Right now, thousands of people are registering a new domain name for a new idea or business.
- They are searching for the perfect font for their new website.
- The best camera, lens, and tripod for their next photography trip.
- The perfect filter for their next Instagram post.
It feels important.
None of it actually matters.
This work isn’t scarce. It has a clear path. It’s all been done before. Anyone can learn to do it.
This work won’t be relevant in 10 years.
Neither will their venture.
You can hire an expert to do these tasks at 10X the quality and speed, for a fraction of the cost.
The work that matters most is hard to create. It’s shrouded in fear, chaos & self-doubt. Most run from it. This makes it scarce.
It’s that perfect project that you’ve designed in your mind but never started for fear of failure.
It’s the much-needed invention, that doesn’t exist yet, with no clear solution.
It’s not valued in dollars per hour or documented in a quarterly earnings report.
There are no guarantees & it might be impossible to create.
When you’re on the right path, creating what matters, the fear is waiting every morning when you wake up.
It’s compiled a long compelling list of every possible way: YOU. WILL. FAIL.
The fear says:
- Organize your project some more.
- Check your social follower count & email inbox once again.
- Put off the failure-prone, hard to create stuff, until tomorrow.
So you hide behind those small tasks that appear important but don’t take guts to create. IT’S A TRICK.
At first, this doesn’t seem like a big deal, because you’re getting small tasks done.
It feels good!
In the first year you might get further ahead than the prolific creator that’s constantly:
- Creating new stuff & quietly doing the work that terrifies them
- Battling the fear & resistance that comes from working on what matter most
- Placing all bets on themselves, their ability to solve problems, and the long game
This mistake is very hard to spot when you’re just starting out.
The prolific creator must trust in themselves, exponential growth, and the long game.
It’s the only place that they have a huge advantage.
Exponential long-term growth is almost impossible for the human mind to visualize or foresee.
Even experts in math & numbers don’t do it well.
At first, it usually improves much more slowly than the average.
In the short term, this leads to the illusion that it’s not working so most people quit due to fear of failure. BIG MISTAKE.
The prolific creator trusts in themselves and the long game, knowing that they are pre-loading all of their rewards for the next decade when their work really starts to take hold.
This is scary & feels chaotic.
The risk of not doing it is much worse.
This risk also plays the long game, so it’s very hard to see until you’re older.
It’s not as hard to work a boring “secure” job when you’re young.
You can always tell yourself, “I’ll start doing that creative work, I know I should be doing, next year.”.
As the years pass, working the hated, “secure” job, it becomes harder and harder to make the huge change required to switch.
The fear of failure also grows in the mind & becomes reality.
This is when the risk taken 10 years ago, to stay “safe” really becomes visible.
It leads to much darker & depressing realities than creative failures could ever create.
Many hate the idea of investing so much time without an immediate payout or a guaranteed solution.
They want everything to happen now, with a clearly defined path, so they work for a “safe” job, with a perfect business plan & a guaranteed income.
It is not their fault.
They were only shown one path that was wrapped in the shiny packaging of SAFETY.
Lock-step intolerance of fear & chaos.
Their teachers were not aware that fear & chaos are essential to life, evolution, and creativity.
Large centralized control systems, including many governments & businesses, attempt to remove all chaos and complexity from the world to improve so-called “stability”.
They never survive long-term, unlike decentralized creative ideas, that spread like a virus (memes), and help others for thousands of years after their creation.
Too much stability & control destroys creativity by reducing exposure to novel ideas & situations where problem-solving is required.
Fear & chaos are the evolutionary drivers of novel solutions that propel the world forward.
Some of the best human inventions came during times of war, famine, natural disaster, and all-out chaos.
In these situations, there is no other choice.
Evolve or die.
That does not mean that we should want any of these conditions to occur or try to aim for them, but we can induce their upsides to help us create while discarding the downsides.
In pure chaos, stochastic novelty is everywhere. Nothing is planned and nothing can be forecasted.
Stalin & Mao’s worst nightmare.
To survive this scenario, the brain is alive and tuned onto everything that’s going on.
It can’t model future decisions on past outcomes and goes into overdrive to solve problems & create solutions.
A failure to do so means death.
Modernity & evolution removed this scenario for now.
It’s also not the ideal world to create within, but we should know where we came from.
Pure stability has the opposite effect. It is the death of new ideas, evolution, and creativity.
When everything is boring, stable, & steady-state, entropy has won in a small pocket of the universe & evolution dies.
Modernity, via assembly line optimization, sold the world on the idea that this is the best and safest way to operate, at the cost of your well-being.
No new problems arise, thus the brain, no longer needed, atrophies and dies.
Now that we have studied the range of outcomes, from pure chaos to pure stability, let’s examine how the creator can optimize their position, between both, to take advantage of the upsides without being destroyed by the downsides.
The prolific creator must create semi-controlled pockets of chaos & fear to ensure they always have novel surroundings that produce new ideas & solutions.
They must go against the status quo and the evolutionary instinct to run from fear and chaos.
By constantly re-positioning themselves between chaos and stability they get the best of both worlds.
Like lifting weights, strengthening the body in small doses, then recoverying, controlled exposure to fear & chaos, on a daily basis, will constantly strengthen the creator & the problem-solving mind.
Pick projects, goals, and ideas that invoke fear & self-doubt in your mind.
These don’t have to be physically dangerous or chaotic scenarios.
When you’re scared, the same mental mechanism that saved your ancestors from the lions on the plains turns back on.
- Your mind senses a threat & comes alive.
- Your brain doesn’t know if your intimidating new idea is a lion or just a thought.
- You get enhanced mental acuity & energetic physical response.
- This is one of human’s most powerful tools.
It will also make you feel more alive than any other experience on earth because your body thinks you’re about to die.
Do not freeze. Move. Stay Alive.
Pick stuff you’re mentally scared to create and go do it anyway, every day.
This natural logic is the creative process.
It’s built into your genetic code.
If it wasn’t, you would not be reading this article.
Go towards the fear & chaos inside your mind.
These are the seeds of creativity.
The Practice – Fear, Chaos & The Prolific Creator
Here is how I select my daily work & carry it out.
Without a process, I don’t have the willpower to overcome the fear each day.
STEP 1:
Pick the one thing that’s making you most uncomfortable, fearful, or scared.
Usually, this is the thing you know you should do but doesn’t have a clear path, yet.
It sits in the back of your mind and pops up when you have a free second.
This unsure path creates tension or anxiety in your mind, so you avoid it.
YOU KNOW WHAT THIS THING IS!
STEP 2:
After defining that thing, determine what you think to be the first actionable step.
Make it quickly then test in reality.
Often, it’s the wrong choice.
Without taking it, you won’t get closer to the actual solution.
Get over the fear of failure and start doing what you think is the correct first step.
GO DO IT.
STEP 3:
Dedicate 4 hours of your day to getting as much of it done as possible.
I provided some tips below if you have a full-time job.
Don’t get tricked into doing the repetitive work that already has a clear path.
This is not creative work!
To create means to make something new that doesn’t exist yet.
By definition, there is not a clear path, which means you will have many micro-failures.
Adjust and get back after it.
I break my creative work up into 2-hour chunks of time (controlled exposure to fear & chaos)
Then I take a break and do something very active for 30 minutes to an hour.
This could be running or push-ups or anything to snap your mind into another space.
Repeat.
I wrote more about this technique here.
The goal is to expose yourself to the things that make you uncomfortable or fearful every day.
Over time, as your mind gets used to this process, you no longer take yourself or fear as seriously and can actually start to be a prolific creator.
Tips for Full Time Jobs
If you have a full-time job, and enjoy it, by all means, keep doing it!
If you don’t like it, there are many ways to transition to something you do enjoy.
When I worked a full-time job and wanted to be a full-time photographer, I managed to get on the second shift at my job, so the first 6 hours of my day could be spent creating stuff I actually cared about with photography.
When on first shift, I would force myself to work on creative projects for 4 hours each night after work, no matter what.
The “5 Books that Changed My Life” post provides some great tactics.
There are a million excuses.
None of them will get you where you want to go.
The path is simple.
Face the fear. Do the work.
Hi, Dave— Well said! I would only add that, in my experience, creativity in the sense of looking in new ways arises from intuition. My intuition does suggest possibilities, which my rational mind wants to immediately criticize or kill. Since intuition doesn’t put up arguments or explanations, it may lose to “practicality.” I have learned to trust ideas and to follow the impulse.
Hi Mike,
Thanks! That’s a good one. I completely agree. Intuition is huge.
It’s something that can be hard to trust at first, but once you see its success a few times, things get much easier.
Thanks for reading & the good comment. Always good to hear from you.
Dave
Really good pointers Dave. Thanks for living into your fears and helping show the way.
Thanks for reading, Andrew! I’m not great at it yet. Just trying to document what I find:)
Dave
Thanks for the clues that help me find comfort while in my place of great doubt, as well as a pathway out without adding more fear.
Anytime, Elizabeth. Thanks for reading!
I copied the essence, not reading the entire article. Thought the gist of what you said could help. Thanks.
You’re welcome! I’m experimenting with different-length articles. There seems to be a sweet spot, but not sure what it is yet:) Thanks for reading.
Thanks! I’m getting on that horse and riding it. With age and practice it does get easier to actually recognize and utilize. Aging and experience, yeah.
You’re welcome. Thanks for reading, Susan.
So in addition of being a great photographer and teacher, you also are a philosopher with a profound view of the human mind.
You hit some of my own fears which I need to overcome.
Thank you Dave
Thanks! Trying to learn new stuff & see where I can improve & teach.
Appreciate you reading.
Really great stuff. Nothing we have not heard before, but only in bits. You have put it all together into the path to a long term mission. Perhaps we should print this carry it with us to read when doubts try to become primary thoughts.
Thanks, Chris.
You are right on the money but it’s too long and repetitive. Edit it down a bit. Your insights are generally very helpful and practical. Good stuff
You could be right. It’s already shipped:) Thanks for the feedback. I always appreciate it.
This is a fantastic article. I would love to see more. I think this applies to any creative pursuit and I am going to immediately share it with my kids. Thank you!
You’re welcome, Josh. Really glad you liked it & are willing to share with the kids. Let me know what they think. Have a good one!
“The unexamined life is not ……” You are on top of this process. Thanks for the help
You’re welcome. Trying to learn & improve at it.
These comments are for you only. I justed wanted to say thanks.
I found you several years ago. I wanted to improve my photography. Took a community class at the local college. One of the requirements was to find a website of a photographer that you liked and study their gallery. I found you on a GOOGLE search. Since then, I have gone thru many of your free courses. I’m a better photographer (still average) but this is the “rest of the story”.
At the time I was in the process of retiring and was looking for what I was going to do with my time. What you inspired me to do was start a business. I had to learn a bunch of new skills and spend a bit of money for equipment. But your blogs pushed me over the edge to “try”. Since I have started the company is working well. I’m not making a lot of money. But it is satisfying. It requires a lot of creative juices. Mostly it requires me to continually to do what I commit to others to do.
I just wanted to thank you for being a hero (someone that shows others that it is possible) to me.
Hey Don,
You’re welcome.
Made my day to hear this. I really appreciate you taking the time to let me know. I never really know who I reach unless they comment.
In regards to your business. If it’s making any money or profitable at all after a few years, you are probably onto something. Keep it going. The long game scale is really hard to see!
“Mostly it requires me to continually to do what I commit to others to do.” You nailed it with that. Forced accountability is one of the great untold features of running a business you care about. Never really thought of it out loud like that. Good stuff!
I can see how this might tangentially concern photography, however it seems more like a philosophy of life, loosely linked to mindfulness and the ancient Greek Stoic school of thought.
Yes, concerns anything anyone wants to do, but is fearful of. The Stoics are great. The Shortness of Life by Seneca is one of my personal favorites.
I hope you are well Dave, it’s always good to read something new from you.
I like the idea of actually scheduling this exposure to scary things. It takes away a few of the uncertainties involved with being creative, and it normalizes trying out new things, and possibly failing, but then coming back to the task no matter what.
I also found it helps a lot to work on the things I tell myself when I do something potentially scary – being more easy on myself and more or less ignoring that inner voice that tells me “you’re not good enough at this”. Well, if I were, I wouldn’t try to learn this thing. Trying out scary things and failing at them is great for learning.
Thank you for your perspective on this topic, I always love to read your thoughts on this blog!
Good on this end. I hope you are too! I like that thought process.
In regards to planned exposure, completely agree. The only way I can force it & know it also has an end. When there is no end, that can be really rough.
Top Dave, you are inspiring, thank you for this! A.
You’re welcome, Anja.
Hi Dave,
what great insights, but I also feel , like Mike, that creativity is fuelled by intuition and I’m still trying to figure out where intuition springs from!
I can just imagine you sitting at one of your remote camp sites and philosophising. I did a lot of this myself in my younger days, and even now occasionally manage to ‘escape’.
But more often now I enjoy watching you do it instead. I love your little videos about your bushwalking adventures and your glorious photography and I pretend I’m tagging along with you, ha,ha. Still trying to improve my photography as well, although that is not as important to me as ‘being there’.
Hope you stay fit enough to keep up the good work for many years to come.
Cheers
Hi Dave! I have really enjoyed your images and adventures and your desire to assist others on our photographic journeys. I took up bird photography late as a retirement hobby. Not the easiest genre to start with! Over the years, photography has become my passion. On occasions I have got great enjoyment and more importantly great motivation by trying different things. Together with birding; landscapes, seascapes and nightscapes all provided different challenges and “got me out there”. Of course, that all changed with Covid as I am well and truly in the most vulnerable age group. So I got myself some macro gear and found myself another pile of challenges (and rewards!). This made me realise that changing the genre of my photography has often resulted in me becoming more active and engaged (even in lock-down). I recently got the same “buzz” in photographing a 2mm spider stalking an “enormous” 1cm Lacewing insect as I did when I captured my first image of the full arch of the Milkyway and a Falcon coming straight down the lens attacking my head. It all comes down to trying to make a great image. If anyone is “stuck” for any reason, try photographing something completely different. Works for me! Your words on motivation are always thought provoking and welcome. Keep on keeping on!
A perfect article with which I fully agree, I have been trying to live my whole life and I am happy. Thanks.
“To look for what she enjoys, to like, to study, to work, to find.”
GORAL. NATURE.
Vlado
Thank you for reading, Vlado!
Brilliantly identified the real problem. Beautifully put down in steps. You are truly an inspiration.
Thank you!
Thanks, Himanshuu!
These are great tips for life! Thank you Dave!
You’re welcome! Thanks for reading.
Awesome read David! For me a big part of the creative process is simply putting the head down and “putting in the work.” No matter the quality, and then sharing it anyways. It’s about the inspiration or motivation behind it rather than perfectionism. Love your YouTube videos as well! – Ryan
Thanks Ryan. Same here. That’s the hardest part. Just getting after it and shipping the work.
I really enjoyed reading this Dave. But, I could not help thinking of a quote by Thoreau: “If one advances confidently in the direction one’s dreams and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours”. Keep up the great work Dave, it is very inspiring and helps push us to the next level we are seeking.
Thanks Terry. Glad to hear it!
Hi Dave,
Good read,I am retired and at the age of 72. I worked a full time job that I liked 50% of the time,I am also a Vietnam war veteran and attended art school in the 70’s, creativity for me has always been about fluid,the flowing of energy from the universe through ourselves to produce the entity that is the result of that transference.We are all God like in that we have the ability to create beyond what most of us realize. To perform at a high level as visual artist we must be able to see the unseen, act on it and bring it to the light. Great work is a never ending performance.
Agreed! A never-ending performance.
This article is so on point. For the last five years I’ve been getting up at 4am everyday to work on my photography which is only now paying dividends as I’ve begun to with commercial clients! Most of that time has been figuring shit out and how everything fits together. If I could give any advice it would be find yourself a community to grow with, be able to walk of your front door and shoot subjects that inspire you, and finally don’t get broke spending $$$ on gear. Scale up as your abilities grow.
Keep up the great work Dave!
Thanks Alex. Really cool to hear that you’re getting after it! I agree with you, completely.
Dave is the best idea maker all around of business and photography. I have gained many knowledges from Dave’s dedicated contents. I always recommend all to read his blogs and ideas on photography, business, and creativities.
Inspiring article. Great Job!
You started a bit on the pessimistic side, but you give practical advices and strategy to overcome this. I really appeciate you take care of those people who dont succeed with positive thinking alone. This more than photography, this is helpful in a lot of challenging situations.
Hi Dave
I agree with the idea of breaking up your day into manageable blocks.
I have set myself up as a photographer on the Costa Blanca in Spain, and in my free time when I am not on a photography assignment, I work on my website or brush up on some tutorials and blogs like yours I discover online.
For me 2 hours is optimum, I then need a break….