DIARY ENTRY by Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin, on overcoming creative blocks.
This is an except from an interview with Andrew Huberman:
Here’s what Rick Rubin suggests:
Go past the idea of the block. Think about what’s the cause of the block. The block is usually a personal ‘I’m not good enough‘ (a confidence issue, I don’t have anything to say) or thinking about someone else ‘Nobody’s gonna like what I make’. So, it’s either a self-judgment or a fear of outside judgment.
Consider making something with the freedom of ‘This is just something I’m making for myself’ That’s all it is. It’s a just a diary entry. Everything I make is a diary entry.
The beauty of a diary entry is that I can write my diary entry and you can’t tell me ‘That isn’t good enough’ or ‘That’s not what I experience’. Of course, that’s what I experience. I write a personal diary for myself. No one else can judge it. It is my experience of my life.
Everything we make can be that, a personal reflection of who we are in that moment of time. It doesn’t have to be the greatest you could ever do. It doesn’t have to have any expectation that it’s going to change the world. It doesn’t have to be ‘This has to sell a certain amount of copies for any reason.’ It doesn’t have any of those things.
Just think about it as ‘I’m making this thing for me, and I want to do it to the best of my ability to where I feel good about it. It’s honest of where I’m at.’
If you’re being honest about where you’re at, there’s nothing blocking that. There are no blocks. The blocks are based on dealing with a different perception (one that is made up). You make up this story and you’re living in this story ‘I’m in this block because I can’t do it. I’m afraid someone else is not going to like it’. But there are no blocks.
There’s infinite amount of information out there to work with because it also doesn’t stem from us. We’re vehicles for this information. It’s coming through us all the time.
If you’re sitting at your desk, go take a walk. Chances are, you’ll see something that will spark something in you as a seed to take off from.