“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.” – Aristotle
I guess the biggest thing I can say here is trial by error. You sit and dream for a short while and then regardless of whether every inch is planned out you get a move on. Unless you’re planning on using an object for a while there are lots of ways to fake the way something looks, if you’re only going to see two sides of an object, only build two sides. Build it as light as possible and reuse as much as you can to keep your costs down.
You’re never going to know whether you can accomplish something until you set out to do it and I think that is the most important part of perspiration. You can stand around and talk about something. You can get as much input as you can from people but until you pick up the hammer, paintbrush or staple gun you’re not going to know whether or not you can accomplish it or not. Sometimes you get knee deep in a project and find out it won’t work as well as you had hoped. This is the time where your ingenuity and critical thinking skills come into play. Yes those critical thinking assessments you took in middlschool and highschool and on the SAT and ACT were not in vain.
If you don’t ever have challenges to your critical thinking skills then you need to start stepping out on some limbs. If your projects don’t leave you scratching your head for a good long time at least once then maybe you need to start stretching yourself more. Develop yourself so if you end up hitting a wall you can break through or start heading in another direction with what you’ve got.
These are sweat inducing situations because if most creatives are like I am, a lot of what we do is up against a tight time frame and if it doesn’t work out exactly right it can get a little hairy. This is where you need to be on your A-game.
So be ready to jump in with both feet, be ready to fail, be ready to try something new, be ready to stretch yourself, be ready to perspire, but also know your limitations and surround yourself with people who can compliment what you do!
