this is why you stopped making art

Why did you stop making art? And be careful how fast you answer because it comes quick, doesn't it? Life got busy or it got serious, kids, bills. Just too quick. Like a line that you've rehearsed. And rehearsed answers are usually covering for something. You still slow down when you watch someone painting. You still picture your name on the book cover. The guitar is still in the closet. The camera is still in the drawer. You're not someone who stopped caring. You just stopped creating. And those two are very different things. And so I want to talk about why that happens. And more importantly, how to get back to creating your best art. Because the door you thought was locked, actually it might not even be closed. All right, let's dive right in. So, don't you find it odd that you stopped creating but you've never stopped caring about creativity? Like you still notice things. You still save things. You still get ideas. Maybe you still hear a song and wish you made it. Or still see someone painting and you feel something. And that right there is some sort of like recognition. Some part of you is knocking from the inside. And you wonder, right? You wonder, if I care this much, why don't I just create? And maybe that question, it makes you feel guilty. But when I think about this question, it reminds me of this 2,000-year-old seed that I read about the other day. Um back in 2005, they took that seed and they germinated it. And they actually sprouted. 2,000 years old. And there's actually a word for what that seed was doing for 2,000 years. And the word isn't dead. It wasn't dead. The word is dormant. Being dormant is not the absence of life. It's a strategy for protecting life until conditions change. And I believe that your art is doing the same thing. It's waiting, and that's a natural state. Take any interest you have, and I challenge you to stop feeding it. And and watch what happens. Fake interest it would just like stop pulling you. Fake interest, they run on novelty, on an audience, on momentum. But if you starve them, and you'll see, they'll just quietly disappear. And you'll never even think about them again. Now, here's the thing. You've been running this test on creating art for years, you know, by accident. And look at you. You stopped creating, but you've never stopped caring about creativity. And that's a very important signal. It's It's why you're watching this video. It means creativity is alive inside of you. And that knock from inside your house it means one thing. It means that somebody is still home. Things that we don't really care about, they disappear. But art, it keeps knocking. And so, maybe you don't need to find your creativity. Maybe you just need to make it easier to reach, right? As in like leave the guitar outside the case, leave the the open, put the notebook somewhere where you have to touch it, right? Just make starting so small. Make it so easy. Because adult life it already makes creating art hard enough. You know, we're we're taught that art comes after everything important. You know, finish your work, answer your emails, pay the bills, clean the house. And then and then only then, if there's time, we create art. But I don't know, art just becomes the dessert, right? But our plate is just never empty. There will always be another email, always be another bill, always another problem. Life will never just walk into the room and say, "Everything is done. Everything is finally over. So now now you can make art." Nah. No. That day will never come. We've been thinking about art backward. Art isn't always what we do when life feels good. Sometimes art is how we make life feel good. We wait to feel calm before we create. But creating can actually calm us down, right? We wait for energy, but creating can give us energy. We wait to feel like ourselves, but creating can bring us back to ourselves. We are waiting for the medicine before taking the medicine. In the book The Creative Act, uh Rick Rubin said that self-expression is how we define our existence. So I want you to try something. Don't create on your best day this week. Create on your worst one. Just a short amount of time, 10 minutes. And then just notice how you feel. You probably might find that art isn't taking energy from you. It's giving some back. Okay, so there's also another thing that happens when we stop creating. We stop calling ourselves artist. Someone will ask you what you do, and you'll just say your job, right? But somewhere inside of you, the word artist still feels like yours. You just feel like you haven't earned it anymore. Like you had some membership and the membership fee ran out or something. But look, you didn't stop being creative. You just stopped using your creativity. If you stop speaking a language, the language doesn't just vanish. Yeah, you'll get rusty, might forget some words, but it's still there. Art can be like that. You might be rusty, but creativity, it could go quiet without going away, dormant. So I believe that you're still an artist, you're still a writer, you're still a musician. We think that maybe when we make good work again, then we'll call ourselves an artist. But maybe it's the other way around. Like call yourself an artist, then give that identity somewhere to go. Like claiming I I used to paint, it puts creativity in the past. But claiming I'm a painter, it forces us to ask ourselves when we're going to paint again. Okay, so oh, before I move on, if you want all my notes on creativity, just endless inspiration to create your best art, I'll leave a link to them in the description of this video. Just tap the link and let me know where to send them. Okay, so there's another thing that adulthood does to creativity that really, really bothers me. Um is that it gives everything a job. Like, can I post this? Can I sell this? Will people like this? Could this become content? Could this become a business? But think about how we created as a kid. We created art just because we wanted to. Nobody asked us to. Nobody paid us. Nobody liked or shared it. And it just felt incredible, didn't it? Just creating for the sake of creation was enough. And so I think we should embrace more useless creativity. Make something nobody will see. Something we can't sell, can't post, can't turn into content. Make something with one job, one job only, to simply exist. Because when nobody's watching, we stop trying to impress people. We just start getting more curious just all over again. Now, when you do start creating again, I I do have to warn you about something that is pretty painful that might happen. But hear me out because there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The first thing you make it probably will disappoint you. Because you might be worse than you remember. And I mean, it makes sense, right? As we get older and experience more life, our taste for beauty it expands, keeps growing. And so, your eyes kept learning, but your hands stopped practicing. And so, now you can see good art better than you can make it. And that gap it could hurt. But, I do need to be clear. The gap is not proof that you lost anything. Your hands they can catch up to your eyes. But, first they need permission to be bad. So make something terrible. Like, seriously, like write a bad poem. Draw an ugly drawing. Uh play a super simple song. When the goal is to make bad art perfection just just has nothing to fight. And once that ugly thing exist you're not thinking about coming back anymore. You are back. And not good, not ready, just back. And that comes first. Because returning artist they usually make one big mistake. We think our first piece back has to make up for all the lost time. After 10 years, the painting better be beautiful, the song better be worth the wait, the comeback better mean something. Man, that is too much weight for one little piece of art. So, don't return with a masterpiece. Return with something small. Draw like your cup of coffee. Write four lines. Just take one photo. Even just hum a melody in your phone. Your first piece doesn't need to prove that coming back was worth it. Coming back is the point. You know, we keep waiting. You know, just waiting to feel ready. But action creates readiness. As in most of the time being ready comes after we start. We say, "When I'm motivated, I'll create." But creating creates motivation. Or "When I'm confident, I'll share." But sharing creates confidence. Or "When I feel like an artist again, then I'll start." But starting starting is what makes us feel like artists again. We keep waiting for a feeling that lives on the other side of the action. Feeling it doesn't always lead to action. Sometimes action leads to feeling. Okay, so there's one final trap that I want to share with you. Maybe like maybe you never really left creativity, right? Like you you watch films, you listen to music, you read books, follow artists, save, you know, tutorials. Your folders are full of inspiration. Your taste is better than ever. So, you almost feel creative. Almost. But watching someone eat does not feed you. And watching someone create does not let you create. Taking our in and putting our out are two different needs. One fills you with something, the other lets something out. Some of us has taken in so much and has let out so little. We know the language of art. We just stopped speaking it. But those years, they're not wasted. You were still learning. You learned what moves you, what bores you, what feels fake, what feels alive. You were training your taste the whole time. Now go use it. What something inspires you, don't only save it. Answer it. When you hear a song you love, make a sound. When you see a picture you love, take one. If you read a line that just moves you, write one of your own. When inspiration hits, you've built a habit of saving it for later. But inspiration isn't asking to just sit in a folder. It's asking to become something else through you. And if you haven't created in a while, I really want you to hear this. Your creativity did not leave you. Every notebook you bought, every idea you've had in the shower, every time someone else's art made you feel something deeply, just every time you even thought to yourself that you wish you still created art, that was your creativity still there, still knocking. You don't need to become creative again. You just need to stop waiting to feel creative before you create. So, don't make a 5-year plan. Okay. Don't buy new studio equipment. Don't announce your big comeback. Tonight, just make one thing. Something tiny. Something useless. Something imperfect. Something nobody asked for. And just give it 10 minutes. That's all you need. And when that old voice ask you what's the point? Just don't even answer. Everything doesn't doesn't need a point. A flower doesn't need a reason to bloom. The sun doesn't need a reason to rise. A kid doesn't need a reason to draw and you do not need a reason to make something. So, the next time you hear that knock on that door again, you know, the idea, the urge to create, don't just listen to it. Open the door. Pick up the pencil. Touch the keys. Write that first sentence. You don't have to know what happens next. You just have to answer the door because someone's been knocking for a very long time. And look, if you've been looking for a reason to take that part of yourself seriously again, I'm building something called the World of Creatives Collective and I'll love to invite you. We are private group of creators from all around the world who don't just want to consume more creativity, but actually want to live a more creative life. There's artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, builders of all skill levels, of all seasons of their creative journey from over 40 countries. If something in this video made you want to embrace your creativity again, you just need to be around more people who already understand why you should. And so, I'll leave a link in the description for you to apply and I hope to connect with you in there. Okay, I'll see you in the next video. Stay creative.