One Secret to Better Creative Work

Here’s one secret to creating better things.

Are you ready for it?

You might not like it.

But here goes.

Be harder on yourself. Like, a lot harder.

That’s right. Be your own best (worst) critic. I know, you’re probably thinking I’ve got enough pressure without my bad self all over my back about creating better art! I know, I get it; however…

We live in the age of overcrowded newsfeeds and automatic output. In one sense it’s liberating to know anyone can publish their work and share it instantly with (potentially) millions, but that also means a lot of people are shipping out mediocre—and flat our terrible—work.

The creative marketplace is more crowded today than any time in history.

It’s much harder to find the good stuff, but it’s out there and people do find it and when they find it … they share it.

If you create better work than the masses there’s a much better chance you’re project, film, essay or blog post will be seen and experienced — dare I say, even appreciated.

If you do exceptional work you will be unique. It’s really an old secret. A secret that many of the great creatives knew well.

It’s the secret that drove Ernest Hemingway to write the end of A Farewell to Arms a stunning 47 times.

He didn’t stop at 46. Why? Because he was looking for the perfectly crafted ending. Too many creatives stop way before 47 and our work shows it. There could be a lot of factors that drive us to be too easy on ourselves. We like to think we’re geniuses down deep, but the real genius is in the work.

We need to be self-aware enough to know that it takes a crap load of effort to produce something beautiful.

A Crap. Load.

You don’t have to look any further than American Idol to know there are thousands of creative who have zero self-awareness and their inner-critic has completely left the room. I’ll admit it, it’s fascinating to watch someone who’s convinced they’re the next John Mayer find out they’re actually horrible and they have no career in the music biz.

It’s a little heartbreaking, but you can’t stop watching. It’s like seeing that moment of self-actualization materialize before your very eyes.

This is a good thing.

If I had a dream to be an NBA player, hopefully someone close to me would say, “Brian, you’re 40! You’re short, getting slower every day and compared to today’s NBA players you have baby hands.”

OK, it might hurt a little, but if I’m not willing to tell myself that truth — I sure as heck hope someone around me will.

We need people around us who aren’t afraid to smash our dreams with reality — people brave enough to tell us when we suck. And hopefully that person is you.

We need to have the determination to work out the 47 iterations until we get to THE one and we need to have enough self-awareness to know when we hit the mark and when we miss.

We can’t Kanye* ourselves out of crappy work.

We have to admit our failures and pour the right energy into the right places to create something worthy of sharing and appreciation.

In other words, we need more Sistine Chapels and fewer memes.

And to get there we have to have a clearer vision for our art, a much tougher inner critic and the fortitude to keep creating.

Sure, there are artists who sit down to create something and stumble upon a masterpiece in 5 minutes, but this is the exception. It also doesn’t take into account the thousands of hours they probably put into their craft before that — hours that gave them an understanding of style and arrangement that made it possible for them to see something valuable and see it quickly.

But for 99% of us, we need to put the time in and evaluate our creative work with all the precision of a watchmaker. We need to tinker. We need to see it from every angle. We need to ask the critical questions before we’re done.

And write number 47. Even if it kills us.

“Be your own worst critic. When things go wrong it’s tempting to shift the blame. Don’t. Accept responsibility. People will appreciate it, and you will find out what you’re capable of.” ― Paul Arden, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

*To Kanye—copiously overhyping one’s creative work to convince others you’re a genius.