This week's blog might be a bit light on photos. Time has been short, and I haven't been happy with a lot of what I've shot. Here's why.

Creativity is obviously not a stagnant skill. It’s a dynamic process thriving on the exploration of new ideas, taking creative risks, and putting yourself out there with these new creations. Though I often find myself shooting the things I am most familiar with, or shooting at the times I find most photogenic. Sticking to what I feel produces my best work.

But I’ve been getting a little bored lately. Stagnant in my progress, if you will.

Comfort can provide a sense of security, shooting or creating what you are best at limits the exposure to uncomfortable feedback during new/failed experiments or ventures. But to really bolster those creative skills and expand into different areas, you’ve got to get out of that comfort zone and start doing the things you avoid the most.

Attack your weak points.

I get stuck in this idea that I can only shoot the golden hours or night time. My photography is typically darker, moodier, and I struggle immensely with shooting in broad daylight or harsh lighting conditions. I just hate most of the photos I take during these times, even though I often find the bright, airy, summertime photos that others shoot very visually pleasing and let’s be honest, in Texas, this is a great skill to have since we have a strong relationship with the sun.

Golden hours and night time are my comfort zones.

The Perils of Comfort

By staying in this comfort zone, repeating the same techniques and utilizing the same ideas, I feel a sort of creative stagnation. I cannot progress if I only repeat. I cannot create new techniques if I have put no effort into learning them. I cannot apply or mix techniques if I don’t understand them or their relationships to each other. When things start to feel safe or comfortable, I think it limits the ability to innovate and discover new possibilities.

Comfort breeds complacency, and complacency is the enemy of creativity.

Cultivate a Growth Mindset

This is essential to any skill, so why would creativity or art be any different?

Many successful musicians have stated numerous times that they were not gifted their skill, Jimi Hendricks didn’t just pick up a guitar one day and master it right then and there.

Eminem got laughed and booed off stage many times. Look at him now.

Ed Sheeran famously has an interview where he shows a clip of younger him, and both the guitar and vocals are lets say, not great, and look at him now. It’s not my type of music, but it is undeniable that he is extremely skilled at what he does, and I can’t personally think of anything MORE uncomfortable than singing in front of people.

What do these creatives have in common? They had a growth mindset, threw comfort to the wind, stuck to it, and WON. You are BOUND to be judged by those around you whether you try or not, might as well try.

Embrace challenges and view them as opportunities for growth.

Embrace Failure as a Learning Tool

Coinciding with what was said above and in previous articles, this is how you cultivate that mindset. You didn’t fail, you actually won. You won another small step towards mastering that skill. You won a few more hours towards that 10,000 hours. You won the knowledge of what didn’t work. You won over everyone else that decided not to even try.

Again, the most successful people in the world have failed more than most have tried.

Every failure provides insight into what works and what doesn't, meaning every failure is a win.

A Few Ways to Step Out of That Comfort Zone

• Start with the struggle: Pick the area that you struggle with the most and set a goal of trying to create something that you really like, with the techniques you struggle with the most. If you struggle with bright daytime lighting, set a goal to capture at least five photos in these conditions that you are proud of. This is what I did for this article, and why there are so few photos, lol.

• Get feedback (and don’t take it personal): Try and get some feedback, preferably from people that you feel or perceive as doing “better” than you. A mentor, if you will. Ask for constructive criticism about composition, editing, techniques… what worked, and what didn’t. Try not to take it personal, and apply the feedback to the next attempt. Constructive criticism provides valuable insights to help you grow in any field.

• Experiment: Maybe you know all the rules, good, now break them. See what you can come up with by altering a technique. Lately I’ve seen a guy on IG shooting video scenes with a crazy slow shutter speed that creates a unique blurred look that is actually pretty stunning in some situations. He broke the 180 degree shutter rule…. and it’s pretty neat.

• Collaborate: What better way to gain new perspectives than to work with people who see things differently? Maybe they show you something they’ve been attempting, and you know how to make it work. Feed off of each other, learn from each other.

• Start thinking of failures as WINS: Changing this little mindset can help you get rid of some of the anxiety of putting yourself out there with new ideas you aren’t quite sure of, or maybe haven’t refined/mastered yet. I can’t help but wonder how many people, myself included, could have progressed so much faster if there wasn’t such a stigma around “failing” or “being a failure”. I think this is what stops a lot of people from living their dream. Fear of failure. But why fear the thing that creates progress? We don’t call babies failures for not walking on the first try. We encourage failure, to bring about progress, and eventually success. Why don’t we do this is our creative spaces?

To wrap all that wordiness up, I think that striving to step out of your comfort zone in almost any capacity, be it in the gym, at work, in a creative or social space, is really essential to any kind of progress or mastery. The greatest achievements often come from taking the biggest risks, and risk in most cases can be considered the opposite of comfort. So it must be essential to the creative process to take risks and purposefully step out of our comfort zones. Fail, fail, and fail again, each one is a win after all.

So what are you going to do this week to step out of your comfort zone?

Until next week…