The other day I was working on a book project when I suddenly got a burst of inspiration to start another more exciting project.
My vivid imagination allowed me to see all the possibilities of this new adventure I’d be going on, and how successful it could be.
The more I thought about it the more excited I became. I was like a kid in a candy store, so excited and thrilled by my visions.
But then it occurred to me that I’ve been down this road before.
Sadly, I’ve reached this pivotal point thousands of times and have dropped “Project A,” which got boring for “Project B” because it appeared more exciting.
And once “Project B” got boring, I dreamt up “Project C” and repeated the cycle of dumping dullness for newness, over and over again.
The results ended up being a trail of unfinished projects left behind me, and a devastated look on my face at the end of the year.
By December, I’d be reflecting and asking myself questions, like what have I really accomplished?
I’d analyze my actions for that year, and scratch my head puzzled because things were not adding up.
I appeared to be so busy, and I actually felt so busy, yet had little results to show for all my efforts.
This leads me to the topic at hand.
I am surrounded by so many creative types who are my friends.
I can call one up now and ask how everything is going with them and they will tell me they are great but busy, and full of ideas.
They will brag about how they are working on several projects at the moment, and how they just came up with another one they are about to start.
Sometimes they can be so confident that it’s the one that’s going to really be huge and put them on the map.
It’s the same old story for many creative types.
We have millions of ideas. And if ideas made people rich, why are so many not, and sometimes nowhere near that?
A large majority of creative types live in starving artist mode, for the majority of their creative lives.
What I’ve come to realize is that too much creativity can cause disease.
What I mean by disease is the broken down form, Dis — Ease.
Meaning: To not be at ease. It can cause frustration, stress, and poverty among other things.
In my experience having too many ideas can lead to over-analyzing, overwhelm, overworking, and inconsistency.
Getting high off of new ideas can almost be like a drug addiction.
Having these inspirational hits can lead to emotional highs of excitement that cause some creative types to drop everything in pursuit of new adventures.
Then, when the excitement fades, they may be hit by a deep low blow of negative emotions when the real realities set in.
They can become overtaken by sadness, depression, or defeat.
If too much creativity can lead to disease, then how do we prevent this from happening, and enjoy the beautiful side of creativity?
How can we harness the great accomplishment it can bring without the negative side effects?
The answer I propose here is to tame one’s mind.
Taming the creative mind is the solution.
If the creative mind is allowed to roam wildly, it will keep your life in disarray.
The mind must be settled. Mindfulness and meditation can really help with this task.
We must become more aware of our thoughts and our reactions to those thoughts.
Many times we do things on autopilot, because we’ve always done them a certain way.
But if you are creative, I suggest you take a retrospective look at your levels of creativity and evaluate how you handle the intuitive hits you receive.
Here are some questions to reflect on:
- Are you reacting from emotion and impulse, or are you responding logically?
- Are you dropping things you are working on to engage in new things that seem more exciting? or are you listening in to your thoughts, taking mental or physical notes of new ideas, and saving them for future reference?
- Are you vetting and validating your ideas before diving head-first into them with your resources?
- Are you being the master or slave to your ideas?
Newsflash: Excitement naturally fades. This applies to not only ideas but most things in life, including relationship highs, events, etc.
A glittery idea, will only remain glittery for so long.
My recommendation is to try to see beyond that glitter to the heart of the idea.
Assess whether it really needs to be acted on in that moment.
Fast forward in your mind a few months to see if you will still be motivated to push this idea through the mundane boring points when the honeymoon phase is over.
Also, limit the number of times you will allow yourself to switch to a new idea within a year.
If you truly believe in the current idea that you are working on, promise yourself you will carry it to the end before jumping on another one.
The fact is we only have so much time in a day to work on things. That is, unless you have a whole team of people you can hand your idea over to, to implement for you.
New and even resurfacing old ideas that don’t move your current project forward should be penned.
In other words, written down in an ideas notebook for safekeeping till you have gotten your current idea to a state of satisfied completion.
A state where you actually have some tangible results you can reflect back on at the end of the year and smile at.
I now see the error of my creative ways.
Please do share your take on this topic.
How do you handle new ideas and your creative mind?
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