Even though receiving an inspired idea from a moment of inspiration seems easily obtained, it takes work to bring that idea into maturity and completion. The process of motivic development or meditation of the idea takes work and patience.
When I was a boy, my physical education instructor in school challenged our class to run a mile. He taught us that the first mistake a young athlete makes in long-distance running was to start out too fast and waste all of his energy at the beginning, with none left to finish the race. He instructed us to try to find a rhythm or stride to pace ourselves for the length of the race. The last thing he told us was that when we finally make it to the last lap, to push ourselves to run as fast as possible then, to maximize our run-time.
When we started, I noticed many who didn’t heed his advice. They passed me quickly and were eventually a couple laps ahead of me. I was a little discouraged, but I just kept my pace, as I had been taught. It wasn’t too long before those who were ahead of me began to drop to the ground trying to catch their breath. I ended up passing them by in my moderate stride. I kept going in that tempo, lap after lap, sometimes feeling energetic and sometimes tired. Regardless of how I felt, I just kept the pace. When the final lap came, I gave it my all and ended up setting a school record.
Creativity is similar, in that while you are excited about the idea in the beginning stages, if you go by your emotional high, you will eventually have an emotional low. You can’t bring an idea to its fullest expression by trying to lean on your original inspiration. As wonderful as that initial burst of imagination was, you cannot expect the idea to carry itself to the finish line without your intentional involvement. I heard someone once say, “Making babies is the easy part, raising them is the hard part.” It takes commitment to bring an idea to its completion, and it will be a long journey, much like a long-distance run.
It is difficult to explain, but the same sensation I experienced of physical tiredness in the mile-run as a child is similar to the internal emotional and intellectual fatigue I have experienced in carrying a work to its completion. I can imagine the final outcome, but many times it seems many ‘laps’ away. When I am on, metaphorically, lap 5 and the finish line is lap 20, it feels like I’ll never get there. What psychologically helps is to focus on the moment and the process. Enjoying the moment (or, stride) and committing to process gives you the hope that eventually you will get there. You undeniably won’t finish if you stop moving forward, and the best way to keep moving forward is to pace yourself. We endeavor to teach the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas the value of patience.
Having a specific time and place for your creativity each day is vitally important because it gives you a framework for creating your stride. You train yourself that this particular time and place is where the activity of creativity is expected.
The American composer Phillip Glass spoke of this in his book “Words Without Music.”
“The exercise was this: I set a clock on the piano, put some music paper on the table nearby, and sat at the piano from ten until one. It didn’t matter whether I composed a note of music or not. The other part of the exercise was that I didn’t write music at any other time of the day or night. The strategy was to tame my muse, encouraging it to be active at the times I had set and at no other times…The first week was painful- brutal, actually…Then, slowly, things began to change. I started writing music, just to have something to do. It didn’t really matter whether it was good, bad, boring, or interesting. And eventually, it was interesting. So I had tricked myself into composing…somehow…It probably took a little less than two months to get to that place…From then on, the habit of attention became available to me, and that brought a real order to my life.”
There was a time when I didn’t have much time during the day to write music, so I set a notebook containing blank manuscript paper next to my bed on the nightstand. Each night before going to sleep, I would write for around fifteen minutes. Over the course of a few weeks, I had completed a surprising amount of material. We encourage the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to be diligent each day in their music-making.
Bringing an idea or project to completion, going back to what I experience in my soul, feels like carrying a child. I have, obviously, never physically experienced what it is like to carry a human child through a nine-month pregnancy. However, emotionally, I have experienced how the creative process stays with you until its completion. Somehow, the ideas keep rolling around in your subconscious until they are completed.
I have worked on projects that took me months or even years to finish. Carrying them in my imagination day after day requires a certain mental and emotional strength and a willingness to assume the responsibility of bringing them to completion. This commitment isn’t a surface level choice or preference. (This is what separates the amateur from the professional.) It is a very deep decision to honor the original God-given idea by sacrificing to give it birth, and raising it until it leaves home. Each day, this commitment to finish the idea carries on, whether or not you feel like working on it or not. It’s an acknowledgment that you will finish the race you started, giving it all you’ve got.
There is a difference between these two words: choice and decision. Everyone likes choices or options in life. Do you prefer this, or do you prefer that? The word decision means to ‘cut away’ what is not wanted. In other words, what are you willing to give up in order to focus on the thing that is important? We expect students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to have focus.
Jesus told a parable to describe this concept.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells everything that he has, and buys that field.” (Matt. 13:44)
If you are committed to finishing the race, then you must be committed to setting your pace, enjoying the process, and consistently, diligently moving forward each day.
In John Maxwell’s book “Today Matters,” he sets forth the idea that to be successful, each day must be a microcosm of what you want your life to look like.
“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. There are only a handful of important decisions people need to make in their entire lifetimes. If you make decisions in those key areas once and for all- and then manage those decisions daily- you can create the kind of tomorrow you desire. Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
There are many admonitions and corresponding promises in the Bible about the subject of diligence. Here are a few.
“The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.” (Prov. 12:24)
“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.” (Prov. 13:4)
“The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.” (Prov. 21:5)
We expect the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to have diligence as they develop their skills and creative ideas.
Ultimately, whether or not your initially inspired creative idea will come to fruition and completion is up to you. Are you willing to nurture, develop, and believe in the worth of that idea enough to sacrifice time, focus, intellectual and emotional energy to carry it all the way to the finish line. This commitment may take a few days, or in some cases it can take years. We encourage the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to be patient with the process.
Bigger ideas need a longer runway. A massive cargo plane needs a runway of 8,000 feet. A helicopter can take off from its spot. If your idea is a ‘cargo plane’ idea, then you will need to have greater patience to bring it to pass. It is also likely that this idea will have significant meaning well into the future.
Carrying an idea to the finish line takes emotional endurance, but the reward of knowing that you brought a seed idea, a God-breathed moment of inspiration into reality for the benefit of others, is truly rewarding. It is well worth the sacrifice it required, and many times takes on a life of its own once you release it in completion. We hope to inspire the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to stay the course and see the rewards.
“Whenever a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more, for joy that a child has been born into world.” (Jn. 16:21)