Melissa Dinwiddie spent much of her life thinking she wasn't an artist. Even though she loved doing creative things, and her parents encouraged her to become an artist, she still chose to take a different path. She was intimidated by all the people who drew better than her, so she stopped making art for 15 years.
Even a stint as a dance student at Julliard, a prestigious performing arts school, didn't convince her to stick with her creative inclinations. Instead, she went to school for cultural studies and even attempted to get her PhD.
While trying to fill out her PhD application, she was filled with fear. Her body was telling her something wasn't right. It was telling her to be more creative.
This integral moment in her life brought her back to creativity. It led her to create a business around designing ketubahs, and eventually led her to creating her blog Living a Creative Life.
In this episode Melissa talks about being happy with your self and your work, making time for your goals and creativity, and sharing your work without expectations, among many other things.
Here are three things you can learn from Melissa:
One of the misconceptions we develop early in life is believing that people can create great things with little to no effort. We wonder why we struggle so much while those around us create amazing things.
The truth is, most people don't have an innate talent. Most people go through the same struggles we do. We just don't see it. So we just assume everyone else is great and we aren't.
Making this discovery changed the way Melissa viewed her art.
"Part of me still believed... that if it were truly possible, if I were truly talented, if I were a genius, than I would instantaneously be able to do all this stuff. I used to looked at people's finished pieces and, without realizing it, I would assume that they just picked up a pen, picked up a brush, and went to town, and booms there's this incredible finished piece that in fact, in reality... was planned out and designed, and took them fifty-two hours or something... so I think that I knew that I must be getting better and there must be hope for improvement."
That doesn't mean she wasn't envious of people who created great work. She decided that her self-worth shouldn't be tied to whether or not she was a genius. She realized that it was okay to be a normal person.
"I used to flip through the pages of the premier lettering arts journal, Letter Arts Review, and I would cry because I knew my work was never going to be that good. And God, my ego was so tied up in , I think I believed on some level... that in order to be okay, in order to be worthy and a loveable person, I needed to be a genius. You know, out of this world amazing, out of this world outstanding, remarkable, and one of the really wonderful things about getting older is that... I have let myself off the hook and essentially forgiving myself for being a regular person, and life is a lot better on this side."
After years of worrying about being the best, Melissa realized that happiness is more important than the constant need to feel validated.
"The younger me might look at the older me and think, 'My God, you just let yourself go, you've given up,' and on this side of it, I see it really differently. I see it as, 'Yeah, but my life is so much happier.' Back then I didn't care about happiness. I wanted to be great. Why did I want to be great? I guess I thought it would give me happiness."
One of the most overused phrases we all use as creatives is I don't have enough time. We blame our lack of time for our lack of progress or success. But the truth is, time is just a convenient excuse. "If you can't put fifteen minutes a day into your art, you're making an excuse."
Melissa used time as an excuse for ten years. She said she didn't have the time, but in actuality, she was paralyzed by fear.
"I've been making an excuse for ten years, saying 'I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time...' It wasn't about the time. It was about fear. It was about perfectionism. It was about comparison trap. It was self-doubt. It was all those things getting in my way, but time was this really convenient excuse."
If you are having trouble making room for your creative work, just dedicate a little bit of time to it every day. By spending fifteen minutes a day on her creativity, Melissa was able to keep her creative juices flowing.
"When I spend just a little bit of time every day, it keeps my toe in the creative stream. So I constantly feel like I am immersed in my creativity. Whereas, imagine if I were to spend two hours once a week, which is actually more than fifteen minutes a day for seven days. But two hours once a week would not have that sense of keeping my toe in the creative stream, but just a little bit every day, does. Plus the hardest part is starting, and when the commitment is tiny... it gets you past the starting friction."
If there's anything we can learn from Melissa it's that we need to stop using time as an excuse. If you really want to get something done, you have to find the time for it. You have to prioritize your time and make room for it on your schedule.
"It's really not a matter of finding the time. It's a matter of making the time. You have to schedule it in. And like I said, I'm a big believer in scheduling it earlier in the day, because then you have less time for monkey wrenches to get thrown into the works... that tiny little bit of time. It's amazing baby steps will get you anywhere if you do enough of them."
More often than not, there is one critic in particular that prevents us from achieving our goals. This critic knows exactly what to say to keep us down. That critic is ourselves.
We are so afraid that others will see the flaws in our work that we become paralyzed by it. But others don't see the flaws we see. And realizing that was one of the most empowering lessons Melissa has learned.
"We're all so afraid to share our work because we're afraid people are going to see what we see. They're going to see what's not living up, where it's lacking, and they don't see that. But we're afraid they're going to and we're afraid to be humiliated, and we're afraid to be so horrified and embarrassed... My experience has been, when I just put my work out there... no comment, no apologies... just put it out there and then watch and see what happens... that has been so empowering."
Even when we don't think our work is good or worthy, we can never predict how others will react to it. The work Melissa feels the least comfortable with is often the work that people appreciate the most.
"I can't tell you how many times I put something out there and think 'Ugh, that wasn't my best effort... I'm embarrassed to share this but I'm going to because I'm doing this practice. I'm practicing putting things out there and that's the thing that I'm embarrassed by.' I'm cringing because I'm pushing the publish button or whatever. But that's the thing that gets a bazillion likes, that gets somebody emailing me and saying, 'Oh my god, I needed to hear that today."
That's not to say you should seek validation from others. What we really need to do is publish our work and see what comes from it.
"We definitely don't want to get caught up in seeking validation from other people. That's never useful... but when I can put my work out there and let go of the outcome, and just observe... it's very liberating and it's very empowering."
Read more shownotes from episode 76 with Melissa Dinwiddie
A recap of episode 75 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Kerry Burki where she talks about letting your younger self guide you, learning to say no, and shifting your mindset, among many other things.