šš¼āāļø Dearest you,
Ever been so stuck in a creative process you donāt know what you should tear apart - the piece you wrote or yourself?
This quarantine - and a frozen down economy, letās be real š - gave me a big push to bring some great ideas out of my head and into the world. Some days that process is such fun, I feel like Iām the inventor of the phenomenon flow.
Other days though, itās like Iām burying myself alive in self-doubt.
I went on a walk to gasp some air and figured out there are essentially three relationships you need to manage in your creative process.
Letās call the thing youāre making The Work, whether itās an artwork, book, new business, or video.
These are the three things you need to manage:
The relationship between you and the Work
The relationship between you and the world
The way you deal with the relationship between the Work and the world.
In case you lost me by now, hereās the graph:
The big lesson here for me was to see which relationship you have control over.
Imagine that the triangle above wasnāt going about something you create, but about you and two of your friends. Youād have control over your relationship with fictive friend Bob and also over your relationship with fictive friend Martha. What Martha and Bob have between the two of them though - thatās none of your business.
What you feel or think about the connection Bob and Martha have is something you will have to deal with yourself.
The same goes for your relationships with the Work and the world.
I realized that often when I was doubting myself or the Work, I was actually trying to control the link between the world and the Work.
I would be anticipating what the world would think of the Work with thoughts like:
What will they think of it? Will they love it? Will they hate it?
Until I realized thatās none of my business. Itās my business is to create something kick-ass good.
And so is yours š.
Have a great week,
PS: Of course with sales, branding, pitching, and testing the market with a prototype youāre not completely in the dark. However, there is always a big part of the relationship between the world and the Work you canāt control.
FIND ME ONLINE:Ā emmastoks.com
ON THE GRAM:Ā double tap
I enjoyed this so much, so very true! Thanks Emma!