I’m not talking about what you see in a mirror.
I’m talking about the ability to stand back from what you’ve created and assess its worth.
Why is this important?
Creativity isn’t an objective pursuit. Its value can’t be measured the way other skills can be. Does a vaccine work? Will that iron girder support that building? These questions have right and wrong answers, whereas creativity is more often than not subjective.
Eventually, of course, its value will be confirmed, but often long after it was created. Van Gogh was only able to sell one of his paintings during his lifetime. And that was to his brother. Now they sell for millions.
Assessing the value of what you’re producing while you’re producing it has to be conducted with different criteria. And by their very nature, these will be highly personal.
Snap judgments and rapid decisions often lead to poor work. The ability to stand back from your thinking and give it what we call ‘the overnight test’ is essential. Unfortunately, we live in a world today that too often doesn’t allow this.
'I want it now'.
'Tomorrow is too late'.
Time may be one of creativity’s best friends, yet no one will give you any. You have to earn it.
To gauge if your idea will stand up to scrutiny necessitates reflection. Thanks to digital technology everything in this world has sped up drastically but that only makes it all that much more important to slow it down.
Our brains still operate in an analog world.