The dark side of inspiration
Looking for some spark in unlikely places
Here are 3 cringy and unromantic sources of inspiration. That I use regularly. They aren’t sexy and might even feel a little shameful at first, but they work like gang busters.
1) Jealousy & envy. We hate to admit it when we’re truly envious. Not “OMG jealous” envious, but the kind where you find it hard to engage with the object of your envy and their work. You might not even acknowledge your envy for this person, and instead pick them apart with judgment and criticism. ESPECIALLY! If they are doing something that you have wanted to do, but stopped yourself because you were afraid of embarrassment.
This is such a powerful signpost on the road home to yourself. As painful as it might be, don’t look away! Instead, ask what is it that you truly envy about them? What’s stopping you from doing/having/being that?
2) disagreeing. This can be a tough one for us people-pleasers, but disagreeing with someone is creative rocket fuel… as long as you make it about you, not about them. Let me explain: their creative choice was absolutely correct for them, so it’s not about them being wrong. This is about you, and the creative choices you maybe didn’t even realize you wanted to make.
You can try doing a creative sparring match. You can do this alone. Pick someone in your weight class (similar work, similar experience level), go through some of their oeuvre, and notice all the choices they made that you would have done differently. Make sure to bow and thank your opponent.
Then go and make some creative choices.
3) boredom. This one is so uncomfortable that we have billion-dollar industries devoted to stamping it out. So much of human ingenuity is channelled into distracting our powerful brains from the inevitability of mortality… oops, I mean boredom. How silly of me. Collectively, we’re wildly creative when it comes to filling the hours of our existence with beauty, colour and entertainment. The thing is, if you want to participate in the ephemeral aurora borealis which is the creative human existence; it helps to unplug from it and feel the space that got us itching to fill it.
If you let yourself feel bored, you might be surprised how little time goes by before your imagination starts to fill that void.
