Smash Creative Barriers:

Lose Interest In The Opinions of Others

When at first you're excited when you start something and after a while you get "bored" and give up, you can trace it back to 3 reasons:

1. It was a passing fancy.

2. You reach a sticking point and you either can't or won't work through it.

3. You're getting friction from people close to you and they convince you to give up.

Be honest with yourself.

Apply awareness to your thoughts.

Identify which one of the 3 it is.

If it’s number 1, there's no shame in walking away from something you're not passionate about.

Only in staying with it when you truly don't want to keep doing.

In Silicon Valley there is a saying: fail hard, fail fast. It’s shorthand for the brainstorming process. They explore an idea, implement it as fast as possible, and test it. If it’s no good they discard it and immediately go to on the next thing.

It’s an aggressive search for solutions with no attachment to any particular method.

Attachment to a particular thing is a mild interest that can become a hobby or an obsession.

But if it doesn’t reach that level of resonance with you, then drop it. The faster you drop it, the faster you can try something else that does resonate with you in a deeper way.

If it’s number 2: the thing has reached the level of hobby with you. Obsession is when you can’t stop thinking about that particular thing. The next level of mastery on that thing is constantly on your mind and how to move past the current sticking point consumes your focus and energy.

It’s ok to have a hobby. An unwillingness to go further could mean a shift in perspective. Let’s say writing. You have reached a level of proficiency with writing but feel unmotivated to go further. Maybe writing needs to combine with one more thing to become an obsession. Writing + video = YouTube, or writing + fitness = fitness blog with a specific solution you found to a personal problem.

The permutations on this are endless. The only way to know is to experiment. What other thing are you compelled to bring into the sphere of the thing you currently obsess over? Allow other favorite things of yours to drift into the sphere of the main thing, and to dance to see if a third new thing appears from that interplay.

The most dangerous is number 3: when you give value to voices outside of you.

As a recovering nice guy, I used to let myself be talked out of things by well-meaning friends. Looking back on the situation, their arguments sounded persuasive. (Very few people make money from writing, you have to have connections, etc.)

But truly, it was the impulse to be a people pleaser, to make people feel at ease and to avoid confrontations, that told me their arguments made sense.

And even as I agreed and dropped writing, within a short time I’d find myself thinking of scenes of action, dialogue, cool reveals in montages.

And after that I’d find myself writing again.

It took some time before I did something about being a nice guy. To just do what I wanted to do and ignore the “advice” or to simply tell them I wasn’t interested in their opinion.

But at the moment, I made the quiet decision to stop sharing some of the things I did with so-called friends, like writing and drawing.

And to you reading this, if there is something you want to do, something you constantly think about, that compels your attention in a way that other things do not, you will find yourself in a situation similar to the one I was in once.

And if you notice friction among people close to you when you discuss this-whether it’s writing, painting, app design, practicing martial arts-you may want to seriously consider sharing less of your interests with them.

You may even want to reduce the amount of time you spend with them.

While quietly building a tribe of people who do understand and support your personal obsessions.