How to achieve what you find difficult
Posted on July 24, 2008, by dazzer67, under creative exercises, preparation, quick tips.
This all boils down to a little critical self-analysis. No really I mean it, we aren’t always great at what we do :). Sometimes we will fall short in our creative endeavors because of tiny mistakes or because we are unable to do one part of what we are trying to create. A lot of the time the answer can be found through a learning process. Don’t know how to style that web page? Then find a tutorial on CSS and learn. But it can be a little less obvious than that.
This is where a little self-analysis can help out. We need to find the little blind-spots that we have, and we all have them. Questions like ‘What am I not good at?’, ‘What do I struggle with?’ and ‘Where do I often get things wrong?’ are ideal for this self-analysis. The point is not find out your faults and beat yourself up over them, but to identify them and then find some solutions.
Find out the problem or issue and then look for, and implement a solution. Let me give you some simple examples. Although you’d not notice it by reading the posts (ahem, I do apologise) here, I have a blind spot when it comes to spelling certain words and also grammar issues. I could blame it on the teaching systems in the UK during the 80s and never improve my creative writing. However, realising that I do fall short here I looked for a few simple solutions. One that I found really helpful was to keep a list of words that I always seem to spell wrong. I found the words quite easily by using the spell checker, but I kept spelling them wrong. Now I have the list I am finding I am getting them wrong less often.
In a broader sense you may feel that all your creative output ends up looking, sounding or reading the same. One solution here is to change your process. Again I notice a distinct difference to a song I have written strumming the guitar to one I’ve come up with at the piano.
So, don’t be afraid of a little critical self-analysis. Identify the problem and then act on the solution, your creative output will benefit.
