Everything nowadays seems to be an outline for the best way to beat creative block, the best morning routine, the best health protocol, the easiest way to get back to your true self, the most efficient way to organize your projects, the fastest way to grow your business.

The list goes on and on, and it's not inherently bad that we allow these ideals into our life as thoughts or guidance, but in an age where everyone desires to be the best at everything or nothing at all, what’s actually the best way to approach not only our creative work, but life itself? I don’t think it’s a combination of “best, quickest, and fastest,” if anything I believe it’s the opposite.

Lately, I’ve felt the urge to ditch the expected forms and methods of how we as artists, writers, business owners, and people, approach things. We’re living in a state of constant input and we need to escape.

I'm calling this “new” approach “the human way.”

The human way does not rely on a YouTube video, a well-written blog, a book, or even a friend, to help you decide what is best for your creative, social, ideological, or lifestyle output. This is not to say that these inputs aren't valid, I've had my daily routine drastically shaken thanks to some very wise authors – and my perspective flipped on its head on behalf of an obedient friend. What I am saying, is that the purest form of output comes from the purest form of input, a state of solitude – A place where no other input except your own thoughts and God’s opinions, are present.

This is the human way because it's what we were created to routinely operate in.

Michael Erwin, a former army officer, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, states in a research paper that he wrote with a colleague that he often used long runs alongside cornfields in Michigan to work through the difficult emotions he faced after returning from combat. Jokingly, he states that this was because "running is cheaper than therapy." Although Erwin is being hyperbolic, I believe there's truth to this concept. Not only can we have our best ideas, create our best art, or find an answer to a problem we're facing in solitude – we can heal from it. Solitude is the built in multi-tool for life that we’ve grown unfamiliar with as external input has become louder in our everyday lives.

Cal Newport defines solitude deprivation as, "A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts, free from input from other minds." Upon reading this for the first time a few weeks ago, I was immediately convicted because I was faced with the reality that my own creativity, something that I have always believed to be very protected and free from outside pollution, was actually polluted by those closest to me.

I want to clarify that I’m not implying that your inner circle has been your worst enemy the entire time. This is not a "Scooby Doo moment" where you remove the mask and realize that your best friends and colleagues have been ruining your creative output all along because you asked what they thought of your project. However, it's important to remember that our creative thoughts and impulses are ours to protect and bring to life, not anyone else’s.

There is a window of time within each project where we can obtain a massive upper hand by receiving input from those we trust. But something I’ve been exercising lately is protecting the integrity of an idea I was given by practicing the human way and embarking on the journey of an idea with what I feel is best for the concept. It’s uncomfortable, and somewhat frightening initially, but much more rewarding than anything completed under the influence of input from those who weren’t even given the idea to begin with. When we have ideas, we form a bond with them instantaneously, and we must nurture and respect our ideas with integrity for them.

A challenge I’m currently facing the more I practice this, is learning to not be offended at external input once I complete something I’ve created from a place of solitary inspiration. It’s easy to love your idea when the doors are wide open for external input during the process. It’s much harder when you present a completed idea protected from external input and some people aren’t the biggest fan.

Who cares if a friend told you that it would look better a different way? Who cares if it looks like something someone else has seen before? Who cares if it’s not your best work?

What matters most is getting back to our roots. Having ideas, recognizing that we were given them because God allowed them to happen, and seeing them come to life.

This is the human way.