Curating the Curious
Welcome to Curating the Curious, the podcast that celebrates staying curious in life and never settling into a box.
This show is for the creators, the seekers, the explorers, the truth tellers….and the forever students of life.
No matter what age or stage you’re currently at, this is not as good as it gets and it is never too late to begin.
Join me as we explore all of the questions that come with the idea of curiosity. A place where the possibilities are endless and you can always start again.
We expand our lives through curiosity. One of my greatest passions is finding ways to encourage and inspire others to keep pushing, sharing, living, and making things for the world to see.
Curating the Curious
Day 22- The Obstacle is The Way...Limitations Will Set You Free!
"Creativity is what happens when a mind encounters an obstacle. It's the human process of finding a way through, over, around, or beneath. No obstacle, no creativity." -Ben Orlin
Welcome to DAY TWENTY TWO of our new 30-day COMMUNITY PROJECT where we make something with our hands every day in order to improve our mental health. We all realize that creativity heals...it's time to put that knowledge into action.
These episodes will exist here, marked with the days numbered, in order for you to follow along at any speed that you like. Miss a day? Doesn't matter. Just pick up right where you left off and keep making things. These episodes will give us all some accountability, but if you need more, pair up with a partner. It really does help!
Join our creative community by making something today, whether it's for five minutes or several hours—your brain will thank you. Let's do this thing together and turn all of this sh*t into something beautiful!
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Creativity is what happens when a mind encounters an obstacle. It's the human process of finding a way through, over, around, or beneath. No obstacle, no creativity by Ben Orlin. Did you know that creativity actually loves constraints? Constraints will actually set you free. If you can learn to embrace them, constraints will set you and your creativity free. There are lists and lists of the type of constraints that we can encounter when we set out to do something. And the act of encountering a constraint and finding a way around it, that is creativity. So if you think about it and you're trying to be creative and you're like, oh my gosh, but I've got all these constraints, you are doing the opposite of being creative. So you've just got to use it. Use everything, every constraint that has been thrown your way. It could be as broad as time or money, resources. It can be specific, like you ran out of pens, or you ran out of film in your camera, or you don't have a battery that you need, or you're trying to record a podcast episode and your neighbor is using a chainsaw. True story. Well, if creativity is problem solving, then you've got your task right there. You're about to get creative. I remember when I interviewed David Dushaman, we did talk about this because he had a section in his book on this that I loved. David wrote this a constraint seen as a help to the creative process gets us closer to accomplishing our work. Seen as a barrier, that constraint becomes an excuse. Once you begin shifting your mindset to see limitations or barriers or constraints as something different and not as barriers, you'll begin to see that they can be catalysts for greater creativity, innovation, focus. It's sort of like putting blinders on and just simplifying the whole process. Blinders like a horse would use in a horse race that just keeps them looking straight down that line and not on any distractions on the side. Constraints can create an urgency and a need to concentrate on your efforts. And when you end up having to reevaluate the problems in front of you, the challenges in front of you from different perspectives, those constraints lead to novel solutions. From here on out, when you encounter a constraint, a limitation, start viewing it as a puzzle that needs to be solved. Like a little brain teaser. How am I going to figure this one out? The obstacle is the way. Instead of trying to remove any more limitations, use them to your advantage. Constraints are so often advantages in disguise. So instead, just release that focus of them being something negative. Work with what you have. Let it guide you into a new direction and allow that more simple scope that you're dealing with due to the limitations. Allow that to be laser focused and get creative in a way that you had never planned. And remember this: if you had zero constraints all the time, all the money, all the resources, you would be absolutely paralyzed. I remember talking about that with David Duscheman. You would be paralyzed. There would be so many avenues that you could go down for this creative project or whatever you're working on that you wouldn't even know where to begin, where to end, where to go. From here on out, constraints will no longer be used as excuses. Change your perspective, put yourself in motion, and get to work on some problem solving creatively. And just like all freedom comes from discipline, all creativity is born out of constraints. Until next time, stay curious.
