A Hack You Can Try To Become a Creative Hero

I’ve stopped writing on Vocal. Well, evidentially, I haven’t – I’m writing on Vocal right now. Look at me go.

The point is that I had stopped writing on Vocal for quite a while. And now, like Arnie, or 90s fashion, I'm back. For a bit.

Are we clear yet?

Ebbs and flows. That’s what I’m on about.

Creativity ebbs and flows, it comes, and it goes. Sometimes you feel as creative as Piscasso, sometimes you feel as creative as a spreadsheet.

What really matters, what I’ve known all along, is that you show up, regardless.

Picassso (not the spreadsheet) said:

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

Consistency is key.

If I stop writing, if I stop performing stand-up comedy, if I stop exercising or playing guitar, those skill will atrophy.

And the main thing stopping us all from being consistent is our emotional state.

This is why Tony Robbins is so obsessed with “getting in state”. When you’re in a good state, you can do anything. When you’re in a bad state (you wake up with a slight hangover or a cold, you’re in a bad mood, summer isn’t summering and you feel pissed off for various – or no – reasons), you don’t want to do anything. In fact, you want to do the opposite of create, you want to destroy.

Picasso (him again) often destroyed his work. Francis Bacon too. In fact, artists, writers, and creatives of all types, destroy their work. It’s a well-known phenomenon.

I’ve gone through stages of wanting to delete every article I’ve written. Or delete every YouTube video I’ve made. Or wipe every shitty song I recorded on Soundcloud. When I’m feeling depressed and unmotivated, it all seems so awful and gauche, a towering monument to my stupidity.

But then on the good days, I want to do nothing but create.

This ebb and flow of emotions is natural, but what we, as creatives, have to do is work out how to be consistent even when you don’t feel like it.

Author Stephen Pressfield extols the virtues of consistency.

Pressfield explains one must treat their creativity like a pro – turn up each day, put in hours, and go home. He also says being a pro is about separating yourself from your work, and not letting the ego be attached to the result.

When Picasso painted over his works in protest, when Francis Bacon destroyed dozens of his paintings, I doubt they were being pro. But still, they produced wonderful art.

I’m sure some of the work they destroyed was exhilarating and the art world would be a better place if they had remained intact.

All I know is consistency is key. I feel it, I see it, I experience its potent benefits. When I turn up on the daily, or weekly, I get better. Way better.

If I do four comedy gigs in a week, by the fourth one, I’m on fire.

But I also know I can’t do four gigs in a week without burning out and becoming disillusioned.

So there is a middle ground to be struck.

I read about a woman who felt overwhelmed by having to complete a dissertation for her PhD. It seemed insurmountable until she broke it down.

She committed not to 5 hours a day, or 2, or even a singular hour. She committed to 15 minutes. Just a quarter-hour of actual focus and work. That’s manageable.

But of course, it’s not in the 15 minutes where the benefit lies, it’s within the consistency of that 15 minutes.

By the end of a week, this lady would have worked a total of one hour and 45 minutes but her mind, her subconscious, would have been joining the dots and working things out with efficiency and creativity that can only be achieved from being consistent.

Comedian Gary Gulman writes for 17 minutes a day (or it might be 12 – I can’t remember, Google isn’t helping me on this one but he explained it on a podcast). His thinking is that 17 (or 12) is a weird middle-ish number that feels manageable. And he just wants to ensure he shows up and works.

Like the lady and her PhD dissertation, Gulman understands it’s the consistency that wins in the end, not the minutes spent creating in one singular day.

So, basically, I’m telling myself off, I’m reminding myself, just keep on writing you idiot. Show up, even if it’s for a quarter-hour. Just keep being consistent.

Consistency is where the magic lies. And that’s this article right here. The start of a new consistent practice.

Perhaps.