Can Narrowing Your Choices Make You More Creative?

Today's guest post on Yikes!Studio is by Tonya Davidson, artist, businesswoman and founder of the Artful Success™ Program. She explores whether focusing our attention and narrowing the focus of our work, as artists, can actually help to make us more creative. Thanks for being with us, Tonya! 

Image by flaivoloka/stock.xchng

Do you ever get overwhelmed because you have too many options?

Let that sink in for a minute.

For 10 years I owned two paint your own pottery studios. Our market were children, families, and women. We offered 110 colors of paint and over 300 different pieces of pottery to choose from. It was fun and there were a lot of choices.

Children, and especially adults, had the hardest time choosing the piece they wanted to start with. Then it was almost painful for them to pick the five colors they wanted to start with, the stencils, brushes, stamps, and design tools. So instead of being focused on the fun of the creativity it became about the process and not the experience.

When we would do field trips we would bring five colors and the same piece for each kid, usually a tile, which was a blank canvas. Those kids never had a problem being creative. They spent less time trying to figure out what to do. They weren't focused on the process and they were often far more creative with their designs.

Too many choices + too many options = too many distractions from the experience of creating.

Could it be that when we invite more into our lives and into our studios, we are actually doing ourselves a disservice? By buying more supplies, and trying more techniques we actually dilute our voice and our work. Editing, after all, is the hardest and most valued tool an artist has in their arsenal.

So for me, this rings the bell loudly in my own life. It's time to banish drains, eliminate the excess and narrow the focus of my work. That means putting less things on my to-do list. It's got to be a "heck yes!" in order for it to be something I add to my life, to my work, and to my projects.

Did this ring a bell for you? I'd love to hear from you! ❉

Creative Blessings,
Tonya Davidson


Business thought leader, teacher, mentor, artist and founder of the Artful Success™ Program, Tonya Davidson helps artists take their techniques and business skills to the next level. She has passionately empowered artists to live creatively from the inside out. Create the life you love by subscribing to her ezine, reading her blog, engaging with her on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest! www.tonyadavidson.com