Do creativity and success belong together?
I'd like to think so.
👋 Hey there! I’m Alexis. I write about life, creativity, being a freelance writer, and everything in between. If you enjoy corny humor and cute cat pictures with a splash of advice (and maybe personal essays), you’ll probably fit in around here.
Hey everyone!
Inspiration struck earlier this week after I finished reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, so I decided to hit publish on this one outside of my usual posting schedule. I’m here to be creative and free anyway, so… fuck the schedule.
Anyway, I wanted to send it today via email as well to make sure it reaches more readers, so here I am.
Wishing you a happy Saturday and can’t wait to meet you in the comments!
Take care,
Alexis
Do creativity and success belong together?
Most mornings, I wake up before my boyfriend. I love a quiet morning when I can sip my cappuccino in peace while I sit next to the big window in my living room and read a few pages of whatever book I’m currently enjoying. I’m not a particularly fast reader, but when the topic or writing style captures me, I fly through the pages. In the last four weeks, this has happened with three different books.
The Success Myth by
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Big Magic by
Reading these three books back to back got me thinking about the words “creativity” and “success” and how they belong together, at least for me.
Redefining success
The Success Myth grabbed my attention because it talks about redefining success and what it means to you. The Oxford Dictionary defines success as:
“the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”
“the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status”
The second definition above was how I previously tracked my success, mainly by looking at income and recognition. But my version of success is slowly shifting as I get older (and hopefully wiser). Success is not only about how much money you make, how big your house is, and what luxurious holiday you splashed photos of all over Instagram. It’s about what lights you up. The things that make you happy. It’s about following your gut to do or create things that you are proud of. Of course, we all have bills to pay. We need to put food on the table and depending on your desired lifestyle more income might be necessary. But where do we draw the line? When is enough enough? I’m still figuring this out. But if you have already, please share!
Success can be out of our hands
Outliers raises a different perspective that attributes an individual’s success to variables like where and when they were born, their circumstances, whether they’re children of immigrants, and so on. It’s intriguing, more scientific, and makes complete sense. I don’t want to give away too much of the book in case you haven’t read it yet, but the part that stood out to me was about how the year and month we are born can impact our “success” in certain areas of life. Malcolm writes about things like joining sports teams and starting school before the cutoff date. I was born in September, so for my grade, I was a youngster. Many of my classmates were already five when they started kindergarten and would turn six during the school year. I was four, turning five shortly after the school year started, which meant I wouldn't be six until second grade.
This was the worst when I was in high school and most people in my grade turned 16 before me. I was one of the last few kids in my class to get my driver’s license, something that unlocks so much freedom when you grow up in the suburbs.
Anyway, It doesn’t sound like a big difference, but at such a young age, you can develop a lot within as little as three months. So the students who are three, six, or nine months older at the start of school have an advantage over the younger ones when it comes to testing and other educational activities. Malcolm suggested that schools should have three cohorts within each grade, at least in the beginning so students can be grouped and measured against children born within the same three months. I think it’s a brilliant idea and as he mentioned, probably wouldn’t require too much extra administrative work.
Embracing creativity
Big Magic is the most fresh in my mind as I write this (I just finished it this morning). Liz’s take on creativity and inspiration is down to earth, a bit woo-woo, and best of all, she keeps it real. My main takeaways are that inspiration and creativity come and go, so we should be ready for it, but we should never try to force it. Sometimes our ideas sit with us for too long and we don’t act on them so they move on to another human that can bring them to life (I know, sounds woo woo, but it’s an interesting way to think about creativity).
We should carry on with the day-to-day of creating, be persistent, and dig into what interests us or sparks curiosity because we never know what might come of it. At the same time, don’t put pressure on your creative endeavors to support you financially.
Liz shared how she always had “day jobs”, even after the success of Eat Pray Love. She didn’t want to stifle her creativity and put pressure on it to carry her through life until she was a billion times sure that she could live off of her creative work. In this case, writing.
My definition of success
Today, my definition of success is slowing down, saying yes to more of the fun stuff, and chasing creativity and curiosity without any expectations of exactly where it will lead.
For me, creativity and success belong together like peanut butter and jelly, I can’t have one without the other.
I can 100% relate to your definition of success as slowing down. When I first started freelancing, I had a “successful” first year and was determined to grow my business into a larger creative agency—worked myself to the ground trying to do so. Eventually, I decided that the thing I had been working SO hard for was not healthy and no longer what I wanted. I’ve taken on less work (higher quality) in the past three years, have a more sustainable rhythm, and am actually making more money lol
I couldn’t agree more! Honestly one of the key to open doors in life is to make your own definition of success and live by that.