Growing up, I had the wrong impression about how to approach being creative. I also had the wrong impression about approaching life in general, but that’s for another day.
I thought that being “passionate” and creating from emotional states (whether they be positive or negative) was key to success. I was a child in the 90’s, so that idea may have come from MTV. But, wherever that perspective came from, it wasn’t stable.
If — to be a successful creative — a person always needs to be “pumped up” or in some other emotionally heightened (or lowered) state, possibly induced chemically, they will never have any sense of clarity.
The mentality of needing to be constantly engaged and impassioned is detrimental to a creative career and stable life in general. It doesn’t set a person up for success, it sets them up to be a highly reactionary person who can’t make clear decisions and suffers more than necessary.
Sure, there have been plenty of successful creators who were volatile people, and that played into why they were such interesting artists. But it doesn’t seem like a great way to live. And my heart goes out to the many beautiful people who seem to have gotten caught up in that belief system; Kurt Cobain and Lane Staley come to mind.
If I could go back and have a conversation with my teenage self, I would tell him to always be looking for a quiet place where he could be calm and make it a point to go there regularly and just be. That way he could remember what being at peace feels like.
That habit alone would have saved me a lot of time and helped me to make better decisions in business, health, relationships, etc.
In short, a state of calm is the ideal place to create from. Making a habit of prioritizing a peaceful demeanor and working in that state will pay off. It will lead to higher quality output and more of it, and more success in the long run.
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