Image Courtesy of Graur Codrin and freeditigalphotos.net
Last week we began looking at tips for expanding your repertoire of creative projects and/or self-promotional efforts. I presented three: know what you currently do, detach from the idea that there's only “one way” to do things, and investigate your dislikes. Today we’ll look at three more tips.
We often hide from ourselves the fact that something is making us scared or anxious. Maybe we have real fears that our drawing skills or sewing skills aren’t up to snuff but keep dodging that painful information and paint or sew abstractly not because we genuinely want to work that way but because we know that our realistic efforts wouldn’t measure up. It's very brave work but very valuable work to look your fears and anxieties in the eye. Only then will you understand your true situation. That understanding is bound to open the door to courageous new efforts.
Articulate Your Possibilities
What new art do you want to attempt? What new marketing efforts do you want to try? If you don’t name them, it’s unlikely that you can pursue them. If, on the other hand, you can say clearly to yourself that you want to try your hand at some suspenseful short stories or that you want to learn how to self-publish online, that clarity of expression will help you begin to move in new directions.
Make a Strong Choice
Let’s say that you have several kinds of new art that you want to make: a venture into sculpture, a dance project, a new writing style involving using personal history, and so on. It's exciting to want to do many things but it can also prove paralyzing to have too many choices at once. Choose something strongly without second-guessing whether it is the best choice and without grieving that you can’t do X or Y today because you are doing Z. Until we make strong choices of this sort, we tend not to get anything done.
Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is the author of 30 books, among them "Coaching the Artist Within" and "The Van Gogh Blues," and is widely regarded as America’s foremost creativity coach. His most recent book is Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions. He is a featured contributor to the HuffingtonPost, ArtBistro, and Art Calendar magazine. Visit Dr. Maisel at EricMaisel.com.
