Happy 2022! I hope you're feeling the breeze of optimism and positive change that I've been feeling lately. Today I want to share a story with you about protecting your creativity.
I recently made a soft commitment to myself not to share any new paintings on Instagram for a while, but I wasn't sure how long. All I knew was that the performance aspect of social media was messing with my creativity, probably in ways that were deeper than I realized.
With the pressure off, I thought up some new ideas, and one of those ideas got me really excited, so I rushed to the art store to get a few needed supplies. I started my experiment and became even more elated about the idea and its many possibilities.
I felt the urge to share this new excitement, and my first reflex was to post something on Instagram. I took a few photos, cropped them, applied a filter and adjusted the color, and right before I was about to post it, I suddenly realized that the excitement I felt had been dampened. My imagination, hope, and playfulness had been replaced by a critical photographer's eye, and an evaluation of its worthiness as a post on the grid, which we all know isn't JUST a photo, it's a public statement about yourself. Preparing my creative spark for the eyes and opinions of others removed me from my own creative process and almost squashed it in its fledgling state.
I was able to get my excitement back, and I learned a big lesson. So, I've decided to create a new boundary for myself: Get to know a creative idea before pushing it out into the world; Don't rush into it, because new ideas need quiet nurturing and unbiased thinking. You'll know when it's ready to be shared with an audience.
