Creative Space with Jennifer Logue
My name is Jennifer Logue and I’m on a mission to make creativity accessible to all. Through conversations with artists, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, musicians, scientists, and so much more, we’ll be exploring creativity from every possible angle with the purpose of learning and growing in creativity together. New episodes are released every Sunday and you can listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Be sure to rate and review the podcast if you enjoy it, and remember, we are all born creative. Make some space to honor your creativity today.
Creative Space with Jennifer Logue
The Importance of Embracing a Growth Mindset
Are you ready for an upgrade in the way you perceive your creativity? In our latest episode of Creative Space, it's all about embracing a transformative perspective: the growth mindset. I'll walk you through the process of cultivating this mindset, equipping you with the tools to turn your intelligence, abilities, and talents into learnable skills that can adapt and evolve.
Discover the power of staying present, seeing errors as learning curves, refining your work, and building resilience. Look at failures with a new lens and understand how these supposed 'roadblocks' are actually stepping stones in your creative journey.
So, tune in to this enlightening conversation, and see how you can better embrace a growth mindset in your creative journey.
Don't forget to share your thoughts, experiences, and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts—your support is much appreciated!
SHOW NOTES:
0:00—What is a growth mindset?
2:00—Staying present
2:38—Seeing mistakes as learning opportunities
3:30—Refining the work
4:45—Helps you build resilience
5:54—Helps you develop patience
7:15—Helps with decision making
8:08—Makes you a better collaborator
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Creative Space, a podcast where we explore, learn and grow in creativity together. I'm your host, jennifer Loge, and today we are going to explore the importance of having a growth mindset as a creative. So what is a growth mindset, I'm so glad you asked. According to the Harvard Business School, a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. It's the opposite of a fixed mindset, which views those same elements as fixed and unchangeable. As an example, let's say you've written a thought piece for publication and the editor emails you back with suggestions on how to improve the piece. Someone with a growth mindset would see the feedback in a positive light, because it's not only making the piece stronger, but it's helping them become a better writer. Someone with a fixed mindset, on the other hand, would see the feedback in a negative light. Does this criticism mean I'm not a good writer? Should I even bother to make the changes? Should I even be writing it all? I'm sure we've all been there at some point. Anyways, here's why having a growth mindset is essential to making the most of your creative journey. Whether you're a musician, an actor, a painter, an entrepreneur, a writer, no matter what your discipline is. Number one a growth mindset helps you stay present. As creatives, it's so easy to get lost planning for the future or getting mired in past mistakes and regrets. When we stay present, we're able to focus on what we have in the moment, in the here and now. We're able to work with whatever emotions we're feeling, whatever seeds of inspiration are pulling at us, and even if it's small, by staying present, we can make the most of the ingredients we have. Number two a growth mindset helps you see mistakes as learning opportunities. It's so easy to judge ourselves as artists. When we adopt a growth mindset, we're able to refrain from harsh self-criticism and instead view failures as part of our creative journey. On the podcast back in January, yui, aka veteran freshman, talked about how he calls his mistakes lessons, and I love this practice so much. There is no reason to view our mistakes in a negative light. Life doesn't happen to us, it happens for us. What can you learn from your setbacks today? How have they helped you grow? Number three a growth mindset helps you refine your work.
Jennifer Logue:Being a creative of any kind is an iterative process, which means we do something repeatedly. As an example, a song isn't finished the moment you have the first demo. Most of the time for a song to be the best it can be, it takes a few rounds of revisions. You get feedback from other musicians. You perform the songs in front of an audience and see if it's connecting. You may even record multiple versions of a song with slightly different production approaches until you get the right feel. And without a growth mindset, you may mistakenly think I wrote a song today. Now I just need to record it and it'll be finished, and that's that. Nope, so much of the fun is in refining the piece and so much of the magic is in the details. A growth mindset keeps you motivated to keep going until that uncut gem sparkles and shines.
Jennifer Logue:Number four a growth mindset helps you build resilience through accepting what is. Some circumstances, as creatives, are beyond our control. Maybe your book has been rejected by every single publisher you send it to. Maybe, no matter how much you tried, your film doesn't get the funding it needed to have the production budget you wanted. That's okay, it's all okay. These experiences make us more resilient in the face of challenges. Perhaps it's time for a change of approach. In the book example, a growth mindset could help us try another avenue with openness and curiosity. Self publishing could be an option and an opportunity to learn something new about business in the process. In the film example, a growth mindset could help the filmmaker reframe the work so that the story can be effectively told with a small budget. This change of approach could make the end result even better than the initial plan.
Jennifer Logue:Number five a growth mindset helps you develop patience. A growth mindset nurtures patience and essential quality for an artist, because great things take time. It takes time to become skilled at your craft. It takes time to fill yourself up with inspiration. It takes time to fully develop your ideas and to work that you're proud of. To become great at anything takes that 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book Outliers. Patience helps you stay committed to your journey without getting frustrated or, worse, giving up. I remember when I was in high school I picked up the acoustic guitar and so many songs I wanted to play were chock full of bar chords. I practiced and practiced, and while the open chords became easy to play, I couldn't do bar chords. I couldn't. Oh my gosh. I've been practicing for years and years and years and years, but I didn't give up. And while it did take a pretty long time, I was eventually able to play bar chords.
Jennifer Logue:Number six a growth mindset improves your ability to make decisions. When you adopt a growth mindset, you're more likely to explore new ideas without being overly attached, and this is great for decision making, whether in the process of creating something or even making higher level decisions for your career. Because you're not fixated on a specific outcome, ideas that are a little bit out of the box won't only come to you more readily, but you'll be humble enough to give them a try. When we become overly attached to results or being successful or any of that stuff, it prevents us from seeing clearly. A growth mindset promotes clarity. Number seven a growth mindset makes you a better collaborator.
Jennifer Logue:Artists who embrace a growth mindset foster an environment of respect and active listening when it comes to collaboration. When you focus on enjoying the process of what you're doing, you're less likely to get caught up with obsessing over results or being too much of a control freak. As a result, you're more likely to be aware of the wonderful people you're collaborating with and all of the ideas, perspective and experience they're bringing to the table. You're more open, you're more easy going and you go with the flow, which is what creativity is all about. By cultivating a growth mindset as a creative, your journey will be so much more fulfilling and worthwhile. You'll embrace challenges with curiosity, acknowledge twists and turns with acceptance and commit to continuous learning with a sense of patience and purpose.
Jennifer Logue:So, what do you think? Do you currently embrace a growth mindset as a creative? How has it made a difference in your life? Have you ever worked with creatives coming from a fixed mindset? How did those situations pan out? I'd love to hear about your experience. You know where to reach me and if you've enjoyed the podcast so far, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I appreciate your support so much. Well, that's all for this episode of Creative Space. My name is Jennifer Loog and thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time.