How to Stay Sane as a Creative in the Modern World

“Too much mess, too much confusion, and we fall off the path.”

Photo by Mathilde Langevin on Unsplash

A few centuries ago, making a living as a creator was easy. Well, it wasn’t easy. It still required expert skill, arduous work, and a lot of trial and error. But that was all.

Now, however, it isn’t quite as simple.

Being good enough isn’t good enough. In the modern world, we’re tasked with the responsibility not only of becoming masters of our craft, winning our creative battles and pushing past mental blocks. We also have to learn how to market our work, gain exposure, and sidestep all of those pesky algorithms.

In short, the landscape has changed. And it’s terribly confusing. While being good at what we do is still a priority, there’s far more to it than just that.

And in the minefield that we now find ourselves in, it’s incredibly difficult to lose sight of what matters. Creating.

That being said, here’s a brief overview of the psychology of creativity and how to use it to your advantage.

A Beautiful Mess

D. B. Dillard-Wright put it best,

‘The creative life is a beautiful mess. We have to get our hands dirty by working with the materials, but we also have to keep in mind the vision that first inspired the process. Too much mess, too much confusion, and we fall off the path. Too much craving for beauty, and we become afraid to work at all.’

It is a mess, really. A beautiful one, but still incredibly messy and perplexing.

Some of us get so wrapped up in the perfect end product and become so bogged down with the specifics that we never make a start. Others forget all about quality, focusing solely on pumping out content, but without providing any genuine value.

And some of us find ourselves comfortably in the middle of both extremes, neither here nor there, and not sure where to turn next. In truth, most of us aren’t really sure what we should be doing.

All of this is incredibly confusing, especially when all we want to focus on is the thing we love doing — our work. There are so many different questions to be asked. So…