or smart enough or if anybody cares about what we have to say. We wonder if we can keep everything balanced, and every step feels a little shakier.

This conflict between what we want to do, what we have the resources to do, and how capable we feel of doing any of it, isn’t the problem it sometimes appears to be. It’s an inevitable feature of the creative process. Not only that, but this balancing act helps us to produce better work, as long as we approach it in the right way.

So in the interest of doing that, let’s take each of these steps in turn, and think about how each of them can help us to produce better work.

1. The ideas phase

Do you know that expression, “There are no bad ideas”? This is one of the few times when it’s true. In everyday life there are plenty of bad ideas — watching Adam Sandler movies, mixing wine with spirits, eating yellow snow — but at the beginning of the creative process, nothing should be off-limits.

Ideas are fragile things and it’s easy to overlook a good one if you’re too busy worrying about how you’re going to execute it. The time for practical thinking comes later. If you try to be practical while you’re brainstorming, chances are you’ll give up before you get started.

Take writing a book for example. Nobody in their right mind would devote months and often years of their life to writing something that has every chance of failing miserably once it’s finished. The only way a sane person would even attempt something so foolish is by ignoring the practicalities until they’ve identified a good enough idea to inspire them. With that done, they can move on to phase two.

2. The practical phase

So you’ve birthed countless ideas, you’ve sorted through them carefully to find the best one, and now you’re ready to share it with the world. This is where you take a long, loving look at your concept, and come to the painful realisation that achieving it is impossible.

The practical phase is where ideas come face to face with reality, and as a result, it’s the phase where many ideas go to die. It’s where budgets are calculated, resources are allocated, and deadlines are set. If your idea is any good, this is where you’ll discover that you don’t have the means to fully realise it. Maybe you don’t have enough money or technical skill or a functioning time machine. Whatever it is, this is where all the whimsy has to give way to concrete planning. And that means figuring out what to keep and what to sacrifice.

Take me, right now. There’s a quote I read a few days ago that would be perfect for this section and I’ve spent at least half an hour searching the internet for it. No dice. There’s an increasingly urgent voice in my head saying, “Steve, that’s enough. Let it go, you still have to finish this.” Does publishing this article without the quote align with my original idea? Hell no. Is it practical to spend the next hour searching instead of writing? Also no.

Work doesn’t get finished unless there are practical constraints.

3. The critical phase

Great, so we have our big idea, we have a realistic plan for how we’re going to achieve it, now we just need to figure out whether it’s worth achieving. To paraphrase the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic park:

We creators are often so preoccupied with whether we can do something we don’t stop to think about whether we should.

There are a couple of reasons why this stage is so important.

First, figuring out why our project matters enough that we should be doing it, gives us a sense of purpose that will sustain us through the times when our motivation dips or obstacles appear in our path.

Second, criticising our ideas helps us to expose weaknesses that make the finished product stronger. In writing, this might be the editing process, where we take the stream of consciousness of our first draft and home it into something precise and meaningful by removing everything which isn’t necessary.

And third, asking why we should do something encourages us to make sure we’re creating something that will provide value. There’s already so much work in the world. How is whatever we’re creating going to contribute to that? We don’t have to say something completely new, but we should at least be trying to say it in a new way.

Conclusion.

To create anything of value, whether as artists, entrepreneurs, or human beings, we need grand ideas. But we also need constraints and self-criticism. In an ideal world, these three work in harmony to create a path from concept to a finished piece of quality work. If we miss any of these stages, the quality of the work will suffer. Or worse, won’t be finished at all.

Fearlessly embracing the ideas phase helps us to think big. Fretting about the practical details ensures that we’re not biting off more than we can chew, and questioning our work drives us to be better and strive for excellence. Each of these phases can feel overwhelming, but each of them pushes us to greater heights.

Just keep walking the tightrope.