Part 2: Your Creative Archetype
Once, at a job interview, the interviewer asked me if I liked to make to-do lists or cross things off of to-do lists. Without hesitation, I answered, "Cross things off!" to which she said, "Ah, you're a Finisher, then. You like to complete things."
When she said that, it clicked. I do get satisfaction and joy upon completing something; loose ends stress me out. (I never finished my Gold Award for Girl Scouts and it haunts me to this day, to the point where I am trying to find a way to figure out how to apply for it as an adult.)
Today, let's talk about your creative archetype. This refers to what kind of creative person you are, beyond being just a "writer" or an "illustrator." It's also about what aspect of the creative process appeals to you most, because that's where your strengths are!
Knowing our creative archetype helps us with the following:
Prioritizing projects and opportunities that truly excite and inspire us (rather than saying “yes” to anything that comes our way).
Developing a workflow so that we can work on and complete creative endeavors and feel motivated and empowered.
Overcoming obstacles that inevitably arise during the creative process.
For example, if you love to start things but have trouble seeing them through, you may enjoy creative strategy more than something more "structured" like project management. This makes you a great candidate for projects that need someone who can look at things from a high level perspective and offer ideas.
It has taken me a while to identify what kind of creative person I am. Now, after about a decade of soul-searching, I know that I like to be a producer. I like to hone creative ideas, set project scopes, manage teams, tie up loose ends, and see projects to fruition. Of course I love to write and daydream but, for me, those always have to have an end goal. Once someone said to me, "You're so analytical for a writer!" and I realized that they assumed writers were people who were artsy, passionate dreamers (remember creative myth #1 from the first email?). Like Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge.
This doesn’t mean my creative identity can’t or won’t change, but it does help me better select the projects to which I choose to devote my time and energy. This email series is a good example — I enjoy planning, writing, researching, designing, and sharing content. The series has a specific deliverable and an end date. I chose to do a project like this because I know my creative self is happiest when I have some freedom and some project limitations. So, our goal here is for you to be able to identify these aspects of yourself and define your projects similarly: "I enjoy and excel at doing [this type of creative work] because of [my creative archetype]."
Creative Workflow
When we know our archetype, we can then develop a workflow based on this archetype. A workflow is what it sounds like: your "flow" while working. Your creative process should help you dip in and out of a workflow with ease. People often conflate "process" with "workflow," so here's the difference:
A process is the high level view of your creativity and how you get from point A to point B.
A workflow is when you actually do the work and progress a project through stages.
Your workflow can consist of things like how you like to work, when you like to work, how you deal with distractions, but it's also about how you get ideas out of your head. Are you familiar with the term "design thinking"? It refers to the iterative process of designing things (like websites) and all that goes into that, from start to finish. It works well for any creative project. You may find that when you look at the design thinking process, you gravitate toward a specific stage.
So, to bring this full circle, your creative archetype should help you determine what you already excel at and where you can improve your workflow so that your process is solid and reliable for anything you dream of doing! We'll talk more about workflow in the coming weeks, but this gives you a chance to start thinking about it.
Activity and Worksheet
I have a few fun personality quizzes for you to take to help you think about your creative archetype. I’m sometimes skeptical of personality quizzes because I think it’s hard to contain a whole person in a neat little box, but quizzes can be a fun way to identify traits or trends in your personality! So, grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take the following three quizzes:
Post-Quiz Reflection:
Once you've taken these three quizzes, jot down some notes about your results. Do you notice themes or trends in the results? What do these quizzes reveal about your creative personality?
Come up with a name for your creative personality. You can use words/labels from the quizzes, or come up with something new! Put it into a sentence like this: "I am a ____ [creative architect/word wizard/project management magician/etc.]."
Reference your Creativity Myths from part #1. Do any of your myths or truths involve your creative archetype? Does knowing more about your archetype help you address your myths?
If you want to share your quiz results or reflection, pop into my Discord channel!
Talk soon,
Ashley