I’ve been working with creative and performing artists as, first, a therapist, and then for the last thirty-five years as a creativity coach. I’ve learned from my clients just how hard they find completing their creative work. Many creatives have trouble getting started; many have trouble working regularly; but almost all have special problems near the end, when the finish line is in sight. In this series, I want to spell out twelve reasons why completing creative work is so darn hard.
I’m framing this series from the point of view of a painter’s challenges, but the points apply to someone working in any creative field, from writing novels to game designing, from filmmaking to app development. I’m sure you’ll be able to easily translate the points I’m making to the medium in which you work. If you’d like additional resources, let me recommend three of my recent books: Redesign Your Mind, The Power of Daily Practice, and The Great Book of Journaling. Together they can provide you with a clear picture of how to get your creative work done through right thinking, good daily habits, and the self-awareness that journaling provides.
Here is challenge number 9.
Fear of losing your happy place.
You’re doing a series of red paintings. All that red is making you happy, buoyant and joyful. You have it in your mind that you will do a blue series next; and while that makes sense to you intellectually and aesthetically, it doesn’t move your heart much. All this red feels wonderful to you; the coming blue feels a little cool, verging on cold. So as to keep this loving feeling alive, you decide just out of conscious awareness not to finish these red paintings. You just want a little more time with them!
Or maybe you’re painting a complicated cityscape and you simply love the city that you’re translating and transcribing. You love its shapes, its resonances, its history, and its shadows—you love everything about it. So you decide, just out of conscious awareness, to keep adding to the scene—because you don’t want to leave it. In this way, you keep at this painting far longer than you “really” need to—maybe even to the point of ruining it with too many objects and too much attention.
The mantra to remember is that more love is available after this project is finished. Maybe the blue series will indeed prove cooler than the red series—but maybe the yellow series that comes after the blue series will bring back fiery passion. Maybe this cityscape is indeed enthralling—but the next one might enthrall you, too. You may have to mourn leaving this happy place, but leave it you must—for the sake of completing your works of art and for the sake of your new loves to come.
More to come!
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