How do you respond to a project that does not really work, perhaps something you choose to abandon?
How can we benefit from making mistakes?
In her article “18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently,” Carolyn Gregoire writes, “Resilience is practically a prerequisite for creative success, says [psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman].
“Doing creative work is often described as a process of failing repeatedly until you find something that sticks, and creatives — at least the successful ones — learn not to take failure so personally.”
From my article Mistakes Fuel Creativity and Innovation – which includes this image of a conceptual ‘bridge to nowhere’ – click the image to read about it.
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Psychologist Sharon Barnes works with creative, sensitive, intense, gifted children and adults.
She writes about this topic in an article on her site – here is an excerpt:
Have you ever started a creative project that went so badly you trashed it?
I have–more times than I’d like to admit.
I had heard that mistakes can be our finest learning experiences, but I’d not relished that idea until I reclaimed one of my discarded pieces, and unexpectedly discovered how to reclaim my life, too.
An hourglass quilt block I had made from scraps contained too many mistakes to use, so I pitched it.
The triangles didn’t have points; I could have done better when I was nine years old.
The parallel lines weren’t parallel–they would have made a good class project for “Principles of Perspective in Art.”
In one place, the fabric ran out before it reached the edge of the block.
It was beyond repair. Toss it, I must.
But before garbage pick-up day, I needed a piece of fabric to practice on, and I didn’t want to waste new fabric.
Aha! I had just the thing! I retrieved the square I had thrown away, thinking, “I can’t make it any worse than it is”.
I plopped blotches of color here and there, with no rhyme or reason, except that I purposely covered up a few of the glaring errors I had made.
After continuing to use it for several practice sessions, I dubbed it Chaos: it looked chaotic and it matched my life.
I was recovering from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. At least, I hoped I was.
On many days, I was better than I had been, but still not well enough to work more than a few hours a week. …
In the midst of this turmoil, I was stealing moments of great fun.
I could sew on this practice block on good days and crash days, since there was no pressure to do it right.
As long as I could sit up and keep my fingers out from under the sewing machine needle, I was good to go.
I practiced fusible appliqué, machine free-motion embroidery with metallic threads, and then machine free-motion quilting, also with metallic threads.
My machine purred on happily for weeks, then months.
While I stitched, it was as if I entered another realm, where all was peace and light; where space and time longer existed.
Physical pain, fatigue, fear, and worry were all forgotten.
Read more in her article My Scrap Angel: Life Lessons Learned While Quilting, May 30, 2018 – find it in the blog section of her site:
Sharon M. Barnes, Therapist For Sensitive And Gifted
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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