Last week I didn’t get anything published. I was feeling bit lost and blue. The more I felt lost and blue the more I tried to come up with an amazing idea to write about and publish. Then I started thinking about writing about that!
Chasing the perfect idea instead of getting something done.
I was looking things from the bad angle. The angle where nothing is good enough and where it’s hard to see the trees from the woods.
The gaining kudos or credit angle.
The angle where you only work for the prize. The kudos angle is a complicated trap in many ways. For one it’s selfish and when trying to create something, anything for others and being selfish at the same time, well they might cancel each other out and you end up doing nothing.
We all want to be unique and create something special, right? Something completely new and memorable. To create something that would be solely traced back to one person and that person would be the creative genius and idea generator behind this amazing something.
Often we seem to care more about getting credited for ideas than actually creating meaningful or even helpful content and work. Kudos trap is slick, it hides behind “dream big” statements and “be you, be unique”. Getting our name out there, chasing that big dream, making a big impact but just dreaming and not doing anything about it. Then we feel sad and try even harder to get some amazing idea and the circle of nothing is created.
Meaningful content can be created without getting credit for an unbelievably unique idea.
Elizabeth Gilbert talked about how people treated her like she was doomed after her eat pray book was released. People were worried that she wasn’t going to come with more ideas, better ideas inspiration to work anymore.
For some reason we see creative work very different than other kind of work. Even when many jobs that don’t seem creative need creativity. We think that creativity and work don’t really mix. But gaining credit is something we always see the same. We also think that what we get credited for and what we publish is all that matters. We need witnesses to get credit.
We have a choice to be the person who gets credited for chasing the most amazing, unique idea or we can be the person who got something done. Getting something done requires taking responsibility and understanding that this might not lead anywhere. But focusing on the responsibility of creating and getting work and will make getting work and much easier. From crap ideas there can come a realization of a better idea. We get better with practise.
Inbox Tea Time 
