ARTICLE

Why having ‘Concentrated Attention’ is beneficial for ‘Creative Boost’

And how it ensures a delicate process for ‘Artistry’

For the last couple of days, I was relaxing a bit in terms of Medium writing. I was keeping my head and mind calm to identify a different route to embrace, which can resonate with me for my future journey in ‘Medium.’

Before you ask me ‘why’, let me tell you a story.

“A person joined Medium 4 months back — during the time of pandemic to escape into the world of words and to vent out the thoughts into meaningful stories. The person started to write content in Medium.

Then the person started engaging in other writers’ contents and started exploring different publications. He began to engage in stories, read lots of materials from various groups, and started participating in different challenges, fascinating ones that he loved and passionately contributed.

The experience provided him insights, diversified stories, and helped him to develop his writing. And, every little bit of encouragement, every small achievement offered him a giant leap of confidence.”

Smooth journey, right. By the way, the person of the story is me.

So, let’s talk about the ‘why’ part.

Why was I looking into a different route for my future journey in Medium?

Let me elaborate to answer it.

For me, the reasons to join in ‘Medium’ were to explore great stories and poetic tales from the vast, diverse writers and to express my thoughts within the crowd so that my words can find a home.

Once I started to write articles and poetry, those managed to reach only a limited number of readers. Then, after joining some publications and after following some writers (whose work I love), my contents got some traction.

And, I craved for more.

I started to conduct things that most of the new writers (without vast writing experience) do, activities to grab attention, to gain more and more exposures without spending meaningful time in the contents itself. In the process, sometimes I have joined in some Facebook group, which I shouldn’t have joined, started to read some stories which I didn’t have any interest (content might have been great), followed some writer in the hope of getting followed back or skimmed through contents to finish the story.

I got more claps, more followers. The appetite for attention increased more!

10 views to 20 views! It will be amazing if I get 50 views in one story. 100 claps to 200 claps! If I get 1000 claps in one content, I will be satisfied.

Only for that time-being! Then, the insatiable attention-seeking mind-boggling craving starts again.

I got exhausted. Exhausted to find ways of getting more attention, promotion, skimmed reading, follow-to-follow approach, and afterward, I failed to get proper time to write a few impactful words.

In the last 4 months, all the primary reasons I have joined ‘Medium’ were somehow vanishing into thin air. Exhaustion kicked in for attention-seeking activities and for writing continuously (to be regular).

What was impacted during the cycle?

My Writing.

When you are focusing on the product marketing instead of the quality of the product, no matter how well the reach of the product is or how amazing the marketing advertisement is, the product will eventually fall-out from customer demand if it doesn’t improve or satisfy the quality standard.

The same thing happens with writing. You learn from exploring, experiencing, reading, and expressing (with care). You can write every day, but you shouldn’t publish every day without proper quality check-mark. You should read more, but only if that interests you.

And, most importantly, you should be giving more attention: to your reading, to your writing, to the experiences you truly aspire.

It also means — caring for the other fellow writers whose contents you like, the publications you are involved with, to support others if it is within your capacity to help. Respecting others and their work respectfully teaches you to pay proper attention.

How ‘giving proper attention’ can be beneficial for everyone?

(1) It means you read what interests you; it means the pleasure of reading. (2) When you read the contents of your interest, you pay more attention; thus, you enjoy more and learn more. (3) When you enjoy and learn, you can develop your writing skill more — also you will explore more. (4) As a writer, when you explore more, the more you would love to express too. Meaning, more words from you. (5) Now, bring back the attention to quality. Give proper care to your content. Edit it, rewrite it, or sometimes, probably discard it all-together if it doesn’t fit the expression you have wanted to share.

From my limited experience in ‘Medium,’ I now firmly believe that for creativity, it is essential to feel interested and passionate about the thing you are trying to express.

Giving proper attention will ensure you do justice to the quality process.

The feeling of inadequacy from an attention-seeking attitude will never make you feel satisfied, and you will lose valuable time, efforts, and learning opportunities on that attention-seeking process. I’m not against promoting or marketing the contents; we need the balance of it.

In between the realizations and understanding of what’s essential to bring my interest back, I found and watched the following TED Video of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

It struck me with the exact words I needed to hear.

A couple of particular lines that hit me hard:

“If your creativity is driven by a desire to get attention, you’re never going to be creatively fulfilled.”

“… this whole creative process of writing and giving this talk, it’s been a huge opportunity for me to focus and really pay attention to something I care a lot about. So regardless of how much attention I do or don’t get as a result, I’m happy I did it.”- Joseph Gordon-Levitt

This cleared my views, and Thus, my transformation in writing has begun from now: - by focusing on the real interest that I care about in Medium, - to contribute accordingly, rather than focusing on gaining more attention.

And, I believe that my upcoming content will have a better reflection and improvement because of this process.

Wish me luck!