Do Your Own Thing

My creative struggle is caused by an abundance of consumption. I have written here before about procrastination through education. I feel like I often get stuck by consuming too much and not creating enough.

It's time to do your own thing.

Today, as I walked Max, I listened to Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation podcast. I have been a fan of Mitch since the early days of podcasting, he's a smart cookie and great guy. In episode 531 of his podcast, Mitch interviewed Srinivas Rao from the Unmistakable Creative podcast. They had a brilliant conversation that got me thinking about how we all consume too much without enough action. You can listen to the show below. 

It is wonderful to listen to podcasts and read blog posts, articles, and books, but we must fit in time to create. That's where we drop the ball so often. I do this too!

I remember trying to quit smoking so many times (I eventually did). The lie would always be that I will quit after this pack. The same can be said for the content we consume compared with what we fail to create. I'll write the blog post after reading this book. I'll produce the podcast after I listen to these episodes. I'll create the presentation after I watch a few more. 

We deny the world what we are capable of.

Mitch and Srinivas also spoke about hero worship. They talked about how our own intuition and instincts are denied because we want to be so much like someone else we admire. In being this way we deny the world what we are capable of doing and contributing. Srinivas said that if you listen to a certain set of podcasts, you will hear the same guests saying the same things on every single show. We need to break this echo chamber.

Go out and create something only you can create. Stop following step by step directions and best practices because this absolves you of risk. Take some risk. Be inspired by people you admire and what they create, but take the time to DO YOUR OWN THING. Release your ideas to the world. 

I'm working on something new too, it involves improv. I'll share more about that here soon.

What are you going to create? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.