I’ve taken some time lately to think about what the next steps look like for my work. Selfishly, The Newsletter (as a project) is very self-serving in the sense that what I'm writing is often what I care to have documented for myself to look back on. It's really more of an added bonus that I can turn my introspective documentation into installment based content. Chronology is never taken into consideration when I’m deciding what subject matter to include in a specific piece for The Newsletter. To me – each installment acts as a support beam that further reinforces the inevitable completed structure that The Newsletter will eventually shape into.
Subsequently, within the consideration of next steps comes a lot of discovering gratefulness. When looking back on how much you've developed, it's extremely easy to be grateful for where you are. As a result of looking back and evaluating, I've learned 2 universal truths.
If you’re truly grateful, you will never feel as if you’re lacking.
Mental masturbation is a dangerous game for the creative mind.
These principles hold up pretty well if you take both of them together as a pair and not just one with some salt. They're both true. They're both factual. They're both capable of changing your entire creative approach.
Contrary to what many believe, learning how to be grateful is not difficult. However, If you're finding it hard, do the following in sequential order –
Revisit old work
Observe deficiencies throughout the work
Acknowledge the lack of technical excellence, style, self-awareness, and procedure within the work
Consider how much easier it could be to re-create the work on a much higher level knowing everything that you know now
Bask in gratefulness
If these 5 steps don't force you into a state gratefulness – rinse and repeat those steps with different projects that you’ve completed in the past. If you’re still finding it difficult to bring gratefulness into focus, you might be stuck in mental masturbation. Although it sounds crude, I believe this term is the most accurate way to describe what many creative minds toil with.
Defined as (1) “The act of following intellectual ideas that are born out of excitement and/or novelty, but offer little value to you and your real goals.” and (2) “Engaging in stimulation thought/conversation with little or no practical purpose. Thought process that only serves to satisfy oneself.” – Mental masturbation is a harmful (and cyclical) disservice that prevents us from moving towards growth – and sometimes prevents movement as a whole. Dwelling on past work, what you used to do, or how excited you were in any form of past tense is a cancerous thought that erodes gratefulness.
To imagine the countless (potentially life changing) projects that have been dismantled and violently abandoned at the hand of our own uncertainty and dwelling on of the past is a frightening thought. Everyone is guilty of this – but gratefulness will adhere the broken pieces of an abandoned project back together. Gratefulness for where we’ve grown out of is where we find our best work.