(Re)discovering creativity as an overthinker
As I consider applying to a fashion design program, I have been asking myself a question I keep coming back to: What am I going to do to prepare for this journey?
Most people might assume they can just learn from the program. After all, that is what we expect from an educational program: acquiring new abilities. But not me.
As a good anxious person, I'm always thinking about how to get ready to start getting ready. While this is one of the most striking characteristics of how my brain interprets life and situations, it is also something my therapist calls a cognitive distortion.
But living with this type of distortion is not a life sentence. It is just a sign that I will have to balance and evaluate my emotions throughout life so I can be more fair with my thoughts, feelings, and, at the end of the day, myself. So when this type of thought comes to mind, I don't try to push it back and pretend I don't feel the need to do something. I do have these thoughts, and if I have them, they are real. Everything that comes later is the process of embracing a personal need and taking actions to address it in the healthiest way possible.
With all that said, the main challenge I face is being an overthinker while trying to improve how I approach creativity.
This tension has followed me for years, shaping how I start, stop, and often abandon creative pursuits. For me, it feels like a never-ending game.
The background
I'm not sure I can call myself a creative person. Throughout my life, I've always felt connected to drawing and crafting things. But even though I enjoyed them, I also felt I wasn't good enough to be considered a natural, and sooner or later I ended up putting those interests aside.
And that is how this part of my life has been so far: a journey of many starts but with very few moments of personal fulfillment.
Every single time I mention that I like to draw to someone, I instantly regret sharing it. It is always a process of explaining that I'm not even close to being like Picasso and that my creations are more like expressions of my identity rather than stunning pieces people would enjoy seeing.
The missing step
As with any skill, I do understand that creative ones like drawing or painting require more than supposedly being born with a gift. They require practice and consistency. And that is something I’m really missing.
The fear of not creating something that would be appreciated, the pressure I put on myself to produce only perfect end results, and even the perfect masterpieces I see on social media are all reasons for me to avoid the simple act of trying.
And there is no experimentation without trying, and without experimentation, there is no process. How could I be capable of crafting something without going through a process? That is indeed impossible.
A solution?
That is why, for the sake of my need to anticipate what comes next and to inspire my creative side, I decided to start with the basics: drawing. Without any rules or expectations, just focusing on the process of naturally evolving, and most importantly, focusing on enjoying each result, no matter what they look like.
With all my excitement and joy at being able to enjoy the process, I share with you one of my latest artifacts:
This is a drawing exercise I have been working on, where the goal is to draw the negative space of a picture.
There is a lot of theory behind this type of exercise, such as how we can start perceiving shapes and scenes, but the most important thing for me at this moment is how the process of just trying again, day after day, has given me a clear understanding of what progress means.
It is the type of exercise that, as you iterate on the results, sparks your creativity in a way that is almost palpable. And being able to visualize this is a huge step, not only for how I’m going to see and explore creativity from now on, but also for teaching myself that there’s always a new way to approach things I would normally see as unreachable.
I'm really proud of this so far, no matter how small or simple it looks, and I really hope I can come back here to share more about it in the future.
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