Get Started

Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration must find you working.” The hardest part of getting anything done is usually starting. This inability to begin comes from an attachment to the ends of your work and a fear of the future. If you’re too concerned about how something is going to turn out, or constantly subjecting yourself to harsh critical judgement, you’ll never get anything done.

Allow yourself to simply get started. If you need to write, start writing and see where it goes. If you want to paint, just paint. Let your work develop on its own accord, as if you are simply a vehicle through which a universal creative energy is traveling. Don’t force your conscious will upon your work to the extent that it prevents you from doing any work!  

If you involve yourself too much with a creative goal, you’ll prevent yourself from making any “happy accidents”, as Bob Ross would say. Instead, employ chance and randomness. If you simply begin to work without inspiration and allow it to discover you while you are working, you’ll end up somewhere entirely new and unintended.

Many of the most wonderfully innovative creative projects have resulted from such encounters with the unknown. If you break down all the barriers between your ego and your inborn creative energy, you’ll be surprised by what materializes.