Take a good hard look at some form of creative output that catches your eye.

Then, create a few statements based on what you see.

It can be as simple as something like:

“I enjoy this specific part because it makes me feel happy.”

Now that you’ve noted a few key characteristics about the piece it’s time to ask yourself more questions:

“What would I change and why?”

“If I took out this bit, would that effect the outcome?”

“Did the designer/writer/videographer/etc viewpoint come across effectively?”

The more questions you can ask yourself here the better prepared you’ll be for the next step.

Take one of the questions that stands out most and push it one notch further…

Something like:

“The middle part of the piece stinks so bad I have a hard time enjoying it.”

Assumptions will be different for everyone, especially in creative pursuits. So don’t get too hung up on this step.

Take that assumption and craft it into a prediction that can be tested at a later date.

Something like:

“I think that if I change the middle part to be more colorful that it will resonate more with my target audience.”

It’s important that the prediction you’re making is as specific as possible because every future creative change will be gut checked against it.

This is where the most mistakes get made.

Without a prediction to test your work will be judged purely based on its structure and decoration. And that’s where things are most likely to spiral out of control.

Instead, keeping feedback targeted toward testing the prediction will allow the work to stand on its own two feet.

And prevent comments from becoming too personal.

Taking the outcome of the test you can then begin to repeat these steps in order.

This helps to more easily pinpoint what needs to be changed, and WHY, so that you can more efficiently work toward a more applicable solution for everyone involved.

The goal in this step is to get to a better (you’ll never get to perfect) output to prove, or disprove, the prediction.

This process is what is internalized by every level of director that exists. And the more you can run your own work through it before reaching the eyes of someone else in a stuffy meeting room…the better you’ll be able to:

- Speak to your decision making

- Showcase your process

- Sell the solution

And best of all, because you’ve externalized the creative process you’ll start to lessen those “world is ending” feelings you get by receiving feedback.

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.

The reason you’re not getting interviews or landing freelance gigs?

Nobody gets hired via cold pitches or applications alone.

By taking a different approach you can stop being ghosted…

And start landing more work.

Here’s how to network in 6 easy steps:

What companies do you really want to work for?

Are you open to relocation?

Do you need 100% remote work?

The more clear you are on your ideal outcome the easier it will be to:

- Put together an action plan to get there
- Start going after accomplishing it

Find the company on Linkedin.

Hit that “connect” button on individuals surrounding your dream companies & roles.

Having that 1st level connection is key…

Otherwise the rest of these steps will fall flat on their face.

Once someone accepts your connection request send them:

“Hey XXX, just wanted to reach out and say how much I enjoyed *mention relevant project here*”

Short & sweet.

Don’t oversell yourself at the risk of being labeled spam.

Start posting more about your work & thinking.

Comment on posts from people you enjoy.

Begin building your network by creating trust and real relationships.

The goal here is to add more value than you’re extracting by means of your direct messages.

(hint — treat it just like you would use IG with friends and family…only limit the cursing)

Set aside time every day to browse your feed.

You’ll start seeing jobs pop up before apps even go online.

Allowing you to apply before 90% of others even see it.

The best part? You’ll have a direct line in with your 1st level connections you made in step number two above.

Certain messages not working?

Tweak them.

Specific posts doing better?

Create more content around those topics.

Pay attention to what is & isn’t working so you can make small changes.

Over time they’ll add up to break throughs in landing career changing jobs…all while building a robust network along the way.

Networking doesn’t have to be as difficult and time consuming as it may seem. And by shifting even a tiny amount of focus from other social platforms to a place like Linkedin can have huge benefits in the longevity of your career. Get out there and find the others.

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.

Creative roles are difficult by nature.

And that difficulty gets amplified by tight deadlines, high stress, and changing environments.

But learning to adapt quickly can be your way through the uncertainty.

Leading you to places you would have never imagined in your wildest dreams.

But how do you go about adapting when you feel like you can’t find solid ground?

By creating a shift in perspective.

Here’s how to do it in 3 easy steps:

Instead of saying “Why do I suck at this?” change the the question to “What happens if I continue down this path?”

Are your current choices taking you toward, or away from, where you want to go?

If you’re on a path that won’t get you to where you want to be then you have no option but to change.

Use the potential negative outcome to your benefit!

It can become your catalyst for change.

Hard things are difficult to accomplish by nature.

But most people give up simply because their tolerance for dealing with difficult stuff for long periods of time is so low.

So how do you build up your frustration tolerance?

Step 1 — Accept it

Step 2 — Label it

Step 3 — Create realistic affirmations

The idea isn’t to create a vision for yourself that isn’t achievable.

Your goal is being able to see the world for what it is and to be realistic about how you’re going to work within it.

Thoughts are not facts.

And emotions are not commands.

This doesn’t mean that they aren’t real but that sometimes your brain and body are hardwired to react in ways that aren’t beneficial.

And just because you can feel a thought or emotion doesn’t mean you need to act on it.

Next time a strong thought or emotion surfaces ask yourself:

1. Is it true?

2. How does this make me feel?

3. Is this a productive thought?

4. What would it be like if I didn’t believe this thought?

All of which help you to remove yourself from spiraling thought patterns and into a space where you can more actively build the future of your dreams.

 

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.

Learn to brag about your work.

Because most days managers have no idea what you’re doing.

But by learning how to showcase your work you can:

- Increase your pay
- Gain more responsibility
- Attract better work

Give your boss the material to build an awesome story about you!

Here’s how to do it in 3 easy steps:

Create checkin meetings to tell your boss exactly what you did the week prior.

By leading with what you did well you set yourself up for future success.

Note what worked and why.

And be clear about the role you played in each small win.

Ask more questions about what might not be going right.

By having this conversation you can begin to outline steps you can take to stack up the wins in Step 1.

This also allows your boss to help block and tackle for you instead of you having to go and do all of that yourself.

The less road blocks to success the easier it is to get to the end outcome.

Now that you know where you put your focus for the coming week make a to-do list.

Be sure to rank each task in order of importance and provide reasoning for why you think it needs to be that way.

Then ask how your boss how they would make adjustments.

They have a different viewpoint on business needs and goals and because of that they may see something you don’t.

That’s it! 3 easy steps you can use to maker sure your work is getting the attention it deserves.

What’s even better is that by following these steps you open up better lines of communication for your boss.

Creating a more productive work environment AND a better relationship with your co-workers along the way.

And you don’t have to feel sales-ey, scammy, or sleezy in doing it.

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.

The single biggest misstep most creatives make in trying to get paying clients comes in not looking at the work through a business perspective.

By focusing on this simple shift in thinking you can make huge leaps in landing paid creative work.

Even better? This process works not only for service-based businesses (thats you freelancers and 9–5'ers out there) but can also be applied if you’re trying to sell products.

Here’s how to do it in 6 easy steps:

Start by asking a few simple questions:

Who will to pay for your product services?

What problem are you solving for them?

How are you helping them make money?

The more detailed you can get with the answers the better off you’ll be at finding and landing clients.

Now that you’ve done some brainstorming about who your target client is…it’s now time to get their attention.

Do they need a website?

Show web work you’ve done.

Do they get poor engagement on social media?

Show strategies you’ve executed for others.

Don’t have previous work experience?

No problem! Get busy creating your own fantasy projects and showcase how you would work to solve a made up problem.

The goal here is to get that potential client or hiring manager to stop dead in their tracks and ask for more info.

Break down case studies into 3 sections:

- Problem

- Process

- Solution

Utilize a “step by step” approach to take a viewer through a journey.

Here you should be focusing on exposing your thinking, not the output itself.

Anyone can create something cool…but not everyone can do it in a way that makes a business money.

And that’s what clients are looking for when they hire for creative roles.

Less is more.

Only show projects that reflect your best work or your highest profile clients.

By providing the most impactful projects first you can be sure that the person viewing them is seeing exactly what they would need to make a quick yes or no decision.

Every piece of your case study should be talking to the person you’re trying to work with and show how you solved a problem they need help with.

If not, cut it.

Ruthlessly edit.

A funnel is simply a way to describe bringing a potential client from “I’ve never heard of you before” to “I’d love for you to work with us”.

How do you do it?

First, utilize current relationships. Can an old client make a new intro?

Then, start to expand your network by setting achievable daily goals for new reach outs.

DM people on social platforms and get better at pitching your services.

Here’s the step where you start to look critically at what’s working and what isn’t.

Are you getting questions about specific work?

Answer those through explanations in your case studies.

Are you getting negative responses at a specific stage of a conversation?

Work to overcome those objections.

Test solutions to overcome the excuses you’re getting from others as to why they don’t need your services.

Begin removing those barriers one by one until you land that new client or job of your dreams.

Don’t make this process more complicated than it needs to be.

A lot creatives tend to get stuck in making portfolio tweaks into infinity…but that’s not where your efforts should be focused.

The idea is to build your portfolio once and then go out and focus all of your energy on selling it, and your work, to people who will pay for it.

If you’re getting feedback that specific projects or explanations don’t make sense…then by all means change them. But make sure that for ever hour spent making those changes you’re spending another 5+ selling it.

You’ll get the jobs you’re after when you connect the right work with the right client.

And the only way to do that is to get it in front of more eyeballs.

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.

It can be near impossible to create in distracting environments. And that’s why the greatest creative superpower is your ability to focus.

Because in a world of digital distractions the more time you can spend in the act of creating the more progress you make not only in individual projects but on your career as a whole.

What’s even more awesome is that the methods you can use to hone your own focus are things that you can do to help other creative people in your life.

The more space for focus…the better everything else gets.

Here’s 6 ways you can become a creative laser beam:

Disabling notifications of any kind whether that be from social media, smart watches, or a slew of other devices goes a long way.

And the same is true not just with personal devices or platforms but also for work.

Shutting down slack and closing out of your email browser can quickly create an impenetrable bubble in which you can operate more efficiently.

The goal here is simply to stop the input coming at you from every direction. Because the more you allow these incoming blasts of information to distract you the harder it becomes to focus on the actual work.

Getting yourself excited to make something can often times be the simplest way to overcome the barrier to taking that first creative step.

And by scheduling time to create you provide yourself more time to prepare for what’s coming. Allowing your subconscious to begin the work even before you’re aware that you’ve started.

As you continue down this path you’ll slowly become better at saying “no” to unnecessary and spur of the moment tasks while also saying “yes” to more structured and deep work.

By piggybacking off of your new found creative schedule you can start to kick things into high gear.

Make your creative time periods longer as you’re able to make them more of a priority.

Go deeper into one project each time you work and spend less time dabbling in a handful of unrelated tasks.

Whether that’s a desk, a corner of a coffee shop, or somewhere outside.

Create a creative place that makes you feel at home and at ease.

By existing in an environment that inspires you to be the best version of yourself the work becomes more fluid as a result.

Every once in a while you’ll be at the verge of a tight deadline and nothing you do gets you in the mood to take steps forward.

In this situation it helps to break things down into smaller bites.

Edit later instead of trying to create and edit at the same time and stop judging what comes out.

Doing so will lessen the struggle that comes with getting started and allow more room to build on those first simple steps.

Ira Glass said it best when he talked about creating a volume of work to close the gap between where your work is now and where you know it can go in the future.

Because the only way to produce great work is to go through a large enough body of it that you learn what didn’t work in an effort to find what does.

The irony in honing your ability to focus comes from the understanding that the more structure you can put in place around creative pursuits the more space you give yourself to go wild.

Instead of thinking that an hour of scheduled calendar time for a creative task is constricting think of it in the opposite way…

That hour of time is dedicated solely to a single creative task and anything else from answering emails to taking phone calls is completely ignored.

This free’s up your brain to spend less time worrying about small fires and blasts through any artificial boundaries you may have accepted accidentally.

Discipline = Freedom

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.

It’s no secret that creative tools move at the speed of light. And it can be easy to get caught in the assumption that you need to learn the latest version of them all in order to level up your career.

But this assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. And that’s because as more tools are developed it becomes increasingly easy to use them better and faster. The platforms themselves are doing this for you!

So instead of putting your energy where everyone else is (and on tools that are getting better without your help) put it in the places where it’s likely to have an outsized return.

Where is that? You might ask. In tried and true personal habits.

Because these habits are what everyone else neglects. And it’s where you’ll be able to set yourself apart from those around you.

Here’s 6 personal habits, that don’t involve learning new tools, which will help you to level up your creative career:

No I’m not talking about showing up to a meeting exactly when it starts.

I’m talking about being there 10–15 minutes early.

Get yourself in the head space for whatever it is you’re gonna be talking about.

And if you consistently run over your scheduled time slots PLEASE put in some buffer time so it doesn’t throw off everyone else’s schedules.

There’s nothing worse than having to prepare for someone being late every time they show up.

You don’t have to agree with everything everybody says. But you also don’t have to be a butthole about it either.

Learn to be tactful in how you deliver conflicting messages. And work through disagreements with an end goal in mind.

Agreeing with everyone will get you nowhere. But so will disagreeing and not working through a path forward.

After helping a few companies vet creative talent you’d be amazed at how many people submit half finished applications.

Not to mention broken portfolio links, unfinished sentences, form fields that aren’t filled out…the list goes on.

Just simply showing up having checked all the boxes puts you leaps and bounds beyond those around you.

Slow down and give each project or task the time it needs to be done correctly.

Trustful and straightforward. That’s what it means to be candid.

And in the creative world where it’s needed most this can be in short supply.

Instead of working around difficult conversations or subjects just approach them head on.

And if you’ve focused on the first 3 steps of this list your message is infinitely more likely to be heard.

You’ve done the work. You’ve made an effort to understand different viewpoints. And you’ve relayed a difficult message.

Now what?

Stop second guessing yourself is what!

The only things you can control are your own actions. And if you’ve checked off the steps needed to get to the place you’re at…

Then falling back on confidence is the only answer.

This is where a lot of creatives fall short.

We tend to be great at exploring different methods of creating and producing work…

But when it comes down to accepting differing opinions on that output we shut down.

Take the same approach to the work as you do with the critique of that work and you’ll be a much better creator because of it.

At the end of the day the only difference between successful creatives, and those that aren’t, is the ability to think long term.

Landing clients or finding work in a service based business is entirely dependent on your reputation and output.

And focusing on delivering consistent value via the personal habits above is how you prioritize that long term growth.

Because making sure the ground floor is rock solid means you can build to heights you could have never imagined.

Rush the ground floor, and the habits that help solidify it, and you significantly hamper your ability to grow.

It seems silly. But you’d be amazed at how many people skip these steps entirely just because they want to get a quick win.

Don’t let that be you.

Head on over to thecalculatedcreative.com for more actionable tips to help you move from inspiration to realization.