How can you stay creatively confident during the lockdown?
A question I would never have thought to answer two years ago.
Two years ago, would it have been possible for the average person to comprehend that we would be facing a world-changing pandemic that’ll ruthlessly ravage the retail, hospitality, entertainment and fashion industry? No, but here we are a year into this mess.
The universal narrative is to stay indoors and only venture out when necessary. With only essential shops open, lack of socialising has forced us to be creative with ways to entertain ourselves and exercise our mental health.
However, when left alone with your thoughts, it becomes very apparent that it’s a lot more challenging to maintain creative confidence and very easy to let that pesky imposter syndrome lead your narrative.
We thought we would step in and give you three fantastic ways to keep creatively confident during the lockdown.
But how can we practice creative problem solving to better tackle this conundrum at our jobs and becoming more confident?
We put three scenarios together and answer the question: How do you stay creatively confident while the world fends off a pandemic?
Thinking ahead, looking at the bigger picture and being able to adapt will help you keep creatively confident.
The first way to stay creatively confident is to model the project you’re working on mentally. If you are working in a team and are struggling to validate your creative ideas, your creative confidence could suffer.
For example, imagine a scenario where your web team is designing their next big social media campaign. Your project manager is asking you to create the brand identity and content page for a hospital promoting its excellent handling of E Coli in its branch. All is going well until an international study surfaces that a specific strain of E Coli causes a massive increase in hospitalisations and deaths of healthcare workers. What would your brand identity, landing page and promotional material look like then?
Would you panic and immediately scrap the campaign?
Hopefully not! Being able to adapt and change aspects of your project is essential in a kickass creatively confident individual.
How can we gain inherently creative perspectives?
Our first tip is to be prepared for the unexpected and think outside the box. The world right now is unpredictable, so why don’t you practise coming up with abstract ideas?
How can you try this?
We have an abstract creative brief generator just for that!
Watch how others interpret processes to gain a new perspective.
The second way to stay creatively confident is to watch how other people use their frameworks at your company. (If you don’t work at a company then look at how the community you are in interprets a popular framework) And don’t just look at CEOs. Talk to your marketing team, your internal thought leadership team. Take some notes and mirror them or borrow insights from them.
The third way to remain creatively confident is to make sure your pattern of thinking is continually changing!
So how can you know your thought patterns are right? Document your thinking through exercises and daily journaling. Craving creativity and excitement? Download our free ebook the art of being a creative badass
There are several other fantastic ways to become more creatively confident, including giving your work away for free or planning your calendar based on priority. However, one extra tip from us would be to seek and involve a mentor in your creative process.
Mentors are a great sounding board and will help you with their insights! It’s also another simple way of maintaining creative confidence — by keeping busy and not letting mental models dominate your narrative.
A great place to find and even become a mentor is Designed.org. Designed.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation providing equal access to educational resources and mentors for designers across the world.
How empowering is it to be inspired by someone you respect, someone who inspires you when you most need it?
A creative safe space could be hugely beneficial to you, get in the habit of seeking out advice from someone or something that inspires you.
Also, don’t forget to exercise your creativity! Learn to pivot your creative thinking towards becoming the best in the here and now. You are learning how to be okay in the middle of this newfound reality by adopting a few self-care tactics. This will also be a significant step.
Disagree with this choice?
Then why not try to take a mental health day once in a while?
It’ll help shift your perspective and remind you why you pursued the work in the first place. It’s not too late to start. All it takes is a commitment to perseverance and gratitude. Psychological safety is all around.
