As we discussed last week, Making it Real is the final step in the creative process. It’s where your Inspiration & Insight are transformed into a final “product” – your creation.
But what happens when you have great ideas, brilliant insights, but not the technical ability to pull them off?
My guess is that this belief stops many of us from going forward – it may even prevent us from pursuing a creative endeavor we are very interested in – whether that’s painting, decorating our homes, creating a sculpture for our gardens or writing a poem. If we lack so-called talent, we can get stuck at Making it Real. We become someone who has thousands of great ideas that never see the light of day.
The question is: How can we get around the talent and technical ability conundrum and get our ideas out into the world in concrete form?
In general, there are two paths around talent and technical ability roadblocks. The first path is about allowing help. The second path is about allowing imperfection.
Allowing Help Many famous artists have a team of people with the technical ability to execute their work. Many authors with ideas for a book hire ghostwriters to write for them. Editors, craftspeople, woodworkers, seamstresses, painters, framers, mechanics, social media experts, personal shoppers, designers, brainstorming partners, etc., all work in tandem with creators everyday to execute ideas that are not their own. The point is there is NOTHING WRONG with getting help with the execution and production of your ideas. When you bring your idea to another person for help, it does not make the creation any less yours. And, often, it’s the smartest, fastest, most reliable way to ensure your creations come to life and have the chance to impact others. The idea that we have to do everything ourselves when it comes to creative endeavors is just plain ridiculous. Just as we hire specialists to help in other areas of our lives, why not hire specialists to help with producing our creations? If you have an idea that you’d like to see produced, but you find yourself saying “I don’t have the technical ability to create this the way I see it in my mind,” get help. Allow yourself the support you need to be brilliant.
Allowing Imperfection All that said, there is also great value in creating in a way that allows for imperfection. For one thing, it is practice. Very few of us are born a savant in certain area of creativity. We work at getting good. We keep going even though our hand-crafted table is crooked or we loose control over our paintings. We serve dinner at our crooked table and hang our crazy painting anyway. And then, we move on to our next creation. Each time, we get better. Or we don’t. But either way, we are allowing ourselves to enjoy the creative process from start to finish. I’ve told you before that I love to paint. I have no intention of becoming good at it. I just love coming up with ideas for paintings and creating them. I’m not going to take a class. I’m not going to paint every day to hone my skill. So, my commitment to myself around painting has to be to allow for my work to suck – and still be proof of my talent. Each painting is an idea. And that idea is pure and good no matter what the finished piece looks like. If you love creating and you lack technical ability, think about making a similar commitment to yourself. Allow yourself to Make it Real without frustration, knowing that at the core of whatever is produced is your amazing idea. Right there, at the core of the iambic pentameter gone awry; right there, at the core of the roux that never thickened; right there, at the core of the lumpy bumpy vase – is you.
To crazy creations that are proof of the creativity at the core of us,
Susan B.