Adaptability v Versatility: How Creativity Expands Capacity - Part 2

When I started writing this overarching post initially, I had it mapped out and concise - boy did that get away from me. And this is what I’m focusing on in this week’s post - how we adapt while we’re in the middle of a creative project. From blog posts to gallery displays, creative projects have mishaps, blocks, and opportunities crop up all the time; it’s how we face these challenges that inform our evolution as creatives and as humans. This lens of adaptability is less about changing to suit a circumstance or environment and more about changing our mindset to encompass more.   

How do we adapt in project mode?

As we all know, a lot can happen between the beginning and the ending of a creative project. This is less about the mechanism of adaptation and more about the inner adaptation we undergo to overcome and continue on. Through creativity we change; we learn about ourselves and we evolve. Trials and challenges along our creative journey push us to examine how we operate and how we can shift to become better not only at what we are doing or how we do it, but better at being who we are.  

Mishaps

These hurt. They are mistakes, messes, disappointments, failures. How do we adapt to these moments of missed opportunity, to these acts of misplaced ink or paint or stitching? We recenter, reevaluate, and redirect. I love things in threes, especially with a dash of alliteration. Mishaps are inevitable. Whether a beginner or a master of your chosen discipline, a rogue brush stroke or a fold in the latest cricket project can feel devastating and frustrating. The key is in how we adapt to these disappointments. 

Recenter: Take a step back and breathe, literally. I prefer planking when I feel like I'm spiralling or flustered. I shake it out and plank it out. However you choose to center yourself, this is about regulating your nervous system and focusing on the present moment rather than catastrophizing a simple error or engaging in immediate inner critic negative self talk. This is not the end of the world. It is a hit to the ego perhaps, a ‘waste’ of materials if it’s not recoverable, but always a lesson we can learn from and not a stopping point. Coming back to your center is a coming home of sorts. Take stock of where you are and from there you can journey forward. 

Reevaluate: Lean into it or scrap it entirely. Don’t fuss over the mistake, reevaluate; could it be incorporated? Corrected? Or is this a chance to lean into it and just be a bit silly with it? This is the central challenge now that you’ve taken yourself out of nervous system shut down to really engage with what’s happened. If it’s a rejection letter from a publishing house or a scary document of edits from your editor, being able to look critically but kindly on your own work and on your own ability is the root of expanding one's capacity. 

Redirect: This is the actualization of expanding your capacity. Encompassing failure and mess are difficult. While we take our creativity seriously it is a humbling reminder to not take ourselves too seriously. We began creating to enjoy ourselves, because we delighted in the activity, because we found some peace and expression in the craft and that is never perfect or orderly. Perhaps we are particularly devastated and need some distance. Redirection includes both forging ahead in new ways and changing focus to another endeavour for a time until we are able to come back to our project and face ourselves even above a rough draft of our work.

Blocks

We run right into these - from feeling uninspired to hitting a figurative wall to boredom, blocks are natural and huge. Or maybe that’s simply our low capacity perception of them. Maybe if we shift our focus, engage in real self care, and act with patient persistence instead of rushed passion we might just find that these mountains really are molehills. 

Shifting Focus: It’s all about perspective. Are we uninspired or are we simply expecting our circumstances to align perfectly in order to create? Could we not decide to sit bum in chair or stand at easel or step into the studio and approach it from a more work-like perspective to make headway. Shifting focus from ‘I can’t’ to ‘what happens if I just do?’ is enough to shake that block loose even just a little and allow a slow trickle to begin again.

Real Self Care: Touted as bubble baths and extra chocolates, self care has become a frivolous idea that is either indulged or ridiculed but never moves the needle. At times a block can occur because we are neglectful of ourselves. Our creativity stems from our own inner well and when that well runs dry or is covered in strangling vines the water is more difficult to find and lift free. Self care, real self care looks like a two step skin care routine or doing the dishes before bed each night; tidying our home each morning, and actually getting the clean laundry folded and in drawers. It’s not lavish, it’s not charming, or sexy, but it is healthful in keeping ourselves relaxed and at peace. 

Patient Persistence: Blocks teach us something about ourselves more than they prevent us from creating. They show us our own blind spots, what we take for granted. Showing up for ourselves is the number one way to increase our capacity to withstand and overcome blocks in our creative practice. By creating a pattern of self trust instead of self abandonment we learn that we are capable and reliable. Creativity is built in consistency, in the quiet of patiently showing up for yourself.

Opportunities

These are gifts in disguise. They force us past what we are doing into what we could do, into a new possibility of how it could all come together, though it often requires overhauling significant portions of a project or changing the approach or simply reworking the narrative we’re telling with a piece of work. It pushes us beyond what we’ve built up as our creative capacity. We already have the ability to push our boundaries, but an opportunity asks us to blow past that limit line and reach new levels. Learning, collaboration, showcase, exhibition, interview, all of these are opportunities that can strike at any time. Let’s dial in to how we can make use of opportunities to broaden our minds and enrich our creative lives. 

Learning: Whether in the form of an informal piece of advice or a structured class, or a self directed spiral of hyper focus learning new skills, techniques, information, or background knowledge opens our world just a little bit wider, nad with that we expose ourselves to ever widening horizons of possibility. The opportunity for inspiration and mastery are endless when we are curious about ourselves and our creativity. Opening ourselves up to being a beginner, admitting we don’t know, and wanting to do better or know more pushes us to engage in building ourselves up. 

Collaboration: Creative work can often feel isolating depending on your discipline and approach. Some creative pursuits are inherently collaborative like dance or choreography, theater, engineering, design. While they can happen in solitude as many other creative pursuits do we always have the ability to engage with other creatives whether by starting a group or club, sharing spaces in open work environments or open studios, or actively seeking collaboration on projects. Working with other creatives breed creativity and inspiration. Collaboration forces us to expand our perspectives, skillsets, and makes space for spontaneity in a way solitary work can’t. It is energizing, electric. 

Exhibition: This can take many forms from podcast interviews, exposure on a news channel or in an article, or an actual showing of your creativity. Exhibiting your work and yourself as a creative in industry unlocks connections, networking, and more opportunity to grow. It tests you in ways you may never have encountered - filling an entire gallery for example, or speaking about what you do for the first or twentieth time. This takes extreme vulnerability and intense courage, but it expands your capacity to feel deeply and practice those positive self talk skills to handle the inner and outer critics while maintaining a centered approach to your creativity.  

Overall, adaptability in the creative practice teaches us how to meet and thrive in our circumstances - from our environment to our mentality, to roadblocks that jut up like barriers to our only perceived path forward both in creativity and in life. Being adaptable does not equate to bending over backwards or choosing a harder way forward. Being adaptable is at the core of being resilient, because it says I see what’s happening, I see the challenge, I acknowledge the barrier, but all I’m doing here is calculating a way through it, around it, over it, and that is not just a creative skill, it’s a life skill. It forces us as a person, as a creative, to grow in ways we may never have seen coming and learn to encompass a new path, to expand our capacity beyond its current limits to survive and thrive in being who we are in a new circumstance.