Projects that help you regain passion
Passion is like fire: it’s essential to a thriving creative career.
To light it up you need three things:
To build passion in your creative practice you should start with a purpose..
After that you need something to burn.
To make fire you need lumber. To ignite your passion you need projects.
Use projects as lumber
You fail to ignite your passion when you look for sparks without having things to burn in the first place.
Here’s what I mean:
You want to be an illustrator but instead of creating self-projects to build up your portfolio (something to burn), you spend more time hunting inspiration on the internet (sparks).
You want to create a short film, but instead of sitting down to write it (something to burn), you spend more time watching other movies to get ideas (sparks).
Sparks are super useful but if they are to become a fire they’ll need combustible materials to burn.
These raw combustible materials are projects. Basically, the more time you spend, intentionally, using your skills and creating something with them, the more lumber you’ll gather.
Just start a project.
It was getting dark in the forest.
We were 5 teenage boys and an adult.
It was my first summer camp.
“Ok guys” – said our leader – “Today you’ll learn how to build a bonfire without matches or gasoline. Just with elements found in nature.”
Most of us gasped with excitement, and the rest deflated with a long sigh.
“We need to find a good spot, clean it up, and then gather some rocks and the things we’ll burn.”
By the looks on everyone’s faces, we were all thinking the same thing.
“So… are we going to chop wood?” one of us asked hesitantly.
“Not really. First we’ll need smaller thing that burn quickly: sticks, twigs, dried grass. Then we’ll use thicker branches. Ok, let’s go!”
It took more than half an hour to prepare everything but I didn’t notice time passing.I was focused on the process.
Preparing the bonfire at summer camp was a project:
We didn't need inspiration because we had a purpose (stay warm for the night).
We wanted to learn how to do it properly
We couldn’t be creative, we had to follow a process of small tasks that needed to be finished.
You know where I’m going with this.
If you feel uninspired, start a project. Projects act as the prepping time that allows creative sparks to burn.
How to approach projects to build up your passion
The proper way to approach a project is to find something with predetermined steps or instructions. Then follow the instructions and finish the project.
As Eddie Shleyner would put it:
"When you're stuck, one of the best things you can do is stop making creative decisions - and instead, start taking creative direction"
When you focus on following instructions you give your brain a creative rest.
Do something active that you can finish quickly (like the twigs or dry grass for the bonfire):
Create an origami piece
Cook a new recipe
Repot a plant
Play a new song
Finish a puzzle
After you've finished any of these small projects you can start to gather bigger ones.
The most important thing is that you'll have the lumber ready to burn when the spark comes.
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