Creativity = Failure

“Because we will be action, and education focused, and forgo validation and status in their pursuit, our ambition will not be grandiose but iterative — one foot in front of the other, learning and growing and putting in the time.”

— Ryan Holiday

I am an artist. What does that mean? Yes I paint and create, but what it actually means is that I have the balls to try making things. Being an artist is having the daring to start, followed by a willingness to fail, then repeat. The courage to make work that sucks, and then make work that sucks a little less.

The hardest part is getting started. Knowing the work is never going live up to my vision. Looking at the lousy work I created, and learning from it. Pushing forward, trying again, making more, improving. It is hard to wake up every day and create work that doesn’t meet my own standards. 1000s of iterations, trying again and again. The work slowly improves. Then the little voice inside my head screams. It tells me that the work is not good enough. Two steps back.

Failing is hard, uncomfortable, But once you are willing to embrace the anxiety instead of running away from it, then, and only then, will you begin to grow. your work will begin to evolve and your journey can begin. Creative work is a path, a process, and not an end result or a place. Creativity is an iterative process, it’s a practice. Its like a muscle, gets bigger and stronger when used and worked regularly. You need to build constant failure (and thus growth) into your routine, into your habits, into your life. Create daily. More important you need to fail daily, ’cause that’s where the growth is hiding.

Shawn Kolodny is an artist, writer (almost), and entrepreneur. You can check out his artwork here.

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