4 Signs You’re Making Progress
For creatives, it’s hard to measure forward progress. It’s not as simple as receiving a degree or a paycheck. Your creativity is in constant flux.
Some days you’re making new work and surpassing your goals by leaps and bounds. Then other days you‘re stuck in the same old rut with no way out. For this reason, many creatives find it difficult to know when they’re making progress.
So how do you know when you’re actually taking steps to achieve your goals? Here are four signs you are doing just that:
1. You’re not over-editing your work.
One easy way for your progress to stall is to retrace your steps too much. Going back to edit and re-edit the same piece might feel like progress, but the real momentum is made by getting as much down as possible.
Set a goal for yourself. Give yourself the goal of writing three chapters, designing two new logos or writing four more songs. Then, do not allow yourself to edit what you’ve made until you reach that goal.
Getting to the end of your work gives you a better perspective of what you’re making and ensures that you won’t get stuck in a preliminary phase. Once you have your work down, then you can edit to your heart’s content. But if you want to be sure you’re moving forward, avoid editing your work until it’s actually finished.
2. You’re letting yourself be inspired.
Sometimes your work will move forward because you’re letting yourself be influenced and inspired by other’s’ work. Taking time off from your own work to be an audience member allows you to collect new ideas naturally, even while relaxing.
When you’re in observation mode, you find new things to be inspired by and notice more than you usually would in your daily life. Your creativity rests on your ability to take lots of those different ideas and connect them. So even if you’re taking “time off” from your work, you’re still moving forward when you’re filling yourself up with inspiration. You may find yourself being motivated to action in a whole new way.
Letting yourself fill up on that inspiration can be the turbo boost you need to being more productive.
3. You’re failing.
It’s great to fail. If you want to truly grow in your work, supposed “failure” is the fastest gateway to the greatest learning.
Any failure is another lesson you’ve learned, another tool in your tool belt, another experience that has shifted your perspective and added to your gamut of ideas.
You are moving forward anytime you fail because this is the opportunity to learn the most about yourself and your work. If things aren’t going quite as planned and you’re allowing yourself to understand why, you can be sure you’re taking huge strides forward. This objectivity and practice of critical thinking without making judgments is paramount to how fast and how steadily you can push ahead.
4. You’re out of your comfort zone.
So often, creatives think that making art should only feel good. It does feel good, but it should also push you outside of your comfort zone.
Doing the same thing day in and day out will not make you move forward, it will only make you feel safe. When you can do something slightly outside of your comfort zone, even if you find that technique or genre isn’t for you, you will have pushed the boundaries of what you thought you were capable of creating. That little bit of discomfort could transform the way you look at your craft.
Seek out the places that cause you to grow. Chase the experiences that push you past your limits. Feeling uncomfortable is a great sign that you are moving forward.
The creative process may take you down a non-linear path. Reassure yourself that when you push your own limits, allow yourself to fail, seek out inspiration and simply get your work down without judgment, that you are making huge strides.
This kind of momentum may not result in a degree or paycheck or even words of affirmation from others, but it’s what motivates creatives to keep creating.
Acknowledge how you’re growing in these small, almost invisible ways, and then celebrate how far you’ve already progressed.
Join the DISTINCTDAILY community today by creating a profile on our app or website. We can’t wait to see your work.
