How To Avoid Drowning in Unfinished Creative Projects

A major inhibition for many creative artists, and something that slows their creativity to a near standstill, is the burden of having a number of unfinished creative projects looming over them.

How many creative projects have you started with great enthusiasm, dived into headlong and created freely, barely thinking..? Then, as you approach completion, a creative paralysis descends, making you feel like you’re trying to dance in quick drying cement!

Each time this happens, the pressure mounts, with thoughts like “not ANOTHER project I can’t finish”, “will I ever finish ANY projects I start” and “why bother even starting a new project when it’s highly unlikely I’ll finish it?”.

Here then are 3 steps to coping with this dilemma, 3 steps on how to avoid drowning in a sea of unfinished creative projects:

1. Ask what does “finished” really mean to you? Think about what it means to actually finish a creative project. For example, to be able to say a painting is “finished” do you mean you expect it to be utterly perfect in every way, signed, framed and hung in a national gallery?

   Adjust your expectation a little. Maybe a better definition of “finished” for you is “has come to a interesting point where I can let go”? If you think about it, whatever the creative project, you could go on tweaking and making final touches forever. Practice adopting this new philosophy that your art doesn’t have a definitive end point, and there will be a stage you get to where you can stop, let go, and be proud of what you’ve created.

2. Accept that many projects will not be finished. Even when you redefine what it means to finish a creative project as somewhere you can stop creating and let it go, there will always be projects that will be more challenging than others to reach this point with.

   Be open to allowing your art to evolve and become what it needs to become. Sometimes this will mean a dead end, or running out of ideas or a direction to take it in. And that’s OK. We can’t expect every work to be a masterpiece, sometimes ideas don’t turn out as well as we thought, whilst other ideas evolve into something amazing we could never have predicted. Let your creative projects be what they will be, even if it means “unfinished”.

3. Learn to enjoy the creation not just the completion. We’ve talked in the last step about how some projects won’t be finished, and that’s OK. In fact what you’ll find once you’re open to this idea is that many of those that aren’t finished are the ones that you learn most from and give you the greatest insight into how you create.

   Creativity is about experimentation, discovery, trying new stuff, enjoying yourself. It’s not about being a production line robot, churning out perfect replicas of the same art over and over. The more you enjoy your creative projects, the more engaged you become in the process and the joy of just creating. Being creative gives you feelings that nothing else can. Let yourself ENJOY these feelings as fully as possible.

Follow these 3 steps to overcome that burden of unfinished projects that blocks you from creating.

The more you practice, and the more you create, the more freely your creativity will flow.