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How to Choose Your Next Creative Project · The Daily Writer

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Kent Sanders, and I'm your host.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an author, musician, and teacher, but most importantly, I'm a husband and a dad.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the show, we talk about practices, habits, and strategies that help us live out our creative calling.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 30 of the podcast, and I want to say I really appreciate everybody who's been so encouraging and supportive since the show is launched.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to read a couple of recent reviews from iTunes.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Tasha says, I'm enjoying Kent's perspective and how he's sharing nuggets of insight throughout the podcast.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Rye Taylor says Kent has created a spectacular resource.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: He gives great insights into the storytelling process, but there are also episodes dedicated to reviews, creativity in church settings, and music.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The variety of creative subjects that Kent tackles, along with the practical application he shares, is what makes this podcast shine.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Keep up the amazing work from a new and avid listener.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks, guys, so much for those very kind reviews.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate that.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for everybody else who's listening, I would absolutely appreciate it if you would also consider leaving a review on iTunes.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to KentSanders.net slash iTunes, and that goes directly to iTunes, of course, where you can leave a rating and a review.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to invite you to send in your questions on creativity, productivity, art, or writing.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when you send those in, I will answer those here on the podcast and the blog as well.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can shoot me an email at Kent at KentSanders.net, or you can also find me on Facebook and Twitter at Kent Sanders.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump right into today's episode, which is titled How to Choose Your Next Creative Project.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can find the post that accompanies this episode, as well as all the links, at KentSanders.net slash how to choose.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: As a creative person, there are times when you hit a roadblock.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You feel paralyzed and unable to make a decision about what project to do next.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: You may have lots of ideas, but you're afraid to commit to anything because you don't want to make the wrong decision.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Mark Ravisky recently sent in a question that echoes the struggle, and he wrote this.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: A book, another play, a fictional story?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do I find a direction to go?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Mark, I definitely feel your pain.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is an area where I have struggled quite a bit over the years, and I imagine everybody listening to this has struggled with it as well.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty of being a creative person is that by nature, our interests are constantly shifting and growing.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: A creative person wants to meet new people, enjoy new experiences, see new movies, read new books, and absorb new ideas through podcasts and conferences and mastermind groups and all that kind of stuff.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all great things.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're talking about committing to a creative project that requires months or even years of devotion and time and effort, you've got to have more than just a passing interest or some kind of emotional lift from something new and interesting.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: You really need a more objective way to decide what to focus on, in my opinion.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I would suggest four filters, or you might also call these four criteria that you can use to help you choose what your next creative project is going to be.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not suggesting that everything that we do or every single project has to meet all four of these criteria.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: However, I think that in general these are great signposts that can tell us we're headed in the right direction.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump in here.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to frame all of these in terms of questions.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is what are you passionate about?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I once invested a pretty sizable amount of money, it was a couple thousand dollars, into a side business that I thought would give me a great return.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had friends who were making the equivalent of a full-time income within a year after joining this company.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But a few weeks after I joined it as well, I realized that I had made a huge mistake and the business was probably going to be a massive failure.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear more information about this huge failure that this did end up being, you can check out the post on my blog called What I Learned from Three Embarrassing Business Failures.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what was the reason that this ended up failing?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason was that I wasn't passionate about what I was doing with this company.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now I loved their products, but I didn't want to be a salesman, at least in the type of business that this was.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I only joined this business because I thought it would be a great way to quickly make some side income.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I underestimated the time and the skills it would require, and I didn't really think about whether it meshed with my interest and my personality.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I know anybody who's in sales is probably thinking, well, duh, you should have considered all that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those are pretty basic things.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Which I realize now, looking back at it in hindsight.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So lesson learned with that deal.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the point of all this?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the point is don't pursue a creative project or a project in general just because you think it's going to help you make money or give you some kind of a shortcut to success.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Probably it's only going to be a dead end.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I think it's much better to spend your time on the projects and goals that are closest to your heart whenever possible.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Second question is what will help you achieve your goals?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great time to revisit your goals.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to accomplish with this?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to build an audience and start a business, focus on the things that are going to move you closer to that goal.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The nature of creative people, as I mentioned in the podcast intro, is that we're constantly exposed to new ideas and we get easily bored with old ideas.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: But on the flip side, you can't constantly get distracted by things that are not going to help you achieve your goals.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: The question number three is what will help other people?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you might have a great idea for a book, a blog, a course, a story, a podcast, or some other type of content.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if it doesn't meet a need or provide some kind of value for your audience, it's probably not going to get very far.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is especially important, I think, if you're going to try and build up your income through your creative work.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure your creative work is bringing value to people, whether it's bringing joy, entertainment, knowledge about something, or solving a problem of some kind.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, question four, what is your audience asking for?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a blog, an email list, or followers or fans on social media?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have an audience.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now you may have already gotten feedback from people about something that they want you to do.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some kind of you know creative project or maybe it's music or writing of some kind or whatever.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if they have given you feedback, that's a great clue to your future direction.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Mark asked a question that prompted this blog post.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't come up with this idea for a blog post on my own.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: He prompted me, in a sense, to then create this post and this podcast that I'm doing right now.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of what I'm talking about is has someone given you feedback that indicates a direction you should go?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the chances are pretty good that if one person has a question about something, other people are going to have the same question as well, or at least be interested in that topic.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why getting feedback from people is so important, because that's kind of a clue to what people are interested in, or some kind of a pain point that they feel, or something that they really want you to talk about.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Facebook group, an email list, or some other type of audience, I would suggest putting together a survey and asking a few questions about their interests, their frustrations, and what type of products or creative things they would like to see.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, you might be surprised at the results.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: For example, every year I put together a quick 10-question survey, and I ask my blog readers and my online audience to take that survey.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always surprised at some of the responses.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have learned never to assume what my audience wants.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's much better to ask and rely on actual data to guide your decisions rather than just your assumptions or a gut feeling.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't have an audience now in the form of like an email list or a Facebook group or something like that, you always have a potential audience.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the type of person you're trying to reach with your art or your creative work.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Start with a few people who fit that profile and ask them what their biggest problems are.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And probably you'll get some great feedback that will point to potential projects that'll meet people's needs.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the point is not just to rely on your intuition or your gut feelings about what people are like.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's better to use data to help you make those decisions.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now you don't have to follow that data or follow those survey results or whatever you use to gather feedback, but at least you'll have a clear idea of what other people in your potential audience might like.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked through all this, we've talked through some questions that'll help you make decisions about what creative projects to focus on.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when you have projects you're working on that don't meet these criteria?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who I would suggest that you think long and hard about whether you want to continue investing time, money, or energy into those projects.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard sometimes to kill your darlings, so to speak, but sometimes you've got to make those hard decisions about where to invest your time and resources.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all that said, sometimes I think you've got to take a risk and just try something new.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: People don't always know what they want until they see it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: For example, nobody was asking for a musical that was based in rap music that was based on the life of a founding father.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But when the musical Hamilton came into the world a couple years ago, people went nuts because it was so awesome.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a great example of just creating something that's really cool and not just relying on what people have liked in the past.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what if you try something and it fails to connect with people?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, really the end result is so what?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you create something and it doesn't connect for some reason, you've learned some great lessons and you can use the seeds of that perceived failure to grow your next successful thing.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully something that's gonna be better and maybe more attuned to something that your audience wants.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I really believe that no creative effort is ever wasted.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn something from everything that you do, whether or not you would consider it a success.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the next episode, what I'm gonna do is take these four questions that I've given you, so these four criteria, I'm gonna put these to the test and explain how I use these to decide what my next creative project is going to be, which is a book.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So how about you?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do you decide what creative projects to focus on?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your thoughts.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can join the conversation and find the post and the links that accompany this episode at KentSanders.net slash how to choose.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you visit my site, you'll find all kinds of great resources to inspire your creativity.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also love to share a gift with you when you subscribe to my newsletter.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out and learn more about my books, writing, and services at KentSanders.net.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to connect and you can send me a tweet at Kent Sanders, or you can find me on Facebook and Instagram as Kent Sanders.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you'll also check out our Born to Create Facebook group by visiting KentSanders.net slash Facebook Group.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designed to make a difference.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: What will you do with the time you have left?