SEAN WARD’S MONDAY MEDITATION

All of the successes and all of the failures that I’ve experienced in Art and in Business have been a result of how closely I’ve adhered to the principle that is this week’s topic of the Monday Meditation. I’ve had a good opportunity to rekindle my love affair with this principle over the last couple of weeks since re-launching The Sean Ward Show and committing myself to a daily schedule.

THE SECRET TO BEING A STAR

Back when I first started my career as an artist, one of the main motivating factors in going about it the way that I did was in realizing that if I was going to get professional-caliber good, I needed to put my process of improvement in high gear. I needed to make as many mistakes as possible, learn from each one, and do better on the next try until that process of improvement got the work to where it needed to be. It’s like my mother used to always say: “There’s no way around. Only through.”

Young artists approach me all of the time and tell me about the projects they’ve dreamed up for the future. I love that they share their passion with me, in fact it’s one of my favorite sources of inspiration. But whether they’re talking about painting, writing, movies, comics, or music, there’s only one piece of advice to give.

LET THE WORLD KNOW YOU MEAN BUSINESS

And that one piece of advice is to simply get down to it.  Most people – and this used to be me as well – go to work every day, believing that they can squeeze their passion into their off-hours.  But they’re not thinking about all of the rest of the demands on their time: being a good boy/girlfriend or spouse, socializing, the day-to-day maintenance of life (shopping, washing, cooking, etc.), or down time to recharge. I remember that I would go months at a time without drawing or writing a thing for myself.

You’re probably one of those people who is really good at a lot of different things, and you want to express your vision in a variety of outlets.  You’ve probably even got piles of unfinished projects and your head filled with ideas about what you want to do.  It can all seem pretty overwhelming.  But you know that if the world is ever going to take notice of your vision, you’ve got to get moving on building your body of work.  Where do you start?

LET YOURSELF KNOW YOU MEAN BUSINESS

When I got started, I stopped going to work and dumped my girlfriend and stopped returning phone calls to many of my friends so that I could make my Art my sole focus.  I’m not suggesting that you need to go that hardcore with it, but you definitely need some time away from familiar people and places to think.  Take a weekend off from your life, and go away somewhere you can be uninterrupted.  Check into a hotel, or go stay with family if there’s space to be alone at their place.  Leave your phone off.  Don’t check email.  Be alone with a big notebook and just start writing.  Take this time to think about what you want to be, or to do.  And then think up what you can do for at least an hour a day, every day, that will build that thing you’re trying to make or do that you spent that weekend writing about.  This is equally important whether you’re just starting out or if your career is more established but you want to do something new.

At this stage, don’t think about that epic movie you’ve always wanted to make.  Or that graphic novel that’s going to set the comics world on fire.  The important thing at this stage of the game is to complete work quickly and get right into the next thing.  Ideally your first couple of projects are each finished in a day, and then you think big and tackle something that takes a week.  And as you see your collection of completed projects grow, you start to think that maybe you really are as good as you always thought you were.

YOU’RE A BIGGER GENIUS THAN YOU EVEN KNOW

You develop a rhythm. You find a way to marry your work and your life so that the schedule is the highest priority. You catch little accidental ticks that you couldn’t have planned but have delightfully surprised you, so you incorporate them into your style. You pull off a trick you didn’t even know you were doing, reminding yourself of one of your heroes, and you go “That’s how he did it!!”  A big success is really just a huge collection of these smaller successes.

I know that keeping up any kind of schedule is one of those easier-said-than-done things. I’m horrible when it comes to the kind of self-discipline it takes to maintain something like this. But I’ve always found it helpful to put myself in a situation where I’ve committed a date of delivery to my public.

THE SOLUTION TO ALL OF LIFE’S PROBLEMS

I’ve always found that being prolific is the way out of any problem I face in life, whether personal or in business.  People you want to impress take you more seriously.  Your audience is more likely to stay with you when you go on a tangent they don’t relate to because they know there’s something else right around the corner.  You get people looking forward to what you’re going to do next, instead of it being a nice surprise the odd time you put something out.

But the most important reason to be prolific is to quickly use up all of the ideas that have been taking up mental space so that you can get to a whole new level of creativity.  The real you isn’t in the handful of OK ideas that you’ve been carrying around for years.  Get those out, and let the real you illuminate the world with your brilliance when the good stuff starts coming out.

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Tags: art, creative process, creativity, getting started, ideas, inspiration, life, movitvation, opinions, thoughts