Creativity is a journey with no destination

Every time I start a project or a hobby, the main goal I look up to is to be at the top of it. No matter the work or project I take up, it is not anybody's fault but just the way we were trained to be.

This mindset unfortunately doesn't apply to the creative habits that you are going to build. It can be anything, but the only way to begin your journey is to start doing it.

However, it is our common tendency to always fixate on destinations or end goals that we miss the point of starting a creative habit. In the process of reaching end goals, we tend to fall in one of the below points.

1. It demotivates you and makes you think you are not good enough
2. It brings in a lot of chaos with complex routines that stop you from the actual work. (more on it in the later posts. Will attach the link once it is published.)  

In this post, we focus on the first point. I hope to bring you a clear conscience that creativity is a journey with no destinations. If you expect your journey with your creative habits to be linear and that too an exponential journey, like this image below, you're mistaken.

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Maintaining the enthusiasm and energy level of creativity is difficult. Humans are eager and able to invest huge amounts of resources into creating a vision and giving it life. But godlike, they want to materialize their vision in such a way that it will operate by itself so its creator can rest. ^[1]

This is something we all tend to do. However, let's say you have achieved your goals. For example, let's say you said to yourself - I want to write a book.

You take the time, keep goals in your mind, and tackle each goal with focus, and finally, your book is ready to publish. After finding your way of publishing this book (self-published or with a publisher). You will find ways to market this book and then have the results which may be that this book might become the biggest blockbuster or it can go unnoticed by many.

After all that, be it a good result or a bad result what do you think happens?

You either be really happy that the book did well and wonder what to do next. and you either fail so badly that you wonder what next?  

So, no matter the outcome, the obvious question you will have is "What next?".

This is the reason, I say your creative habits don't need to have a destination. I mean if your goal is to write books no matter what, you will move on to writing the next book, without the expectation of results. If your goal is to write every day, you won't have the expectations of publishing once a week or it will be a huge hit.

Your only goal will be to keep writing. keep doing the things you like without any expectations – things will automatically fall into place and you will not have to worry about anything else than just your creative habits.  

Austin Kleon, the writer of the show your work trilogy is a guru in terms of creative insights on how to steal like an artist, share your work, and how to keep going. He shares this in his book –    

The creative life is not linear. It's not a straight line from point A to point B. It's more like a loop, or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project.^[2]

So, instead of fighting the natural tendencies of coming back to the same or a different starting point where your only question is what next?

Why not start doing projects with the mindset that it is a journey I take every day without a destination?

You might have your ups and downs but it is all part of the journey, just like your life –  You will have your ups and downs but you have to keep going.

We will learn more about other methods of sparking creativity and more in the forthcoming newsletter posts, but for now, here are a few resources that emphasize on creativity is a journey

1. Creativity – Constant Becoming and the Joy of the Journey.
2. Steal like an artist trilogy - A book series by Austin Kleon.

That's it for today. Thank you for reading.

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Until then, wake up, drink coffee and keep creating😉.