When you’re stuck creatively or on a trip and you don’t know what to do, there’s one surefire thing to do.
As we enter this new year (which already feels like we’re well into it), I’ll be focusing quite a bit on issues related to creativity. Not just art stuff, but how creativity improves every area of our lives. If you’ve come here for the travel insights, don’t worry. Those aren’t going away. But what I think you’ll find—and hopefully appreciate—is just how much travel is a creative act. Thus, the more you up your game creatively—even if you currently may not think of yourself as a creative person—the more you’ll get out of each trip.
For now, let’s start with one of the most important skills any traveler or creative person can have: remembering all the skills you already have.
Remember to remember
Recently, I was reviewing a new program idea for a branding client. I can’t tell you about it because NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) are to sharing details what the announcement of a contagious rash is to your dating life.
Anyway, just know that I needed to come up with four new metaphors—personas, in a way—for this client. Should’ve been simple.
But few things in the creative process are simple. Or rather, easy. Simple and easy aren’t always the same. In this case, it should have been simple—maybe even easy—if I’d not done what we all do.
I forgot.
Forgetting what you already know
I forgot that the best creative work (which includes making great trips) rarely happens when I’m in a production-oriented mindset, stressed, or tired. Or all at the same time. Yes, there’s nothing like a deadline to drive me to the finish line. But for every decent project delivered under the gun, there are many that, with a bit more time for evaluation, could have been better. But the value of deadlines and the power of limits is a topic for another time.
I forgot that taking breaks can be the greatest aid to breakthroughs. So instead of taking a quick walk, I kept trying to come up with new ideas even though I’d not left the computer in the last three hours.
I forgot the biblical wisdom of Psalm 30:5 that weeping may tarry for the night but that joy comes with the morning. A good night’s sleep is quite often the difference between “I’ll never figure this out!” and “Oh, well that’s it!”
You have assets
In my forthcoming book The Creative Wild (it’s almost here! It launches January 25, 2025) I write a good deal on the idea that we all have more “assets” than we may realize. These could include networks, skills, relationships, positive habits, techniques, etc. Lots and lots that, if you add them up, help you realize just how much you can accomplish. But I’m guilty of thinking of those as long-term assets, things to consider when I have time to ruminate over my future or purpose.
What I failed to do that day was to review a list of relevant assets that I might have applied to my vexing problem right then. Again, I forgot what I already knew.
I could have tried coming up with opposites for each item, or to try terms I would never normally use. I could have asked how a person in a different industry might have seen them or how a child might define them. I could have asked myself if using personas was the best approach or if there was another kind of metaphor that would have worked better. I have all these creative tools and yet they all remained in the toolbox. Why?
I forgot I had the toolbox.
Remember what you have
I have tools. You have tools. Creative ones. Discovery ones. Assets that include sleep, exercise, and most of all, remembering what we already know.
And what else do I know but didn’t access? That remembering or reminding yourself to go through your list of assets and tools frees you from the confines or tyranny of your current project. We all go down the rabbit hole and obsess on a smaller and smaller area of focus until our nose is against the screen and everything looks blurry. In so doing, we even lose sight of the actual problem and convince ourselves that our drafts and current direction are inviolate rather than just one of many possible directions or starting points.
Stepping away and getting distance can do wonders.
Nothing new here. But maybe you need this little reminder just as I did:
When you don’t know what to do, remember that you DO know what to do.
Just as most adult learning is remembering or being reminded of what we already know, so too is it with problem solving. Most of the challenges you will encounter, on a trip or in a creative project, are variations on a theme. Except in the most innovative of situations—and even there, many of the steps in the process will be familiar—most of the dilemmas we face are ones we’ve seen before but in a different guise.
I may visit a country where the food tastes dramatically different from the flavors or ingredients at home. But I have yet to encounter a culture where they eat through their ears. There’s simply more that we have in common than where we differ. There’s more that you’ve encountered before creatively than is totally novel.
In most cases, you have everything you need to take that next step. As long as you don’t do one thing that will almost always get in the way.
Don’t forget.
This post first appeared on my Substack at stevebrock.substack.com/p/what-to-do-when-you-dont-know-what
