Have You Failed this Week?

If you want to develop more ideas, you need to start creating. Often, we don’t sit down to create because we don’t have any ideas or think that our ideas are good enough.

More than half of the battle is getting started and accepting that you might fail. You might do lousy work. I’m sure you will do some bad work; it’s part of the deal.

No artist loves every mark on canvas or line drawn on paper. No writer loves every sentence they draft or every page, chapter, or book.

If you want to create, you need to be willing to make work that you don’t love. To make work that you never share. You need to be willing to show up and make the work.

Tips for getting started. 

1. Permit yourself not to be perfect. It’s easier if you’re upfront with yourself and acknowledge that you’re going to make some work that isn’t good. 
2. Ask for help and feedback along the way. You don’t have to do it by yourself. No one else is. 
3. Embrace and apply the feedback that excites you, and let the rest go. 
4. Make something every day.
5. Keep a running list of ideas, activities, or things you want to try, and work from the list when you’re stuck. 

Don’t throw it out right away.

We can learn from our mistakes and failed experiments. Eventually, they might become something interesting if we give them enough time. Create a place where you save your rough drafts, and revisit them every once in and while. Is there a sentence or two that you love and can incorporate into something else? Are there a few marks, colors, or shapes that catch your eye that you could use as collage material in a new piece?

Create a junk journal. Have a journal or place to work that is designed for experimentation. Below is an example of a journal where I create mini compositions and experiments with scarps from other projects.