An artist to me is a person who innovates and creates something, and I believe in today’s society many people knowingly or unknowingly are artists themselves. Whether they are:

Musicians

Influencers

Writers

Fashion designers

Bloggers

Vloggers

Podcasters

Comedians

Actors

Directors

Marketers

Architectures

and so much more.

To be a quote-on-quote artist requires people to have a certain level of creativity. Whether you’re writing new stand-up material for your comedy show, your next literature piece, discovering new patterns for your next clothing collection, figuring out what material to use for your new building design, going through experiences in the present moment to get that next song lyric or discovering new ways to portray a message to your audience through your words or voice. Creativity is a foundational pillar during any process in which a person is creating. However, any creative person who is trying to innovate and be a creator Is going to come across that time when the ideas are not flowing.

When I was writing my book, I created a routine where every day in the morning I would write for at least one hour. Some days within in this I wrote a full chapter other days I wrote out an idea that I knew I didn’t want in my book, but I wanted the idea out of my mind to make room for a new one. Sometimes I wrote amazing, captivating sentences other times I wrote down a few words.

During the beginning stages of being a writer my energy, mood, and happiness levels were dependent on the quality of work I created. I was happy when I had great ideas, ideas that I knew were creative. On the other hand, when those creative ideas were not flowing from my mind to the piece of paper, I would spend my moments being angry, upset and sometimes in a depressive state.  

When I heard Russ - The American rapper, singer, and songwriter from Atlanta talk about his creative struggles on a podcast, I knew I was not alone.

On the podcast he said

"The highs and lows of an artist is really dramatic at least for me. I’ll have days if I go into the studio and make something that I love I’m like on cloud nine, everything is great in my life, but then I go to sleep and I wake up and that next day none of that matters. I move on very quickly and I’m just like okay now I need to make another one, but if I can’t make another one if that day, I’m just not feeling it or I go to the studio and I try, but nothing works I’m like, I should just give up this this is it. I’ll never get a creative source again you know what I mean? You sink really low sometimes. Especially for me I make so much music that if I don’t make a song for four days, I’m like this is crazy, what’s happening you know I’m depressed."

I resonate with Russ because in my perspective when the ideas that I was expecting don't come, that emptiness of creativity affects my mood, energy and happiness. I would be so fearful and unhappy when I wasn't having any ideas, which caused me to not enjoy any of the moments that I had until I got that new creative spark. I knew going forward that my career would heavily depend on my creative mind through writing and speaking. I also knew that it was not sustainable nor healthy to base my mood and energy off my creative ideas, because ideas come and go, and I cannot control when or how an idea will come to me. That's when and why I came with two ways to keep having creative ideas and to remain unbothered when those ideas don’t come.

1. Having structure which leads to discipline.

2. Having faith which leads to optimism.

During my journey I was doing the first step properly - creating structure and to this day I still think that it is an amazing thing to do for any creative person - allowing yourself to have time to actually work and create, because when you do, you are reminding yourself to be disciplined and you are allowing yourself time to actually create.

The second part - having faith, is the tricky one.

I know I may sound like a hypocrite here, but this is how I feel. It’s great to have discipline and set deadlines to enable structure into the task you are doing, but early on I found that you cannot rush a great idea and sometimes you have to allow the ideas to come to you.

There were plenty of times where no new ideas would come to me, and I would start worrying and stressing about my future.

 What if I run out of topics to speak about?

What if I get writers block?

What if I have no new ideas for my blog or podcast?

Ideas are sporadic, they can come and go as they please. Sure, I can give myself a better chance by creating a time where I could work on it, but I was already doing that.

I would spend hours, days and weeks having this pessimistic perspective over my creativity and all this did was lower my mood and energy levels, which ultimately led me into a mainframe where my creative mind could not work.

But when I heard Russ on the podcast say, "Remember that you just need to have faith in the creator and the infinite. I don’t feel like I really make music I feel like I deliver it, because I feel like when I have those moments it's just something that’s coming to me and I’m the vessel and now I’m just delivering it."

When I heard that, I reminded myself to have faith over the things I could not control. And this wasn’t blind faith where I would sit on my hands, do no work, and pray for an idea to come. This was the type of faith where I know the work that I do, I know what I am providing to the universe, I know I am here as a vessel to help people and through that I gained a sense optimism and faith over my creative mind, which led me to never worry about having another creative idea again.

Now, days go by where I don’t get a single creative idea, but that doesn’t stop me from having my regular structure and discipline by carving out time daily to work. And on top of that I remain happy. I am my positive self when I am around my family. I am not stressing and worrying at my dinner dates with my partner. I go for walks and still do my routines. And then on the 5th or 6th day the ideas come flowing. Sometimes I have to wait hours, days or even weeks, but eventually they come and now I understand and have faith over this concept. Understand that it takes the same amount of energy to be optimistic and pessimistic. One frees you from worrying and stressing over the things you simply can’t control the other harbors your ability to have peace and stunts your creative process. The next time you find yourself struggling to find a sense of peace in your life because you are worrying about your next idea, remind yourself to have faith over things that you simply cannot control.