How I flipped my stop-start creative failures to focused creative momentum

As a creative, you might sit in overwhelm and stretches of inertia for years before finding some kind of rhythm to your output.

Every few months or so, an external trigger may drive you into a quick burst of creativity. But, for most of the time, you’re likely playing it safe: scrolling for inspiration or getting that subscription or watching another YouTube how to video.

Or not playing at all.

Either way, consistent, prolific, creative expression never materialises. And your own doubt in your creative path grows and grows.

You can’t stick with one style or mode of expression, and you can’t find the will to create every day, all year long. Therefore, you’re not a real artist, writer, inventor, designer or filmmaker, right? So you may as well give up for now, right?

If this resonates with you, know that you can get out of stop-start mode by understanding how your perceived failures are actually a major stage in your evolution as a creative, and by harnessing short-lived creative bursts to generate creative momentum.

The early-stage creative

Over the past decade I’ve started many creative projects. Some are long extinct. Some are on pause and some continue to this day.

I’ve created a street art Tumblr, scoped potential apps, built two nature and soul-based brands with their own websites and sets of social media accounts.

I’ve written about wellbeing, personal development, spirituality and creativity through blog articles, poetry and short-form social media posts.

I’ve explored visual arts through photography, watercolours and digital art, focusing on plants, animals, landscapes, the feminine and cosmic and mystical themes.

I’ve even mapped out a dystopian young adult fiction illustrated novel and started world‑building via illustration.

And I’ve had many stretches of several months where I’ve let my feelings of failure as a creative suck me back into the vortex of everyday life, busy non-work and passive consumption.

Some might look at this as a bunch of stop-start nonsense. But really, this is a familiar path for many early-stage creatives, trying to find their identity and preferred means of expression, and needing time to pivot when the creative burst doesn’t last.

Congratulations – you’re doing the big work

I could view my short-lived creative efforts over the past 10 years as a series of failures. But what I’ve actually been doing is discovering, testing and building a strong foundation as a creator in the modern creatives’ ecosystem.

This is the big work we all start with.

And the periods when I wasn’t proactively creating? This was time to reset in support my next creative pivot, (albeit unnecessarily lengthy due to me wallowing, mistakenly, in feelings of failure).

As a creative you need to grapple with who you are at your core, what you really care about, what themes you want to explore and how you want to express yourself. And the only way to do this is by trying things out. Gauging what pulls you in again and again, and identifying what you don’t care to pursue any further.

All your short-lived projects are the early, crucial chapters of the story of your evolution as a creative.

These chapters can be very challenging to live through. It’s not called ‘big work’ for nothing. You’re unpacking who you are head-on. But, as you do so, your understanding of who you are, and the creative directions you should take, become increasingly clear.

And what’s more, you can take the short-lived nature of your previous creative efforts and use this approach to generate creative momentum.

Keep your creations finite to find your rhythm

By shifting your perception of your previous creative efforts from failure to foundation-building, and focusing on a bounded series of creations, or one-off projects, you can break out of creative inertia and jump back into the joy of doing what you love, or finding out what you love to do.

Human minds go easily to negativity, anxiety and overwhelm – a direct route to self-doubt, internal naysaying and creative paralysis.

Your mindset and feelings around your creativity are so important. They will make you or break you. So, flip your perception of your so-called creative failures, and give your big work the credit it deserves. Then, look at your previous habit of stop-start creativity, and see how keeping your creative efforts discrete, time-bound and manageable can actually help you set a creative cadence.

If you think about it, a project-based approach to creativity is exactly what successful creators harness. If it’s long-form writing, they write one novel, or one series of short stories. If it’s painting, they produce a series of paintings around one theme for one exhibition. If it’s fashion, they pull together one collection for one season.

They work to deadlines. They break down elements of the project into manageable components, or streams of activity. Everything has an end point.

Don’t worry, you can still be recognisable

If you’re worried about how all your different, bounded projects will still be identifiably you, know that your essence will shine through if you’ve done the work to connect with your core values, what you really care about and how you care to express yourself.

This means getting very real with yourself about when you’re being inspired by another creative’s work versus trying to mimic their style to emulate their success.

Successful creatives do the big work of finding out who they truly are. Don’t rip yourself off by being someone else’s pale imitation or blindly adopting trends – your heart won’t be in it and your soul will reject it.

Be true to who you are in what you create. This will give your audience the identifiable thread of you as a unique artist, while you enjoy playing freely off your own essence.

And if you really care about crafting a recognisable identity, then make this a discreet project!

Go all in with developing your own palette – the full spectrum of complementary colours you love working with. Or find your ultimate muses – the wilderness, love, childhood, history, the supernatural – and make these worlds collide. Or settle on three genres you adore and start blending them into your ultimate genre. Or develop your own expressive language of motifs and symbology and let them recur throughout all your creative endeavours.

When you’re done with your project, close the chapter. Or if it’s not working for now, close the chapter. Either way, draw the line, congratulate yourself for continuing your journey as a creator, and understand it’s a win.

Enjoying creative momentum

Now that I see my short-lived projects as valuable chapters in my early development as a creative, I’m more productive and my relationship with my creativity is far more robust.

I no longer burn energy berating myself over lost time and wasted effort, or worry about locking myself into one style or artform as a price to pay for ‘consistency’ and ‘identity’.

And when life gets in the way of creating, I no longer sink into a months-long, guilt-ridden fug of unproductivity and procrastination before jumping back in again when time allows.

I can cut through self-doubt because I recognise I’ve done a lot of the big work. Enough to know I’m clear on my love of digital art, writing and the themes I want to explore. I also recognise I have more big work to do and nothing I do on this journey is a failure. I can take stock of all I’ve created to date and feel no shame.

Because my work is based on short series of creations and bounded projects based on what I truly love, there’s no overwhelm, fatigue or uncertainty. I know what I’m focusing on now, I can execute freely and I can map out my next endeavour readily. I’ve let go of any anxiety around creating. I have real momentum and I’m free to have fun with my creativity.

This is powerful, especially when you’re in the early stages of finding your way back to your creativity and forming your identity as a creative.

So, if you identify as an early-stage creative, and you’re regularly stuck in inertia and feelings of self-doubt, please take the concepts of big work and one-off projects and run with them. Reset your mindset and emotions around all your creative efforts to date, start to unburden yourself of the baggage of creative angst and let yourself fly. Drawing boundaries around what you create can, ironically, be one of the most freeing things you can do for yourself as a creative.

Thanks for reading. I hope this helps.