carving out time, taking on challenges, and balancing with known success

Sunset Seen - digital painting /art prints - Dan Beck 2005

I was thinking about one of the aspects of being creative which doesn’t get talked about much - discipline. I have talked about needing structure to be free in - but discipline is something different. Many even feel that discipline and being creative are rather opposite.

As for me, I think that one needs to be disciplined first off in just doing one’s art. I am not the first to say that if you want to write - you need to sit down and write. Writing music, creating art, etc. are the same way. One just can’t be creative unless one blocks off the time to do so.

Perhaps this is a bit obvious, but discipline can be found in other ways too - because every creative experience can take the easy way or one which is challenging with potential pitfalls and unknown solutions.

Part of being disciplined is taking enough challenges to keep the skills and work growing but knowing how to balance that with known paths of success.

See Also

• Sunset Seen
  Availability of Art Prints for Sunset Seen
• Balancing creativity discipline in life
  Interesting article about balance and Chinese and American cultures
• Creativity, Discipline or Willingness - by Barbara Bowen
  I think this is an article for creative people who hate the term discipline