How to Create Something Great
If you are a content creator, an artist, or a business owner of any kind, do you want to make your work matter? Do you want it to be impactful? The below thoughts are things that we at Gregg Media are constantly working on. How to avoid the comparison trap, love the work you do, and give of yourself. We realize these are much easier written down then implemented. And to be successful, you must not only understand these points, but also be able to put them into practice.
1. Avoid falling into the Comparison Trap
We are all susceptible to the comparison trap. This can be so hard, because we have to keep learning. A great way to do that, is to observe and incorporate some of what we observe into our work. When I feel we cross the line, is when we think we need to make content/product just like something we have seen. You can take inputs and use it in your work, but for crying out loud, be you. Stop trying to conform. Stop trying to fit in. This is not creative; it is cowardice. Not everyone will like your work, get over it. Not everyone will charge what you charge. Not everyone will hire you. That’s ok. Wear that like a badge of honor. Hold true to yourself, no matter what.
2. Love the Journey more than the Milestones
You have to love what you do. If you don’t love it, you will burn out. There will be days that you want to quit; Days when it feels like you are doomed to fail. If you don’t have the love of what you do to pull you though those valleys, you will never finish the climb. You also must love the journey. So many of us think of business or life and the highlights of reaching different milestones. And while we do reach milestones, they should come as a byproduct of the journey. Milestones or goals should not be our love. The journey should be our true love. You are going to make content you hate….and you will get better. You will make bad business deals…and you will get better. You will mess up and have to make it right…and you will get better. You see, no matter what type of work you choose to do, it is the journey you must love if you are going to make it. I have a story to help illustrate this point. In the Vietnam war, the US goal was to win the war. The Vietcong goal was to keep fighting. What goal do you think is an easer goal to obtain? What if your goal is to stay in business? What if your goal was to keep making the art? Or what if your goal was to keep loving and serving your clients, by doing whatever you do? If you have goals like this, then you have a insanely high chance of success. If you do that, your skills and business will grow much faster. And just for clarification, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have long term goals or specific revenue goals. These are important! What I’m trying to do is to remember that sometimes we need the smaller, “just survive one more day” type goals, to get us to were we want to be.
3. Give of yourself
You can not truly give of yourself, if you do not first know yourself. When we create art in any forum, we should be giving part of ourselves away in every project. That’s what separates the good “creatives” from the masters. The masters give part of themselves with ever piece of work they create. If we can avoid the comparison trap and we love the journey like we talked about above, then we can put feeling into our work like never before. I love music and love to hear different people play or sing cover songs, because sometimes they have more emotion or a different spin on a song. Some singers or musicians are technically perfect, but lack the emotion and kill the feeling of a song as a result. Just like a good singer who is performing a sad song must sing with that feeling and emotion in their voice, we as content creators must feel the emotion of what we are producing. Some people will say this is all funny business, but science backs this up. If we impart some of our emotion into a project, then the consumers of that content will get more out of it. They will “feel it” and that is called impactful content.
Hopefully these things have help you or inspired you to keep going. Keep creating. Keep growing. And never give up. It’s not an easy climb, but it’s worth it.