Hey friends 🙂, This was drawn out of my weekly newsletter, the Craftsmen Journal, consider joining up to get it directly into your inbox 📬

🧠 Comfort vs Creativity

It is often said that Comfort kills creativity or being in your comfort zone stifles creativity and I'm sure we'll know this or have at least for once heard it, but deep down, I’ve found out that we are unable to fully embrace the quote because it sounds irrational and not logical in a way.

The line of thought usually goes thus:

must it be the case that I have to discomfort myself for the sake of achieving the level of success I’ve always wanted? are you saying being in a comfortable structure would reduce my creative sense whilst in this process? I’m not sure I get the message…

It might interest you to see how others perceived the statement:

• To work harder or probably do more
• To leave my parents’ house as a young adult and stay somewhere else, so I can feel the heat of responsibility even when I’m really unable to afford rent, at least yet
• To leave my paying 9 am - 5 pm paying Job and face my little startup idea grind, even when realistically you don’t even have a market fit for your product or just enough paying customers to cater for your bill
• To undertake uncalculated risks for the seeming aim of achieving a higher purpose, whatever that is to you

….and so on

Did you notice a trend amidst all of these sincere translations? I did.

It seems to me that majority of people attribute “Discomfort” in this context largely to a physical event or an action that should be taken. While this is not totally incorrect, it is a faulty way to conceive the subject of discomfort as relating to creativity hence the reason why it’s largely seen as an irrational statement for a majority or a statement meant for the nerdy ones.

Here’s my line of thought.

Creativity itself is an internal shift that originates from the blank canvas of the mind that inspires your physical actions, this makes you handle your crafts differently compared to others, not a physical adventure at all hence the reason why Creativity as a concept is discipline-agnostic. This ultimately means that the concept of Discomfort or Leaving your Comfort Zone as relating to Creativity cannot be largely attributed to a physical event, rather it’s a breaking away from bounds of limitations in the mind, taking a mental leap to go even further where others stall, which then may translate to taking some physical actions to further commensurate the internal shift that has happened on your inside.

Alberto Santos-Dumont had become a prodigy already with the invention of flying balloons, he was a wonder to behold and Santos would have settled for accolades or focus on something else but here’s where leaving the Comfort Zone comes into play, he didn’t settle on past glory but placed himself on Path of the Unknown by questioning his so-called creations, this became the foundation of what we know today as aviation.

Since we love the feeling of being safe as humans naturally, Leaving your comfort zone means constantly putting your mind at the edge for the quest of curiosity and sustaining the drive to create, on the path of the unknown, which ultimately leads to making physical actions but howbeit not a baseless one, these actions will be as a result of the decisions you’ve thoughtfully taken to keep pushing your craft beyond bounds.

❤️ Things I loved over the week

✍🏻 Quote

Everything you call reality today was conceived by another human who’s not in any way better than yourself

🎧 Audiobook - Listened to Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

Although the thought of pushing beyond your current boundaries evolves from the mind, howbeit it takes a lot of mental toughness and some type of thoughts pattern to take & stay by the decision day-to-day. Consumption is easy, Creating calls for more, Talking is cheap, Doing requires more. Haven read about David Goggins, I knew I’d to lay my hands on his book, and I did not regret it at all. I learned a whole lot. Few from David Goggins: Motivation is crap, it has a very short lifespan and is not sustainable to do deep work. Instead, seek to find meaning in your craft, which would then translate to obsession & drive for that craft. Face your fears and come out strong. Set the pace, let others follow
You should grab a copy

📽️ Documentary - Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison

One reason why this stood out for me was seeing how these men constantly were under self-inflicted “good” pressure if you will, displacing themself from any form of comfort even when they’d some level of irrefutable breakthrough, they didn’t stay within the comfort of past success instead kept pushing beyond all odds, resulting to birthing the very foundation of our world systems, Controlled Power Systems.
I highly recommend it.

🎙️ Podcast - My first $1,000 by Side Hustle School

Chris Guillebeau on Side Hustle School speaks to the founder of impossiblehq.com, Joel Runyon. Joel describes the typical way he was able to build something tangible side by said his day-to-day job.

🎭 Something Different

📽 The Best Productivity Hacks of All Time by Ali Abdaal

Ali is a YouTuber, podcaster, soon-to-be author as he professes an ex-doctor working in London (dumped being a doctor to chase what he loves, super daunting), UK. He shares some insightful productivity tips that I’ve used and still using to help get stuff done. This will definitely pump you up

🙂 EndNote

No one, I mean NO ONE, can create the way you do when you keep showing up.

Subscribe to get the next issue directly in your inbox this week Saturday.

#KeepCreating.
Dami, 👋