My favorite insight about finding your creative voice

This week’s essay is for any of you who create things.

It’s a story that’s been on my mind, from the Finnish-American photographer Anro Minkkinen (in Oliver Burkeman’s lovely book, Four Thousand Weeks). 

Minkkinen points out that a very common problem for beginner creators — or even intermediate creators — is that their work can feel unoriginal. Derivative. Generic.

Imagine, Minkkinen offers, that you're early photographer who’s spent three years working on platinum studies of nudes. You show your work to a gallery owner, only “to be told your pictures aren’t as original as you thought, because they look like knockoffs of the work of the photographer Irving Penn.”

Discouraging, right?

And, at that point, it can feel like the answer is to shift directions. To choose something new — somewhere you can distinguish yourself, be different.

And yet, Minkkinen would say, you actually should do the exact opposite. To understand why, he gives a parable about Helsinki’s main bus station:

“There are two dozen platforms there, he explains, with several different bus lines departing from each one – and for the first part of the journey, each bus leaving from any given platform takes the same route through the city as all the others, making identical stops.

“Think of each stop as representing one year of your career, Minkkinen advises photography students.”

In the first few years of your career or your creative practice, you will be on the same route through the city as anyone else. Every single bus goes through the same stops in downtown Helsinki, after all.

The first one, three, or five stops (or years, in this parable) of your work will feel derivative.

Generic. Uninteresting. Perhaps boring.

But the solution? “Stay on the bus. Stay on the fucking bus,” Minkkinen says. Why?

“A little farther out on their journeys through the city, Helsinki’s bus routes diverge, plunging off to unique destinations as they head through the suburbs and into the countryside beyond. *That’s* where the distinctive work begins. But it begins at all only for those who can muster the patience to immerse themselves in the earlier stage – the trial-and-error phase of copying others, learning new skills, and accumulating experience.”

…

And as Burkeman points out: this doesn’t just apply to creative work. It applies to anything where we put in time to deepen our skills and insight.

A relationship, for example. Or at a job of any kind.

Often, the most transcendent possibilities for that relationship, job, or creative work come when we have sat on that fucking bus through all the stops through urban Helsinki, and finally reach the original, spacious, profoundly unique countryside beyond.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

---

Sign up for my newsletter to get helpful + encouraging essays like this every Sunday morning. It’s free!

One (nearly effortless) way to improve productivity

Some time ago, one of my clients came to our session very stressed about a huge project with a deadline several months down the road. She was applying to an MFA program, while also working a job — and needed several excellent writing samples, plus recommendations, personal statements, and more.

Would she get everything done in time?

And would she be able to do it, while balancing it with her other priorities (relationships, physical and mental well-being)? 

But as we talked about it in more detail, it became clear that this goal could be done, with ease and spaciousness, if she worked on it for an hour in the morning, and 30-45 minutes in the early afternoon.

This amount of time was a commitment. But also, it was extremely important goal for her, and she’s already cleared her calendar to have more than enough time each day.

It actually wasn’t that complicated.
It wasn’t dramatic at all.
It was just math.  

By the end of our session together, her body was so different than when we began. She seemed calm, open.

Thinking about it made me want to remind you of something:

Drama-free is a freaking amazing way to live.

Most big, scary things can, often, be accomplished with significantly less drama. And when you remove (or radically lessen) the drama, then it’s just execution.

And of course, sometimes it feels impossible to do them without drama. If that’s true for you, your first drama-removal step might be to get support. (This is something that I specialize in, if you’d like to work together.)

But consider a big project that you’re overwhelmed by:

How can you do it without drama?

…

Oh, and that client emailed me, months later, to say that she accomplished that goal beyond her wildest dreams.

The top MFA program in the country? IN.
Multiple fully-funded, also-top-notch MFA programs? IN, IN, IN.  

A huge congratulations to her for her massive talent.

And additional congratulations, of course, for her massively lower-drama execution.

 …

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie




p.s. Do you have something you want out of life — a concrete goal? Or maybe it’s just something you’d like to feel more of – calmer, more confident, more sparkly? Working with a life coach can help you not only accomplish that goal, but do so with so much more ease and less drama.

I have one opening for a new client to start in July. If you’d like to work with me, learn more here.

---

Sign up for my newsletter to get helpful + encouraging essays like this every Sunday morning. It’s free!

The Robot Fantasy (or: one reason you "can't get things done")

Many people I meet have something I call “the robot fantasy.” As in: they’d like to be a robot.

Of course, if you casually asked, “would you like to become a robot?” they’d laugh and say no. But then, later, they’d find themselves deep in fantasy:

I wish I could just get my entire, 16-point to-do list done every weekend.

I wish I could just work at my intense job, pursue my passion project with vigor, be a good friend and partner, exercise, and make healthy, delicious food — every single day.

I wish I could stop getting physically and emotionally tired! 

In other words: I wish I could stop being a human!

Humans are, by nature, not robots. Yes, we can accomplish a great deal. Yes, we can check items off a to-do list. But we can’t just program ourselves — beep bip boop — and then expect ourselves to execute whatever plan we come up with. Even if there’s technically enough “time” to work and exercise and do everything our kids need and sleep and remember to buy that birthday gift…we may not be able to do it. 

Because we’re also stoppable. We have emotions and thoughts and we need time to rest and re-charge — often more time than many of us think we “should” need.

(Saying that you “shouldn’t” need so much time to rest, of course, is another way of saying I wish I was a robot.)

Sometimes the first step to building a life that works better for you means admitting:

Fine, I will never be a robot. So what can I do with my measly humanness?

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

For when you're feeling like you aren't doing enough

I increasingly believe that one of the most important life skills you can cultivate is the Art of Partial Credit. 

Sure, you’ll feel fantastic when you do your entire, ideal morning routine,

Or when you follow your eating plan perfectly,

Or when you check everything off your to-do list.

But then something will happen. Something unexpected. And you won’t be able to perfectly follow your plans.

What do you do then? Will you give up on your plans and browse the internet while mindlessly eating cookies for breakfast?

Or will you go for partial credit?

I know you’ve got this. I’m rooting for you.

Katie