She stopped him, took a piece of paper, and said: “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Would you please paint me a small painting?” Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, beautiful piece of art on the paper, then returned it to her, saying: “The price of this painting is a million dollars.”
The woman said: “But Mr. Picasso, it took me only thirty seconds to paint this little masterpiece.” Picasso said: “My dear lady, it took me thirty years to paint this masterpiece in thirty seconds.”
Picasso was not the only creative genius who worked for decades to perfect his craft, and his journey is a model for many brilliant creators. Even people with great talents only produce creative work after decades of practice. Let's talk about why that is and how you can discover your genius for creativity.
Ages of most Nobel Prize winners
A recent study has monitored the ages of Nobel Prize winners, great inventors, and scientists. The researchers found that most pioneering work peaked in the late 1930s, which is equivalent to at least ten full years in any profession. Creativity achievements in science and mathematics often require ten or more years of work.
These results are consistent with previous researchers' findings as well. For example, a study conducted by cognitive psychology professor John Hayes (John Hayes at Carnegie Mellon University) noted that nearly five hundred famous pieces of music were created ten years after the composer took up this profession. In later studies, Hayes found similar patterns among poets and painters, and he pointed out that this period of hard work and little appreciation is characterized by “ten years of silence.”
Whether you are an author or a scientist, creativity is not a trait you are born with or without but rather something you discover, hone, and develop through hard work. This leads us to an important question: How can you fully perform your work and discover your unique and hidden talent?
Allow yourself to write bad articles
“People tend to watch successful writers whose books are published and who may also get good financial returns. People think these writers sit at their desks every morning feeling their best, proud of themselves and their talent, and have an amazing story to tell. They are ready to start writing full-length paragraphs as quickly as Court clerks. However, in reality, this is just an illusion for the inexperienced.
I know some great writers who have large audiences and a beautiful way of writing and whose writing has brought them a good amount of money, and none of them sat down to write routinely with enthusiasm and self-confidence.
None of them came out with great drafts the first time. For me and most other writers, I know writing has nothing to do with the writer's enthusiasm. In fact, the only way I can get a good manuscript is to write really bad drafts." - From the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
In any creative endeavor, you must allow yourself to write bad articles. There is no escape from this. Also, sometimes, you have to write four bad pages only to discover that you wrote one good sentence in the second paragraph of the third page.
Writing something useful and satisfying is like entering a gold mine, where you have to dig into piles of dirt, rocks, and dust to find a piece of gold in the middle of everything. You will gradually find some genius in your writing if you allow room for bright ideas to flow.
Create a schedule
Amateurs produce anything based on inspiration, while professionals produce their work according to a schedule. Nothing brilliant will result if you do not constantly force yourself to create.
The only way to become prominent in this field is to practice your craft over a long period, and the person who sits down and theorizes about the qualities of a bestseller will never write that book. At the same time, the writer who wakes up every morning, sits in his chair, and begins writing learns how to do it right.
“Inspiration is for amateurs; we wake up every morning and get to work.” - Chuck Close.
Ira Glass, a host of the popular radio show The American Life, which is broadcast every week to 1.7 million listeners, gave this advice to anyone looking for creative and distinctive work: “The most important thing you can do is doing a lot of work and set yourself a deadline to know that you will finish one story every week or every month. By completing a lot of work, your work will reach your desired quality.”
Do not hesitate if you want to accomplish the best creative work. Do not wake up in the morning and say, “I wish I felt inspired to create something today.” Rather, it must be based on your decision. You will not reach the stage of creative creativity until you practice your work sufficiently, thereby eliminating ideas that are devoid of creativity.
Finish something
Steven Pressfield's most famous work was The Legend of Bagger Vance, the best-selling novel that was turned into a major motion picture starring Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron. But if you ask Pressfield, he'll say his most important book is the one you've never heard of, the first one he finished.
Here's how Pressfield describes how he finished his first novel:
“I couldn't find anyone to buy the book from me, not even the book I published after it. It was ten years before anyone saw anything I had written and another ten years before The Legend of Bagger Vance was published. However, that moment when I wrote the words “The End” for the first time was truly fateful, and I remember unfolding the last page and adding it to the final draft package.
No one knew that I had finished the novel, and no one cared, but I knew, and I felt as if I had been fighting a dragon all my life, and it fell dead at my feet and took its last breath.”
Finish something, finish anything, and stop researching, planning, and preparing to carry out the work, and all you have to do is start immediately. It does not matter if the result is good or bad; you do not have to dazzle the world with your first attempt, and all you have to do is prove to yourself that you have what it takes to produce distinctive work. No artist, athlete, businessman, or scientist achieves brilliance by finishing only half of their work, so stop debating what to do and start working.
Practice self-compassion
“When I write, I feel like a person with amputated legs and arms, with a pen in his mouth.” - Kurt Vonnegut.
When people practice their work regularly, they can evaluate the quality of their work themselves. I write new articles on Mondays and Wednesdays every week, and I began to evaluate everything I wrote after I adhered to this publishing schedule. I was convinced that I had not provided any good idea that came to my mind, and I wrote my most popular article eight months later.
It is normal for you to evaluate your work, and it is also normal for you to feel disappointed because your work is not as great as you had hoped or because you do not see any improvement in it. However, the solution here is to confront the despair that prevents you from continuing what you are doing. You must practice enough self-compassion not to allow self-criticism to control you.
Share your work
Share your work with people, as this will make you responsible for providing your best and will also give you feedback that enables you to improve the quality of your work. Seeing others interacting with you gives you the incentive to care about your business more.
“When it comes to ideas, most people are too afraid of the consequences of plagiarism, and don't realize the price they will pay if their work remains hidden.” - Mike Trap.
Sharing your work with others can sometimes mean dealing with critics and people who hate you. But often, the only thing that happens is attracting people who believe in your ideas, are passionate about the same things you are, or support the work you believe in. Who doesn't want that?
The world needs people to create creative works in it. What seems simple to you may be wonderful to someone else, but you will never know it unless you resolve to share it with others.
How to find your genius creativity?
Finding your creative genius is easy: do the work, finish something, get feedback, and find ways to improve yourself. Then repeat it tomorrow, and repeat it for ten, twenty or thirty years; You will not find inspiration until you put in your effort.
Undoubtedly, you care about your work but do not take it seriously so that you can laugh at your mistakes and continue producing everything you love. Also, do not let your judgments about yourself prevent you from creating more work.
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