DITCHING PERFECTIONISM | BY HANS OBMA

Ditching Perfectionism

By Hans Obma

How do you think creativity happens? Does creativity sometimes knock on your door, and you paint or write what arrives? Does taking in someone else’s work inspire you to go create your own version? Or do you have some sort of approach?



“How do you create?” is one of my favorite questions to ask someone. It’s right up there with “how did you become the actor/writer/artist that you are?” When asked in the right context, it really honors a person and earns the listener some gems to take home.

My own approach to creativity comes mostly from three perspectives: career coach Dallas Travers; Stephen Pressfield’s THE WAR OF ART, and Julia Cameron’s THE ARTIST'S WAY.

A month rarely goes by that I do not recall Dallas saying, “Do less, more often.” This advice usually applied to reach-outs to professional contacts. She found people tended to plan one big campaign, expend heaps of resources and energy, then wait for the phone to ring. Dallas said people’s ships came in more frequently if they developed a practice of sending out manageable ships regularly.

It was also Dallas who recommended THE WAR OF ART.* The book is absolutely worth a read, not least because spending time with its ideas helps the reader OWN its premise. In short, Stephen Pressfield says those who create regularly…create. Those who wait until a great idea comes are, first of all, unlikely to do anything with it once it arrives. They are, second of all, less likely to receive the great idea in the first place. It’s quite like how possessing a tall metal rod makes a lightning strike much more likely.

The image of a lightning rod brings us to Julia Cameron. Let’s say a person already works each day on their creative pursuit, but something isn’t adding up. Creating doesn’t feel right, or the idea doesn’t come. The Artist’s Way is the best creative lightning rod I know. 

Several years ago, I received some of the best creative advice of my life. I had booked a string of cool acting jobs and reached out to several more established friends to seek their advice. An acquaintance we’ll call Ying said, “You need to write something that could do for you what SHERLOCK did for Benedict Cumberbatch.”

If you have not seen SHERLOCK, go watch it now. It’ll help you understand how exciting Ying’s comment was for me. Before SHERLOCK, most Americans could maybe recognize Benedict as someone they had seen before. After Sherlock, we all knew who he was and wanted to see more.

The trouble was I didn’t know what to write. I set to writing each day, as THE WAR OF ART had taught me, but an idea wouldn’t come. And it didn’t come, until…

A year later, I read THE ARTIST'S WAY in an online book club with Epiphany Space. The Artist’s Way is a 12-week creative course designed to connect each person with their creative voice.

I had heard about Julia’s book for years, but didn’t think it was for me. On the one hand, the concept of weekly “artist’s dates” appealed–each week, the reader goes out to spend unproductive hours doing something that delights their inner child. But on the other hand, daily “morning pages” sounded like a real waste of time. Three pages of daily freehand writing sounded tiring and stupid. How wrong I was.

To my credit, I decided if I was going to do this, I’d be all-in. I committed to three morning pages every day without exception. Week four, my idea came. Julia (in the form of group leader Melissa Smith) had been asking things like “what REALLY turns you on creatively? What is something you’ve always wanted to do but never tried? What if the voices that said you couldn’t do a certain thing were wrong?” For me, these questions added up to “if you could make one TV show to send out into the world, what would it be? Where would it take place? And how could it rely on your true strengths 100% of the time?”

And that’s when I wrote the first draft of A QUESTION OF SERVICE. I suppose I ought to include the caveat that if you read THE ARTIST'S WAY, you may end up riding a wave for some time. Coming up with the idea that turned me on meant many drafts of a script. It meant financial investment and forming a team to shoot a proof of concept film that went to some big old film festivals. It also meant creative growth, international exposure, learning the Welsh language (yes, really), and current meetings in pursuit of series production.

Living out these books, and the Artist’s Way in particular, does not guarantee a specific creative outcome. However, it really does guarantee you will create. 

Julia’s premise, which I have taken hook, line, and sinker, is that every person can be creative. And if you commit to doing so for an hour, for 90 minutes, for 3 hours every day, your choice and diligence will make a fantastic result far more likely. 

NOTE: The more famous THE ART OF WAR is quite a different book!