Wrestling with Creating

Do you ever have those moments when you need to create something. Not need as in a deep itch or passion, no a need as in if I don’t make this I don’t know how I will put food on the table or my business won’t go on or I won’t have content to show people that I am being productive. The need is less a place of passion and more a pressing obligation. It feels heavy, like a weight on your shoulders that you know you won’t shake until you see some sort of “result”. Well I get that feeling often, so if you do too you’re not alone. For the rest of this blog I am defining “need” as that weighty feeling that I wouldn’t call good.

For my creative process one of the best/worst things that can happen to me is feel the need to create. Usually I tend to lean into my care free, devil may care personality type. I go with the wind and fly by the seat of my pants with the best of them. Im the “doors off the jeep”, “jump off the quarry” kind of guy. But deep down there is this switch that I can flip, one that turns on a type A productive, crush the “to do” list, nail the deadline by the last minute person. Ill be the first to say I HATE being that person. I want to wake up in the morning and just do whatever feels right. This does not mean I am lazy or I don’t want to get things done. I. would just rather whatever I create, music, coffee, poems, stories etc flowing naturally out of my being. I want my greatest business ideas to come during my run through the woods. I want the song that is in my head to translate through the guitar as I sit in the grass outside. I want the coffee that I make to be excellent for my friend as we catch up about life. But sometimes in order to have space for those moments I have to create things outside of my ideal timeframe. I have to flip the switch.

That is where I find myself tonight. Stressed to center of my being because I have a deadline for content to be produced. Videos that need edited, podcasts that need, made blogs that need written. Apparently success in your business means consistency from your brand. Welp i’m learning that the hard way. That is why these deadlines are good, and flipping the switch and feeling that need to create can be a good thing for me. But I will be honest and say that in moments like tonight when the weight of the deadline feels like 1000 pounds sitting on my shoulders I don’t enjoy it. I am learning what it means to have consistency in my brand from the types of photos that I post to the cheesy captions I have to write to the videos my company rolls out to the audio in our podcast to the production of blog posts on a regular basis and the list goes on and on and one. I have to be that type A person to keep up with it all. And therefore I am grateful for that switch that allows me to feel the need to create. Even when it’s hard.

So what? Why put this out there? Are you just whining? I hope that you see the answer to that last question is no. I believe that at some point or another every person creating has this feeling. This need that sits on your shoulder and says “what you are making isn’t genuine”. “You are just putting this into the world because you need too.” I am here telling you that this need doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can bring the best out of you. What if I told you that anytime you created something it was good. That the bar or metric you are using to compare yourself was broken. Don’t hear me saying that there isn’t art or business ideas or music or poems that are less skilled than others. Sure there are. Don’t hear me saying that everything I create is gold, that I have the minus touch of creation and that there are no standards that I should aim for. Thats bogus and we all know it. What I am saying is that sometimes the process of wrestling through creation is more important than the product you create. I’ll say that one more time to let it sink in. Sometimes, the process of wrestling through creating is more important than the product you create. When I feel the need to create, most of the time the product I produce is what I like to call “hot garbage”. But if I don’t wrestle, if I don’t attempt to create anyway. That is when life is at it’s lowest.

So my challenge to you reader is this: even when you feel as if you can’t create because the need is squashing your creativity. Wrestle though it. Create something anyway. If it is “hot garbage”, well then it’s hot garbage. But I will go out on a limb here and say that for the people that have felt what i’m describing, push through it and create anyway, they have made some incredible things through those spaces. If ever you feel this weight, or maybe you are in that space right now, this is for you: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Almost as important, your creation is not disingenuous. Our world needs creators to keep creating, even when they don’t feel like it. So please keep creating, keep pushing, keep wrestling. I create because I dream of a world that is more grand and beautiful than the one I experience. I create in hopes to inspire you to create alongside me because I can’t create the world I dream of alone. So please keep creating beautiful things and making the world around you a better place.