Don’t Let Air into The Jar
The longer we spend getting down to our projects, the more we accumulate what I call “air in the jar”.
I got this idea from looking at how food products are packaged, more specifically the ones that are vacuum sealed. I find it amazing that we can put tuna or soup in a can and it can sit on the shelf for quite a while without going back.
And after we open the can, a ticking time bomb begins. Because as light and air get at the food, it will eventually rot.
In our own work, we have to be careful about not letting air get into the jar, which is another way of saying we need to get started quickly before the inner critic has a chance to stop us. I’m not suggesting you have to rush, as that’s a bit extreme. And when you’re doing the work, you again don’t have to rush. But you do have to keep things moving.
Walking is a good example of the pace I’m thinking about.
Put into practice, if you are supposed to play your instrument once a day, you might want to do that earlier in the day when you have more energy to overcome the critic. At this time of day you would have an easier time walking over to your station to get started.
At the end of the day, closer to bed, it can feel like carrying a ton of bricks. If this is the time of day you must do your creative work, I would suggest that you take the walking pace down to a meander over to your station because by this point it would be unrealistic to run there. I would try to work in a very relaxed manner as well since you are not far off from getting to sleep.
Aside from selecting a time of day to do your Most Creative Work (MCW) and the pace that we use to get there, we can also consider the pace at which you do the work.
In my freewriting method for journaling which is based on Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages, you are encouraged to do whatever it takes to keep the pen moving. That means writing jibberish for a bit as your next thought comes to you. It’s not realistic to do this when you’re writing music or painting which needs starts and stops as you consider what the piece needs. However this does apply in these practices when we examine what happens when we’re unhappy with how a piece is turning out.
In these moments don’t give up. The air is entering the jar and the critic is starting to have fun with you. There are a few ways of handling work that we’re not satisfied with.
The first is remembering that in the recording industry, bands don’t release albums with every song being amazing. The songs that are not as good are still a part of the whole project. Songs that are awful are hopefully discarded though.
Another technique would be to put the piece aside. Work on something else, and when you come back to the first piece in question, you might get some new insights that will help turn it around.
The main thing is that whether it’s sitting down to do the work, or finding the inspiration to keep working and finish the piece, you must keep a good pace going.
Remember that this is a long game. In any field it can take years of consistent action to discover a true breakthrough. Yet if the critic is running the show, you can’t do any work at all. And the world suffers as a result of that happening.
