lifeskills

Insipration & Creativity: Interview with a winner

Last September, I asked for your opinions to help me as a judge in a creative talent competition.

The winning entry was by Romaine Reid, from Ravensbourne College. His video really stood out amongst the competition with its colour and vibrancy. Judge for yourself; here’s Romaine’s video:

As one of the judges (getting the videos down to two entries, which went on to a public vote), here’s what I had to say about Romaine’s video:

“Romaine Reid’s entry stands out most. It brings a number of concepts together in a steady flow that shows attention to detail and an eye for specifics. He takes ideas that are accessible to a mixture of ages and backgrounds, whilst maintaining a true sense of the product and brand’s purpose throughout. His entry shows simple ideas, professionally applied.”

The public agreed and he won the vote. Romaine got his hands on a pretty amazing bunch of electrical gear, as well as a two-week work placement at a top creative agency.

After his success, I asked Romaine a few questions about his plans and how the creative process works for him.

Romaine-Reid

What would you suggest to others looking to excel, as you have here?

Romaine: “Work hard and stay focused on your goals. I always wanted to get into design & advertising. I think that if you have a creative spark, you should always explore new ways you can express your ideas to an audience, while catering to a clients needs, in the form of an advert or design. When taking on a brief, try to find an element of it which kick starts your imagination, then relate that idea to the brief in a clear and entertaining way.”

How do you push yourself to find new ways to be creative?

Romaine: “I think that the world has many different forms of inspiration, and we only need to penetrate the surface to be inspired by it. I am really inspired by music of all genre’s, and the emotions that it evokes in me. This tends to generate creative impulses for me, to create visuals which evoke the same emotions for others. I always want to take the viewer on a journey and try to express what is in my own imagination, and I think that the goal is always for the recipient to ‘feel’ or be ‘inspired’ by what I’ve produced……I’m still growing however and it remains a continuous goal of mine.”

As part of your prize, what do you hope to take away from your two-week work placement at a creative agency?

Romaine: “I still have much more to learn, so I hope to continue growing and learning from others in the field. I think that there are many people which have a great knowledge to share, and I hope to have a better understanding of the software used. While also being inspired artistically from other creative thinkers.”

Do you have any other specific plans for your future, or is it one step at a time for now?

Romaine: “Ultimately I want to create inspirational work and design, for people to enjoy. I want people to ‘experience’ my designs, not just see them. Wherever this takes me, only time will tell…”

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My congratulations go out to Romaine. His humble, yet determined attitude has served him well. Hopefully he’ll be wowing people with his work for many years to come.

Change, Take Action, Forge Ideas, and Drive

I hope you enjoyed my recent six-part series on Time. However, the path to success in your studies – and beyond – goes further than effective time management.

Life is unpredictable. Whether or not you plan into the future, you still want to exercise control over that future. However, an unexpected event can dramatically alter the course of your life, whether you like it or not. A change in popular trends, a personal tragedy, an oversight with timely consequences…anything can reshape what’s going on and thrust you in a different place to where you’d expected. And where you’d calculated. And which you saw with total certainty until now.

So what’s the point in being so rigid? Yes, planning is necessary for success…

But so is accepting change.

You may even change yourself. Scott Young mentions on his site that he’s stopped setting long-term goals, because everyone changes so much so quickly. If you read what he says, you’ll understand why one of the craziest job interview questions is, “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”

Manage time effectively by initially narrowing your scope, not widening it. Long-term goals are one thing, but they should be based on general ideas. To achieve those goals, you need to see in smaller chunks of time.

University is definitely a time of massive change to you. Even a long-term childhood passion can fade away, in place of an even bigger passion. If you don’t have a passion, it may start developing while you’re an undergraduate. It’s all to play for.

The best way to focus on the need for change is to review on a regular basis. Review your short-term plans, long-term goals (if you have any right now), and all your personal passions. Without noticing, you may find that what you held dear last year now leaves you cold.

Once you accept change with open arms, the next thing to do is to *take action*.

You could have the best idea in the world since the dawn of time. But if you don’t take action to process that idea until it becomes reality, you might as well have not come up with the idea in the first place.

Ideas are funny things. When you accept change and take action, you still need to go further. Harvard Business posted an interesting piece a few days back, about structuring experiments for success. One striking piece of advice is:

“Executives and university administrators should stop trying to predict the success of very early ideas, instead they need to be sure they have enough of them and that their pool of ideas is diverse.”

The suggestion shouldn’t be limited to executives and administrators; I think it’s sound advice, whoever you are.

It’s like when I write. If I only had a single idea, I wouldn’t last long before running out of steam. I have a wide range of post ideas on the go at all times. I write all sorts of notes and even full drafts of posts that, in the end, don’t go anywhere. I’ll keep them for when it makes sense to bring them out again, but that’s why ideas are so great. The more you feel for ideas, map out your thoughts and write about all your little lightbulb moments, the better. Be aware of your ideas at all times to give yourself the best chance of developing.

So far, so positive. Yet even with a huge list of amazing ideas, you still can’t control everything about your future. Luckily, you are the very person who can drive it.

That’s the next step. You’re willing to change, you want to take action, you have ideas. Now drive!

The poet, Philip Larkin, wrote these words:

“And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.”

[From Continuing to Live (1954)]

There is so much calling out for your attention, but it’s up to you to filter until you’re left with what you need to succeed. This is where the big picture really comes into play. Your life doesn’t roll down a single track and you’re bound to have loads of responsibilities, interests, mates, and so on that you want to make a big part of your existence.

Armed with the want to change, a readiness for action, ideas and drive, your priorities should be crystal clear. With such clarity, you’ll have more time to enjoy.

So if you ever find yourself at a loss, without a structure, lacking a goal, or lacking control, it’s time to let go of some of the junk cluttering your life. It may have seemed important a while back, but when you focus on too many things to cope, you might as well not focus on anything at all.

Five mistakes to beat…before they beat you

Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes.

That’s good. Without mistakes, we wouldn’t have successes.

But it’s not easy to spot mistakes when they’re based on larger concepts. The situation may be different each time, but your actions may be the same. You need to be on your guard. So, by way of example, here are five issues that aren’t always easy to spot, but which can get in the way of you and a big bag of win:

photo by mao_lini

1. You have too many things going on at once

I’m sure none of us like to miss out on life. It’s rubbish if you say ‘no’ to everything.

But you don’t have to be available to everyone, for everything, all the time. Choose to be choosy. Pick to be picky. Be selective in which events you wish to attend and limit the number of hobbies you pursue. That way, you’ll miss out on less, not more.

2. You’re too dependent

Uni is meant to bring out your independence and give you masses of life experience. But if you’re used to other people clearing up messes and dealing with your problems, it’s hard to change. Why bother when you know someone else will sort it all out for you?

There will come a point in your life when you will have to do things for yourself. You may get away with it now, but people will begin to know your game. You either have to reinvent yourself (which is difficult, even at uni) or find a whole new set of people to annoy (and why would you act that way on purpose?). The longer you leave it, the worse the fall.

3. You silently sort out other people’s messes

Independence requires an assertive attitude too, otherwise you risk a different type of dependence. You may think it’s less bother to clear stuff up yourself, but you end up giving yourself more work and getting no further with it.

I knew a group who lived together with a messy housemate who didn’t tidy up and left a trail of rubbish and washing everywhere. The others ended up doing the cleaning for him (quite literally silently sorting out another person’s mess). After weeks of this, they eventually plucked up the courage to do something about it. They politely asked the housemate to deal with the mess, explaining that it wasn’t a group of magic elves cleaning after him…

Good news is, the housemate listened and dealt with the mess. Over the rest of the year, they fared a lot better with the cleaning (it wasn’t perfect, but hey!).

This kind of confrontation takes guts, even as a team, but it’s more productive in the long run. It’s better to deal with the source of the problem, rather than the problem itself.

photo by braineater

4. You do anything else just to ignore the important stuff

Faced with tasks you’d rather not do, your thoughts tend to stray on everything else you need want to do.

We all procrastinate at times. But for some, the problem spirals out of control. It can get to the point where you make a conscious, active effort to find other things to do specifically in order to stop thinking about important work.

TheUniversityBlog has a big post about procrastination in the archives. Stamp down on it before the issue grows.

Heavy procrastination could be masking a deeper rooted problem, such as a dislike of the subject or a tutor. Be aware of outside issues that may be causing the procrastination, because it’s better to deal with the issues under those circumstances.

5. You put yourself down

“How did I even get to university in the first place?”

Everyone else seems so much better compared to you. You don’t understand the lectures, you don’t feel skilled enough to join one of the clubs, and you’re a rubbish dancer so don’t go clubbing with your friends.

It’s amazing how many people are down on themselves. Truly amazing. Why should anyone think it reasonable to make themselves look worse than they really are?

Even if you believe all this negativity, there’s no point in moping around and feeling even worse! Seek to improve your lot. Get some study advice and ask your tutor how to get ahead, join a club and learn from others as you go, take a night out with your mates and watch how practically none of us can dance!

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Find a motto

As I said at the start of this post, it’s not easy to spot mistakes when they’re not isolated one-offs. Once a pattern emerges and you discover an area you’d like to improve upon, sometimes all it takes is a motto.

For instance, my ‘motto of the moment’ is:

“Know when to stop.”

I’m surprised how much it helps to remember those four words. It’s the anchor I use to improve. I say it in my head and allow it to refocus my thoughts. Over time, I’ve had to remind myself less because knowing when to stop becomes a natural part of what I consider.

This isn’t a quick fix, but it is a quick snap to jolt you in the right direction. What would you give as your ‘motto of the moment’?

photo by Kyle Kesselring

What it means to “Just Be Yourself”

How many times do you hear the advice, “Just be yourself” uttered as if it’s a magical solution to all social woes? If I could be given a pound every time I hear or see that advice doled out to a Fresher…

How can I succeed socially? What do I need to do to fit in? “Just be yourself” is the key, apparently.

In a way the advice is good, but it’s pretty meaningless in isolation. People don’t act the same in front of everyone, so does that mean we don’t practice the advice? Can you be anything but yourself? Are you expected to become a two-dimensional character with only one persona?

photo by Denise Carbonell

A better way to think of the advice “Just be yourself” is this:

“Be Genuine”

To be genuine is to do the things you believe in and want to be accepted for. There’s no need to pretend that you like something you don’t. You don’t have to try and act tough, or loud, or quiet, if that isn’t how you want to act. At university, anyone who won’t accept you as a person with a unique personality is someone not worth your time.

So it is wise to be yourself, but you have to understand what being yourself truly means. You don’t act the same way in a study group as you would with a family member. Likewise, you wouldn’t speak to most lecturers the same way you’d speak to your best mate.

And that’s how it should be. Altering your actions between different people doesn’t mean you’re rude to one lot and not the other. It doesn’t mean you tell one person what you believe in and then tell someone else that you believe the exact opposite. It’s about relating to others with a genuine approach.

Firstly, how can you be genuine?

Don’t worry about what other people think – Respect the opinions of others, but don’t let them push you in a different direction if you don’t agree;
Don’t compare yourself to other people – It’s difficult enough understanding how you’ve reached your own position in life, so how could you work out anyone else’s? Someone else may look more successful than you, but they may have problems you can’t even imagine. And there are probably people out there who think you’ve got it made, when they don’t know the half of it. Comparisons are pointless, because you don’t have all the information;
Listen to yourself – Be positive about your likes and dislikes. Work out what interests you and what makes you happy to wake up every morning. It all goes toward your individual personality. You don’t have to be or do anything you don’t want to. So listen to what you love and enjoy each day striving for more of those things;
Accept when you’re wrong – Nobody is perfect, so take the rough with the smooth;
Be open – You don’t have to tell everyone every last detail about your life. There are people who, when I met them for the first time, decided to tell me all sorts of private (and sometimes, upsetting) detail of their life so far. That’s not the point of being open. An open attitude is when you don’t hide behind a façade, when you don’t hold back from what you enjoy.

A genuine personality takes the situation in front of them, stays constant in what they believe, states their true opinions, and gives the same respect to everyone, but does this in varying ways. The trick is having the confidence to interact with many different people in ways that they can relate to, while you maintain your own personal views.

Which brings us to the second question. How do you relate to others?

Listen – People like to talk about themselves and they like to answer questions. So stop talking so much, start listening and ask a few questions. This alone is a big deal.
Respect – Not everybody is like you. It’s fine to respectfully disagree with another person’s views. Respect helps relations. You don’t need to dismiss someone because they don’t agree with you. And vice versa!
Be humble – Modesty and courtesy can go a long way. Whether you’re crazy and loud, or quiet and reserved, be who you want so long as you accept that others can be too. There’s no need to compete or outshine others. If others want to compete, let them do that while you go elsewhere to have some proper fun.

Don’t hold back. Have the strength to be genuine and situations are easier to deal with, not more difficult. Acceptance comes more freely when you’re happy to fight your corner.

photo by artschoolgirl27