Serious creative requires GSOH (Good Sense of Humour).
The continual review and reflection of work and life has brought about some thought-provoking and sometimes challenging questions. Questions like:
“Why the hell am I doing this?”
can sometimes be difficult to answer. This question may be rhetorical, but the fact that it is being asked might suggest the ‘thing’ I’m doing is something I should not be doing. Or maybe a more proactive form of questioning might be:
“Can I adjust my approach to make it more enjoyable?”
If I adjust my mindset to approach a task from a new more dynamic perspective it might no longer become joyless. This has nothing to do with something being challenging, so you give up — moreover, it’s about asking whether there is any joy or reward in any particular pursuit. From joy comes commitment. Or, is it the other way around? It matters not if the joy is derived from the process, or is realised from the outcome, it just needs to exist. It’s essential for there to be any real progress in learning. Applying the simple criterion of whether there is any joy sorts the dynamic from the drudgery and creates opportunity.
This fundamental realisation was clear, maybe I was taking things a little too seriously. I have to say though that this is a trait that I have come to value enormously. It gives me grounding in my need to understand things. I quite enjoy ‘serious’, so I’ll leave it where it is. So instead of trying to remove this precious attribute, I thought it would be much more rewarding to look at providing this trait with a nemesis. Maybe a ‘lighter touch’ in my approach to work might provide that all-important joyful approach. This new approach might allow a more relaxed and refreshing mindset, allowing the possibility of new inroads into a task. If my approach to work is being fortified by my ‘lighter touch’ it might bring about a broader perspective and allow to do my best work. A bit of light, a bit of shade and an extra helping of commitment will work wonders in the quest for improvement both in work and in play.
Such basic epiphanies are as a result of an increased awareness of the processes I employ to do my job and how my interpretation of tasks and projects can either help or hinder me. I allow myself to step away from any perceived deep dark creative problems and approach them with a lighter touch. This creates new perspectives and reduces any potential glitches in my creative processes. Moreover, it has the added benefit of providing glimmers of insight into how I can maintain the impetus for moving forward. To make this sound a little more serious, I should say “long-term improvement”. What I mean is, a life weighted towards fun and enjoyment. This becomes much easier when a lighter touch is applied. The removal of the joyless via the application of a lighter touch reveals the inspiring.
Some of the other questions I ask myself don’t necessarily give definitive answers, such as “where would I like to be in five years” but they have set me on an odyssey of thinking broadly about what the possibilities may be by including not so serious ideas such as winning a European cycle tour. The result of this light touch is that the number of options — serious and not so serious — have given me even more of range of creative ideas on how I could reach those creative landmarks. I can distill it down into the following:
✷ Lightness (open mind) + Seriousness (commitment) = my best work.
✷ please note this needs to be repeated on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis.
It would appear that my serious side tempers my creative fervour but when it’s combined with the lighter touch approach, the result is a better kind of creativity. A creativity of looking further and deeper. When I sit down to do any task, I make sure I take it seriously (by committing to doing it) with a massive dose of relaxed optimism (an open mind approach). The lightness of touch and the commitment to doing it every day brings about steady improvement.
This continual drive in moving forward might seem a little obsessive. But the addictive part is the realisation that there is gradual progress. The compound effect even on a monthly basis is tangible. It also brings about new and regular insights which means the story is evolving as you learn. It’s a simple case of everything that happens in life and work is based on what has gone before and also has an impact on what happens next. This is something you can leave to a mythical construct called ‘fate’ or indeed can be influenced entirely by actions taken. If I act positively, I will create opportunity. It will allow me to see many more possibilities that have a positive impact on the story as it unfolds.
This flexible approach will enable me to further establish the fundamentals of what makes my story hold together, read coherently and thus be rewarding — or at the very least entertaining. Continual learning helps the story to develop in the way I think I want it to go, but if approached with a flexible mindset the story will take me in directions I could never have expected. And the story continues.
