If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time looking at other creators work. Instagram, Youtube, films, marketing campaigns, billboards, literally everything. If it’s visual, I find myself looking at it and picking it apart and wondering what I would have done different, figuring out what I really like about it.
There is something healthy about that. There’s something necessary about observing other people’s work to develop your style and discover what you like and what you want to create. I mean, to a degree, the very nature of creativity is to observe a gap in what already exists and to make something to fill that gap — even if that gap is that what has already been created simply lacks your flair or subtle interpretation.
But then, on the flip side, there is also something incredibly unhealthy about it as well. It’s hard to be in the creative space and not compare. Dare I say it’s impossible to be in the creative space and not compare. The problem is that, at some point, we stop comparing our work and start comparing our worth as creators. That is the line where comparison and observation becomes detrimental.
When we equivocate our worth with what we create and then compare that to what others have created we run the risk of thinking we’ll never be “good enough”, because there’s always going to be somebody more talented than we are.
The struggle is that art comes from inside of us. We put a piece of ourselves into what we create that’s the very nature of creativity and uniquness. What makes a creation unique isn’t the thing itself, it’s the essence of the thing. When a kid sticks a funnel on his head as part of a robot costume for halloween, the funnel is still just a funnel. There’s nothing unique about the funnel. What is unique and creative is that the kid has changed the entire essence of the funnel with their creativity. The kid’s vision comes to life and that takes the perfectly mundane and makes it unique.
When we compare our creative work with other’s, it typically starts out by comparing the surface. We’re comparing how it looks and maybe saying, “I want to create images like that.” To stick with our robot costume example, comparison usually starts by saying, “I really like that they used a funnel on top of their head for that costume. That’s really unique”. Which eventually turns into, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Which then it evolves again into, “I’m just not that creative. Why do I even bother?”
We tell ourselves things like, “I’ll never be able to take photographs like that, why even bother.” Or, “It’ll be years before I can make a film or videos that looks that good. I missed the train, I should have started younger.” What we’re saying is that our work doesn’t measure up, but what we’re feeling is that we will never measure up as people.
So what’s the solution, how can we avoid this?
Well, when we get in the really dark place, it’s time to put on the blinders. When I find myself in the spirally sort of state, I stop all consumption. I don’t get on Instagram, I don’t watch much Youtube, I don’t even watch movies really when I’m like that because it can just remind me that I’m not as far along in my career as I would like and that I could be making Hollywood blockbusters if I just worked harder. The irony in that is that, at this point in my career, Hollywood blockbusters isn’t even the goal, I don’t even really want to be doing that but my brain can still find a way to make me feel bad about it.
So I turn it all off. I focus on things that fill me up. I read. I create more for myself. I make things without comparison. Sometimes I do work and don’t even ship it. I’ll take pictures, I’ll shoot videos, I’ll write and then just keep it to myself just to remind myself how much I do enjoy what I do.
Secondly, when I do consume, I consume work from creators who I look up to and respect, and that I don’t feel threatened by. Now, feeling threatened and being competitive, to be clear, is my problem. That’s a struggle I’ve always had, call it residue form the corporate world that I lived in before coming to the creative side; but the raw honest truth is that I do struggle with being competitive. I want to be excited for other creators and cheer for them, but it is something that I struggle to do sometimes. So, when I’m struggling with that, I don’t consume their content. I don’t watch their videos or look at their photos.
One of my favorite photographers of all time, which I’ve mentioned here on Medium before is Alan Schaller. I think one of the things that I appreciate so much about Alan’s work is that it is so incredibly different from anything that I create, will create, or even have a desire to create. And yet I connect with it so deeply that it inspires me a lot. His work lands every single time, for me. I never run the risk of feeling defeated becasue “my work will never look like that”, becasue, frankly, I don’t want my work to look that. But I absolutely love his work. I would hang just about every photograph that Alan has ever taken on my wall, that’s how much I love his work, but the point is that somebody like Alan is a creator who I can appreciate and learn from his work. I can be inspired by what he creates and it then inspires my own, albeit very different, work. That’s the kind of healthy relationship with creativity that I strive to have.
On a practical level, what does that look like? Well, I very carefully curate who I follow and what work and content is going to end up in my feeds. I stay off of explore pages. I only want to see what I have intentionally placed in my life and/or am intentionally seeking out.
Being somebody who does struggle with a competitive nature, it’s very easy to feel competitive when the work is so totally detached from the real person. And social media and content platforms have made it all too easy to detach the creation from the creator. And so I do my best to not.
I hope this helps, just another creative rambling from some random Friday morning.
Thanks for reading. Much love. Peace.
