One of the books I enjoyed recently is “How to Self-Destruct” by Jason Seiden (I reviewed it here). In a short section of the book, Seiden discusses his four-year-old daughter’s philosophy when she’s trying something for the first time:
“If I can’t do it,” she says, “it’s no big deal. I’ll just keep at it until I get it.”
Source: “How to Self-Destruct” by Jason Seiden
This simple mantra can easily be applied to creative work, if you’re feeling blocked. “Writer’s block” and the like usually occur because of performance anxiety, fear, or low self-confidence. Looking at your work in the “No Big Deal” way can be very empowering and can break down these blocks. For example:
- If you’re a writer, just focus on getting your first draft done instead of constantly editing yourself along the way. That’s what the second draft is for. Even the writers who win “Best First Novel” awards didn’t get lucky with their first try. In fact, those awards should be renamed “Best First Published Novel from a Writer Who Worked Her Ass Off for Years Just to Learn How to Write Like This and Find a Publisher“.
- If there’s a skill or hobby you haven’t tried because you’re afraid you’ll suck at it, know that you won’t reach success until you try and fail the first few times.
- If your professor harshly criticizes your first work, don’t let it deter you. Just remember that when he started out he was just as crappy as you are - maybe even crappier. Van Gogh himself was unlucky with his first commissions.
The idea behind “No Big Deal” is that everyone who attempts anything new is bound to mess up in some way, especially on their first try. It’s no big deal. It happens to everyone. Remembering this takes the pressure off, and we get to focus on what’s really important - the work itself.
Of course, I’m not saying “Don’t strive for perfection”, what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be a slave to it, expecting that you’ll create masterpiece after masterpiece. Just create! Don’t worry about mistakes before they’re made. Evaluate your work when the first rough version is done, then be aware of the mistakes. This process allows us to create the work first, while quality will take care of itself over time.
So let’s get back to work. Who cares if it’s not award-winning right now? There’s no way to get to a masterpiece without initial clumsy attempts.
Really, they’re not a big deal.
Image by Ratnesh Bhatt from sxc.hu
My name is Celine Roque. I'm a freelance writer, an aspiring cartoonist, and a proud owner of a rooster and three cats.
on Dec 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 am
It’s funny how much there’s in common, you actually described most of my thoughts and ways of doing. I’m sure you must have had many other ideas popping up :-). I hope you don’t mind if I add some of my thoughts to it.
I haven’t read the book “How to Self-Destruct” yet, but I seems a good (read: mandatory) thing to do. I think creativity (and lack of it) entangles almost everything about a persons life. It concerns your teeth, it concerns your family, it even matters how big the spider was you jumped away from. It’s the same question: can you handle the situation? And if so, what does it take to move from point A (worries) to point B (No big deal)?
When facing a writers block my rules are quite simple: don’t be lazy. Throw everything away and start all over again. It helps when having a strucuture, but be prepared to rewrite the whole darn thing many times over. Don’t cheat, don’t rely on the lines you wrote and you really liked, coz they’ll trick you into wrong directions. There’s only one exception to this rule: when other people - like teachers or publishers - want you to rewrite a story and you’re no longer ‘in charge’ of your own storyline or characters. Then you have to say: “I’m sorry, I can write you another story, but this one’s left the house.” Because they came alive and are from now on independent children of your creation. It would NEVER work and you WOULD kill apart of yourself.
When facing old habits that restrict me in reaching new goals, than the global rule for me is: destroy and rebuild. It’s fairly safe to destroy everything I’ve got, because most old habits (wich I’m obviously fond off) will regenerate. But they have to adapt to the new situation. First you sweep the floor, then you redecorate, then the old stuff finds a place. If it doesn’t then it goes trashbin. Adapt adapt adapt. I’m quite proud of this mantra-like approach. Very healthy.
Personally, the hardest thing for me is when I encounter difficulties on intellectual level. Because this means I have to accept defeat first. Throw away the idea of a perfect score. Wich can sometimes undermine the self image of being smart, resourceful, and independent. “You tosser! Yer precious ego got a slappin the face, what’s a silly rule gonna do? Put some ice on it?” Nope. So in general this would be an ego-problem. As for the latter, not asking the help of others is simply not wanting to redefine strategies.
If the problem (maybe a puzzle or a financial disaster) is to complex to overlook or comprehend as a whole, and this paralyses the brain, then chopping up the problem into pieces you can handle is a good strategy. Another strategy could be trial & error. Repeating untill ‘the system’ gets the hang of it, is just another way of programming neurones. I don’t have to be a genius, as long as I can solve my problems.
on Dec 3rd, 2008 at 5:42 am
Sorry for the late reply, Gio, as I’ve been swamped with work and personal errands in the past couple of days. I appreciate your comments on the blog
“When facing a writers block my rules are quite simple: don’t be lazy. Throw everything away and start all over again. It helps when having a strucuture, but be prepared to rewrite the whole darn thing many times over. Don’t cheat, don’t rely on the lines you wrote and you really liked, coz they’ll trick you into wrong directions.”
I love this paragraph you wrote. I think it’s true of all creative work, and not just writing. Even when I was studying film, I knew that The Great Shot or The Great Scene might not make it in the final cut, and I shouldn’t force it to as it might be detrimental to the film as a whole. It can be heartbreaking, but it’s for the best.
“Personally, the hardest thing for me is when I encounter difficulties on intellectual level. Because this means I have to accept defeat first. Throw away the idea of a perfect score.”
This really hurts the ego as well. But in cases where you can go back to the work and edit/change it for the better (under your own terms, of course), then it’s okay to have a crappy early draft/study/sketch, knowing that the work isn’t finished until you say it’s finished.
But for work that’s already “out there” such as a story or book that’s already been published, a blog post that has received harsh comments, or an art work on exhibit at a gallery, I go back to something my sculpture teacher said. She says there’s always a time you have to let go of the work - whether you give/sell it to someone else, it gets accidentally destroyed, or the mistakes you make aren’t salvageable or correctable. When this time comes, you shouldn’t fight it, as you’ve created something with a life of its own and it has to live out that life. The best thing you can do is to never stop creating.
Again, thank you for sharing your ideas, Gio. Do you have a blog or anything like that? The website you link to just seems to be a site gate. I’d love to see your other ideas online, as I feel we can discuss several things.
on Dec 3rd, 2008 at 5:44 am
I’m glad you asked
because I’m just thinking about starting a blog myself. I changed my mind from “blogging is a time-consuming hype with a hasty nature” to “blogging is a new and efficient way of centralizing and communicating thoughts that otherwise would be lying shredded al over the web, under different names”.
I’ve posted comments different sites, and many of the discussions have motivated me and other people to think positive about ourself, to regain faith in our potential and even to question things we’ve learned to adapt to. That’s why I’m feeling some regret about not having something that integrates all. A blog could be a wonderful solution.
It has also to do with my personal goals, like starting my own business (indeed the site is still under construction). The name “Mindmagnets” was chosen because I want my business to be network- and project-based. I want to attract, connect and work with all sorts of talented people, whether nerdy programmers, retired schoolteachers, game developers, philosophers, homeless poets or fundraisers. I want them and myself to enjoy our talent and creativity. It always motivates when seeing someone being good at what he/she does and really enjoying that. I also want people to work together, not being limited by imaginary boundaries. We can learn from each other. We can take part in each other projects. We can help each other evolve. Work can be a lot of fun.
I want to feel committed to my work too and work really hard, but also be able to switch off and take a few months a year to go somewhere else, a friendly, quiet and remote place (Ireland!) where I will take time to evaluate things, to write down the lessons I learned from work, to write short stories, to paint, to enjoy lounging around and contemplating and to make new ideas. I want that to become part of my blog also.
And yes, I too feel we could discuss many things because of the similarity in our approach, in work as in daily life. I already enjoy reading your blog and many of the things you wrote have motivated me to pursue my dream a bit harder (so thanks for that!). I even made online bookmarks to your blogs, so that other people may read your articles. And I must say, they are appreciated
You can check my online profile at http://clipmarks.com/clipper/janclip1300. If you don’t agree, please let me know.
Maybe our blogs could be linked together, i dunno, we sure can think of something nice if we want? But I’ll have to learn how to make a decent blog first… Well, I could use some tips
P.S. Good thing you added the part of “letting go” and “never stop creating”. It’s indeed very hard not to fight against it, as you want to protect your ‘children’. But even then it still hurts, every time again.
on Dec 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 am
Thanks for the online bookmarking! It helps spread the word about my blog and the discussions that could take place here.
Yeah, I’ll definitely link to you once you get your blog up. As for tips on making a blog, I learned a lot from Problogger (http://problogger.net/) and Skelliewag (http://skelliewag.org/). I basically use the Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/)platform because I’ve been working with it for years and find that it’s very easy to customize.