DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

6 Habits of Happy Creatives

Feb 27, 2016 by Missy Mwac 1 Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

six-habits-creatives-1

1. They leave the drama to HBO.
You will get sucked down faster than a cold beer on a hot day when you engage in the dramatic dealings of certain people. I’m not naming names; you know who they are. Everyone knows who they are. Heck, THEY know who they are. It’s just not worth it. It’s like wrestling with a pig: all that happens is you get dirty and the pig likes it. Yeah, you have to pay for the drama on HBO, but at least when you’re done, you can turn it off.

2. They exercise and eat right all the time, except when they don’t.
I saw a billboard once that read, “People busier than you are exercising right now.” I remember it was a billboard for exercise clothes. I also remember I was eating ice cream at the time and my mouth was full when I said out loud that that was a genius slogan. And the people who thought it up should be wrapped naked in a wet sheet and stuck on top of Mount Everest overnight. We all know that exercise and a healthy diet is ideal but sometimes, it’s not possible. Salad one day-cheeseburger the next. That’s how it works. It doesn’t mean you won’t be able to create great stuff if you eat a slice of pizza instead of, say, a handful of kale. Sure, there’s a mind body connection, but it doesn’t always work the way you think it does; sometimes, it works in reverse. If a creative person desperately craves chocolate, he/she might not be free to create until the craving is met. Don’t ask me how I know this.  And don’t ask me why I always have Almond Joy bars in the pantry.

3. They don’t try to be someone else.
We all have people we admire. There are certain folks so brilliantly creative that I wish I could crawl up inside their brain and live there. Just a tiny studio apartment in their brain with a futon and a Keurig where I can look out the window and watch their thoughts whiz by.  But as much as I admire them,  I don’t want to BE them; I want to be me, warts and all. Besides, once I crawled out of their brain I’d be covered with brain stuff and that could ruin my outfit.

4. They zone out.
All day long, we have information hitting us: ideas, schedules, memories, problems, stories…everything keeps coming in and unless we stop and zone out to empty our minds and settle our thoughts, we become the mental equivalent of “Hoarders.” And that’s not pretty.  Now, you don’t need a special “Zoning Out Zone,” but I find it helps. Mine is the bathroom. I go inside at the end of the day and shut the door. And then I lock the door. And then I turn on the music really loud. And then…I zone out. I thought about painting the floor with yellow diagonal strips to indicate the “Zoning out Zone,” but figured that might be taking it a bit too far.

5. They always try to JBC aka “Just Be Cool”
As Billy Crystal pointed out in “When Harry Met Sally,” there are 3 types of people:

High maintenance
Low maintenance
And high maintenance who think they are low maintenance 

You really can’t help the category you fall into; that was pretty much decided in the womb, but you can dial back the emotions when you start to lose the coolness. YOU HAVE THAT POWER. Nobody makes us lose our cool; we do that all on our own. Unless you’re a Happy Creative, in which case, you chill.

6. They embrace the 11th hour.
I have a saying that sort of guides my creative life: “If it wasn’t for the 11th hour, I’d never get anything done.” Now to some, that motto might be a sign of a highly unorganized, unmotivated individual. But they would be only half right: Unorganized? Maybe.
Unmotivated? No way.
Many creatives are like this; they might whine and moan about having to meet a deadline, but they get a kind of high from working under pressure. It FORCES them to pull from somewhere deep within to come up with an idea or finish a project and, although they won’t admit it at the time because they are crying and pulling their hair out in frustration, they love it: the scattered coffee cups, the race to the finish holding imagination’s hand. And as they watch the sun rise from their desk after pulling an all-nighter, they can’t help but grin that they pulled it off and made something great.

About The Author

Missy Mwac is a photographer/eater of bacon/drinker of vodka and a guide through the murky waters of professional photography. You can follow her social media links here: Facebook, Tumblr. This article was also published here and shared with permission

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailInspiration from Successful Creatives How Non Creatives respond to Spec Work Requests This handy tool helps creatives say “no” to dismal projects The basics of branding for filmmakers and other visual creatives

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: business of photography, Missy Mwac, workflow

« You can now censor parts of video directly in YouTube’s Creator Studio
The Client Is Always Right, Even When They’re Not »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Clay Cook’s trippy portraits are the perfect combination of AI and real photography
  • Canon is starting to let 3rd parties make RF mount lenses
  • Canon recalls some EOS R10 bodies over “loud noises”
  • Netflix sued for using unauthorized drone footage in advertisement
  • This massive 114-gigapixel virtual tour of Barcelona took three months to create

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy