Creative Work: Get Back In The Shop
Background music: "Multiverse" by Wintergatan
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of feeding curiosity. I'm your host, Eric Wenzel, as always. And in today's episode, I wanted to talk about the idea of being creative and over the last few weeks, as in the Midwest where I live in Chicago or the Chicago suburbs.
Things are closing back down. I have recently been having lower motivation with being consistent in what I'm creating here. And so, in a weird way, the reason I'm having this conversation is to not only shine a light on my own internal processes but too hopefully provide some feedback for all of you who are probably going through something similar if you're out doing your own thing in either the creative realm or just doing things that you set for yourself.
To start, really, it's this idea that we think creativity is something that comes easy to you. Many of us. And it's if you don't feel like doing it, then, obviously, you're not meant to be doing that thing.
I think we're missing an important component of it because at the end of the day, Even if it is creative that no one is telling you or making you do, it still works. It's worked for you to synthesize it and either put it on a page or record it in the microphone or whatever it is that it looks like.
To put this in scientific terms, As an engineer, we learn about how much work a system is doing either mechanically electronically. We calculate it by joules or Watts. When I think of it that way, it clicked. I'm like, Oh, just because it might not have some reward attached to it monetarily.
What you're doing is still providing a value or some tangible good for someone to absorb. And so to produce that requires effort or work. At the end of the day, you have to put the work in and regardless of whether or not it's creative.
Pulling this back even further to my day job. I am an engineer and sales engineer. Many times, I don't even think about the work that I'm doing there. It's just, I answer questions for the customer and see projects move through. The system and things get done, and I don't really put any extra thought into it on what's going on or second-guessed myself.
But that's where doing creative work here, like on this podcast or the website, gets tricky. I can do something and put all this work into it. And then my perfectionism gets in the way, and I'm like, you just put all this time into this blog post, and now, it doesn't seem like it's good enough. So you probably shouldn't even release that. Or now you took too long to get this thing ready, and it's probably past its usefulness to be put out anyway, so better not to even put it out.
Those are the little demons that go through my head. I try to put those voices aside and say no. Those voices don't matter.
I think there's another layer to this, too, because, for instance, the podcasting itself, the real-time nature of recording a podcast that I do here really is one of those things that I actually don't second guess at all. Once I record a podcast, I edit it, and I listened to all of it. I maybe give myself notes in the editing process and say, you could've done this better here. Or maybe they don't have this verbal tic their things like that.
Outside of that, I let the conversation be what it was because. That's what it was at the time. That's what makes it special. It's like that capturing the fleeting nature of, I don't know if this conversation would have ever been able to be repeated in that way. This is just the version that we recorded.
And I really enjoy that part of it. And so that's what I'm doing here really is embracing my creative work and airing out some of the thought processes that hang me up because I think I know I'm not that special in that we all have hang-ups. Right here is this being able to embrace that creative work in whatever form that it takes for you.
If anything is frustrating, you or you're holding yourself back. One of the things that really sank this home for me was. You don't know if anything's going to work until you put it out there for an audience to absorb it because if it's only yours to absorb. We don't know the impact it will have, you can pretend, what's going to happen to it.
It's a lot like mining in the sense that you have to dig a whole lot to find the diamond in the rough. Once you find that diamond. You got to do a lot more polishing to make it really shine. At the end of the day, for me, it's whatever you're working on. Finish it. Get it done to the best of your ability at that time.
Then get it out into the world to get real feedback on it. So you can go back to the shop and do it all over again.
So that's what I'm going to do. And that's what this episode was for me to kick my own ass. To get back in the shop. And so with that, everyone, I hope you all find this energizing in a way that it's provided me.
I will see you all in the next conversation on feeding curiosity. Thanks for joining me.
