Creativity grows when you stop being available to every possibility

Every Essay is being written with an album in mind, which is playing at the same time we are writing what you are reading right now, so for full experience we highly recommend going to your music provider and play “Ctrl” By the talented SZA as you are reading this, promise it’s worth it. Ok back to the topic now!

Initially, honing your skills requires volume. Taking on work, saying yes, exposing yourself to as many facets as possible to expand your taste, perception, and understanding of the field you’re in. But there comes a moment when you realize that spreading yourself thin across every project that comes your way isn’t helping anymore. It’s slowing you down. And today, we’re going to unpack exactly that shift.

Once a creative is at a stage where he sharpened his skills enough to quliaitize (is that a real word?) rather than quantitize the projects being offered to him/her, it becomes important to shift away from that “open to everything” mindset, for a few reasons, be it emotionally, mentally, or physically.

The first time it happens, it’ll probably feel strange. It can hit you while you’re casting a shoot, planning a moodboard alone for a major campaign, or even mastering an album. In that moment, it clicks; you can do this, and you can execute it on a bigger scale. So what’s next? Do you take on more, or do you start depending on quality instead of quantity?

You might notice that yes, you’re delivering the work; but you’re not fully proud of it. Deadlines start to feel heavier than the execution itself. Suddenly you’ve taken on too much, and the projects begin to fall short. Boom, boom, boom — every day feels like you “fell off” because the work just doesn’t hit the way it used to.

You feel busy, but nothing around you is actually advancing. So sure, 20 projects in six months sounds impressive on paper. But look at yourself after those six months and ask: what actually changed? That answer tells you everything. It shows whether you’re on the right path, or if you overloaded yourself to the point where growth stalled.

Side note - this might also explain why people start imitating other styles. Maybe they can’t meet the timelines or deliver what they originally promised, so they copy just to satisfy the numbers. And again, that compromises the work.

But there is another internal shift happening, and you should pay attention to it as well. Suddenly, accumulation doesn’t carry the same weight as selection. You start asking yourself, “should I do this?” instead of saying, “I can do this.”

You start understanding that your resources are limited, and when they’re used properly, they’re better directed toward specific projects. Take a stylist with 30 celebrities on their roster; the work will never look like the work of someone who handles five. And why is that? Because not every project should be taken just because it’s being presented.

Filtering those opportunities is a sign of growth, a sign of maturity, a sign that you understand your creative work well enough that you no longer need to prove anything through quantity - you’d rather showcase it through quality. It also signals that you care about your time, and you respect it enough to acknowledge its value. Which means you can’t lend it to anyone just because they asked for it.

But the most important part! it allows you to build a consistent body of work. And that alone is your ID in the creative world, right? How important is your portfolio to you? Exactly. You can’t afford to compromise it for anything.

Once you move forward with this idea, something shifts. Clarity hits. You suddenly have more depth in your projects, more complexity, and new ideas keep flowing because you finally left room for them to live.

You start getting better clients. The ones who don’t create headaches, who believe in your mission and your work enough not to question every move, and who let you be you. They want you to create the way you know how. And generally, people trust specialists more than generalists, so pick your avatar. We’re choosing the first one, of course.