3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start Any Creative Project

  I don’t know about you, but there seems to be so much similarity in so much of the stuff we see online. Blog posts look the same, Instagram feeds look the same, e-courses look identical but with perhaps a shift in colour scheme. And it can get so fucking boring.

And I think it does something to us creatives who think a bit differently too. Sometimes it works to keep us small because we don’t know whether we should add to the noise, it makes us overthink the things we create and sometimes we feel like we have to be some kind of creative genius who has come out of no where and is doing things completely differently.

So, today let’s take off that pressure for a second and focus on three questions to ask yourself about any creative project, which are going to help you start creating from YOU instead.

These are three questions I come back to time and time again when I'm starting a creative project, and thinking about them for a while ALWAYS makes my ideas more fun, more me and a whole lot more exciting.

Question 1: How can you make it more fun?

Seriously, I think so much of the time we forget that creativity is meant to be FUN! We forget that we can do things for joy’s sake, and we can create from a place that makes us really happy. A lot of the focus tends to be on the outcome, and I think we can really forget to focus on the process.

My friend - how can you make that project you’re thinking of more fun? What can you do that lights YOU up and will make you look forward to working on it? Forget what everyone else is doing for a minute and just focus on you

Question 2: How can you make it more YOU?

When we’re looking around us, we tend to forget our own unique skills and strengths and how we can combine them in a way that works for us. Perhaps that e-course you were working on does need its own playlist, perhaps a video of you chair dancing at the start of your book is essential.

Creative projects always mean more and make more of a difference to people when they come completely from your heart. I speak for a LOT of people when I say, we’re sick of stock photos, we’re sick of the same formats. Put the format and the layout at the bottom of the list, and let’s focus on YOU.

Question 3: How can you make it more different?

Because let’s face it - it is important. If you want to challenge the status quo and offer an alternative, at some point it needs to be different. But in what way does it need to be different? What story is missing?

I’m not talking about sitting down for weeks on end and trying to think of some original concept that no one ever has or ever will think of (I know it’s tempting, and if you get stuck in this, I really recommend you read Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist). Instead I’m talking about going back to basics. What is everyone else doing? What could you do that would make it different?

And I don’t mean being different for different’s sake. I mean making it purposefully different.

It all comes down to this - the world needs more of YOU and less of the same boring contrived shit that we’re all sick of seeing.

There’s only one of you and you are a marvellous human being with stories that only you can tell, and your own unique way of looking at the world.

How can you bring more of that into the world and really start to get going on your creative projects that the world so desperately needs?

I'd love to know what you're working on and what comes out of these questions for you. Let me know in the comments below!