How to Keep Going - Sustaining Positive Long-Term Creativity

1. Welcome to the Class: Whether you're just starting out or burnt out or rebuilding or having a lot of success, the question always remains the same. How do you keep going? I delved into all sorts of art forms, and for the past three years, I continuously produced one creative video per week, that is more than 150 videos in total. This applies for any art form for any skill set as long as you want to keep going. I majored in physics in Germany, but I know life is an art, not a science. There are no rules to art. This course compiles all the things that help me to keep on going. I love to do videos, but personally, sometimes the art of doing videos every week can be in itself a challenge when you have so many other things in your life. In this class, we'll explore what creates sustainable productivity for the long term and how to deal with the inevitable uncertainty or common traps and mistakes, such as routine, taking breaks, the track of job titles or monetization, and, of course, what to do about it. We'll also dive deep into self reflection, questioning the wise behind your work and finding the joy in experimentation, just like children's do art with their fearless curiosity and playfulness. The principles apply to anyone trying to sustain a meaningful and productive creative life. Not only good life concepts, but throughout this course, I will propose some fun experimentational challenges along the way, no matter what type of art you do. And, of course, for the class project, you can pick any of these and share it with us. There you'll have interactions with me and all the other creatives that are taking this course. If you want to keep on exploring how to keep going creatively, that's the only prerequisite you need. With that said, I'll see you in the first lesson. 2. Reality of Artists’ Creative Journey: Do you think of a cliche or a classical view on the artists when they look back into their journey? If you're anything like me, I always imagine a beautiful scene where the artists would freely and just doing their specific art form, for example, like painting. Well, for some occasions, that could be the case, most of the time, it couldn't be further away from the truth. If you ask me, real art is done like this. If you're a writer or edit a lot, real art is made sometimes in the dark, sometimes sitting in front of the screen, sometimes frustrated and sometimes it flows. But your brain is mostly tired from what to do and how to do things. This is how real art is made. This, of course, doesn't mean you cannot create a good work environment. Certainly having good life, plans, and overall, a clean room will help you. But in reality, in most cases, real art is made after your morning routine, after your coffee, just in front of the computer, and that's about it. There's nothing glorious about it. Sometimes it clashes, sometimes we're stuck, and sometimes it just doesn't flow. It happens, but that's okay because that's really normal for me and to everyone. But when in our brains, we lose sense of time and it just flows, and then it's magical. Along this class, we'll explore different components to why and what we can do to incorporate some play into our artistic routine to maximize the possibilities of our brain, to go into this flow state that we really love. In the last three years, he self published multiple award winning graphic novels, produced illustrations for high profile magazines. And we were fine artists because we didn't know what else to call ourselves, and we went from museums and art galleries to maybe making some TV commercials. Began skating at the age of eight against his father's wishes, he would end up becoming the most dominant competitor the sport has ever seen. And the main reason why when we hear other artists talk about their past, and it just sounds like it doesn't have any uncertainty, and it all makes sense is because when we connect the dots in the past, it always makes sense. However, when we look into the future, it all looks a little uncertain, a little fuzzy, and it just sometimes doesn't make sense. You don't know what's gonna happen. But every time, without fail, when we look back, we can always connect the dots, and oh, I made this decision because of this. For example, when I was doing my bachelor's or master's in physics, I found it sometimes a little too theoretical. Hence, I started delving into other creative paths photography, paintings or doing videos. And when I finish my masters, I decided to switch 180 to this creative path I've been doing for a while. But to me, when you ask me now, when I go back in the past, it makes complete sense why I would just give up from my masters and do something so different and I have no regrets for it. But if you were to ask me when I just defended my thesis and people ask me, What are you going to do? When I looked forward, it was very uncertain. I had to move countries. I didn't know what it was gonna look like and how my life was going to be. I just I didn't know what to answer. And just know that it is normal. Sometimes when you're diving into a different path, it is normal to live with some uncertainty. Of course, this sounds really drastic, but there was a lot of experimentation while I was still doing my bachelor's or masters while I was doing other things to experiment what worked and what not. It wasn't just, like, a jump like this. But again, when I look into the pass, I can connect all the dots very clearly why I did this, why I chose this direction. Really without uncertainty. But at the time, it did not feel that way. I was filled with doubt and uncertainty. I did not know what my day would look like, and if this was the right decision. When we look into the future, it is completely normal sometimes to just not know how life is going to be. Of course, it doesn't always need to be this drastic. You can maybe try the same exercise. Think back of the past. Can you connect the dots of why your choices led you here and maybe think about the future? Is this certain? Is it uncertain or if it feels hard or a little fuzzy in the future. In the next lesson, I will guide you to how to deal with the uncertainty. I'll see you there. 3. How to Deal with Uncertainty: In the previous lesson, we uncovered why we sometimes might feel some uncertainty towards the future and how we look back and everything sounds that makes sense. Uncertainty is something that exists in many levels. We all create art for different reasons. If art is a career, then maybe monetization uncertainties is a problem. Or if you're just creating art for fun, when you delve into the art, there's also uncertainty of what to create. And in this lesson, I'm going to guide you on what to do to reduce this uncertainty. When we create, we step into a space where answers don't yet exist. We don't always know if the idea will resonate with others or with us by the time it's completed. But that uncertainty is vital. It pushes us to explore new perspectives, experiment with unfamiliar techniques, and embrace vulnerability. It is the fear of not knowing how it will turn out that compels us to give it a role. So to guide you through uncertainty, let's talk about routine. When I talk about the word routine, this might sound for some people that I'm constraining myself. I'm putting walls and limiting myself. However, you'll see how constraints might lead to true freedom. So again, my timeline, bachelor's, and I did some creative work, and in masters, I really delved into video content creation seriously. And to now, how did I maintain for so many years consistently this output of art? I believe consistency is one of the most important aspects on any art form. Consistency is really needed in order to improve massively. So how do you get to be consistent while you're studying or while you're working or doing other things as well in your life? Well, if you have little time, routine really helps you to keep consistent and make the little time you have count. For example, while I was studying my masters, I really had not much time. I needed to study and also create videos. The routine I chose was one video per week, but also I needed to do well in my exams and my thesis. So what I did was I always would study during the commute with my flashcards, and with the rest of the free time, I would invest it into doing any art form that I wanted. In this case, it was the one video per week that I chose. Routine really made it possible to make this limited time count. And by supposedly constraining myself and putting walls, I was able to create so much more than I would expect and improve my video making skills to a level that I never thought it would be possible. Seriously, I'm not joking. I'm actually being honest. I'm not saying this for cliche. So it is really true that routine keeps you grounded. And if you don't know what to do next or what to do with this short period of time, routine will tell you. Routine helps you stay consistent and thus more creative. So before I chose to have this routine during my bachelor's, I first started making videos whenever I felt like it. Which resulted in me not doing every week, not being consistent. And I would do a video maybe every one or two months, which, of course, compared to one video a week is like nothing. As a result, my video making skills were lacking and they were just there without much improvement. So routine helps you create good habits that lead you to your best work. It sounds at first that it really restricts you. But if routine is of your own choosing, then it really truly leads you to freedom and creative output. Having learned about routines, I want you to think about your own creative niche, whatever you do creatively. Do you have a routine already? Then that's great. If not, then what creative output would you like to choose? You can choose one and experiment. You don't need to stick to it. It's not permanent. You can change it. At first, I thought about doing two videos per week, and I ended up finding out that it was just too much with the other things I was doing in life. So I decided to tone it down back to one. I found out that that's the sweet spot to keep me consistent. If you like to write, why not set a few minutes to write every day? If you love to paint, why not set a routine of a painting every week or every month? Routine is completely personal to you. What might work for some might not work to you. A routine that's too loose loses its potential, and a routine that's too strict, it just doesn't sound fun at all. And if you just have a right and you stick to it, then you will create so much consistency, so much creative output, and you will improve massively. Think about it and good luck. 4. About Breaks: So last lesson, we cover the power of routines, where it feels like it's constricting, but it's really not. So in this lesson, I would like to talk about breaks, especially because when you're doing a routine, so for me, in my case, I was doing a video per week for at least now three years. And for everyone, statistically speaking, you will not feel like up to it every week. It is not human to feel like doing it 100% of the time every week for so long in the long run. Sometimes I do feel myself being overwhelmed while I'm doing my masters with other things, or right now I'm learning Dutch intensively, and sometimes it helps you to step back and see what was our goal in the initial place. Our goal is to be creatively productive, but also sustainably. That's the most important part. You can be maximizing your productivity for one week, but to sustain it for three years, that becomes a little more difficult. So we need different alternatives. This is why it is really important when talking about our routines to how much we're taking during our paths to avoid the burnout. The first path of the burnout is simply just doing too much. I will call this the over commitment burnout. Your mood decreases when you're just doing so much in a short amount of time without breaks. For example, when I established I was going to do one video per week, I realized that when I finished the video, I would schedule the video. But then I would have these days of nothing. I mean, not nothing. I would do other things, but I wouldn't have to worry about it. And in my head, I thought, Oh, I can post this immediately and then do another video. And it's a temptation that I always have, but I always have to keep myself a little back so that I can rest a few days to continue the other video consistently. Week because if this wasn't the case, I would very quickly burn out. So in this case, this pause I have is crucial for the consistency I have for my creative output. The other way of overcommitting is simply because you have too many interests. So we have to narrow down our focus. Maybe let's do a list. On a piece of paper, and in my case, my journal, I draw vertical line separating the page into two. On the left side, you'll list every dream, aspiration, everything you want to do. For me, it would be creating videos, a van trip through Europe, visit Japan, walking dog twice a day, learn Dutch, master Chinese, learn how to surf in Portugal, et cetera. It can be big or small goals, whatever. Everything stays at the left list. This is our little dump here. And on the other side, you will write your active investments, things that you are actively doing now, which, for me, are weight lifting, create a weekly video, film, and edit a course, walk Mochi twice a day, and organize a Japan holiday. The number of things you have in your active investments should be proportional to the free time you have to do these things. For example, if you have a full time job or if you have kids and other responsibilities, then this list should be a little shorter to not overwork work yourself. And in your right side, it is smart to keep the active investments in the single digits. Too much, you'll overwork yourself and burn out. And the last point I wanted to highlight is that breaks, taking breaks, relaxing is not optional. It is an absolute necessity for a long sustained productivity. Since 2020, there are many studies stating the importance of taking breaks. A software company found that workers who were most productive were not the ones who were always at their desks. It wasn't even the ones who gave themselves a five minute break every hour. The most productive workers had a work ratio of 52 minutes of work and 17 minutes of break. And sometimes it is important. I don't feel always like making a video every week. And sometimes I push a little bit myself to start filming or start editing. And at the end, I see the cool result I have, and the video turned out way better than I expected. But it is not always like that. Sometimes, for example, this December, I will visit my family back in Portugal for me to continue this routine of one video per week, while I'm spending time precious time with my family, I don't think it would be a very wise choice. When I look back, I think I would prefer to fully be committed in resting in this time with my family and later on continue resuming this one video per week routine that I established for myself. So it is really a balance. Sometimes I push myself, sometimes I step away. Occasionally giving yourself a hardy pause, step away from the constant pressure. You create space for growth and creativity to flow. So breaks are really important. Sometimes doing less temporarily is doing more in the long term. Now, it is your turn. If you have too many interests, why not narrow down the focus with that list we made, but for yourself? Create a sustainable routine for yourself. Remember, this is really personal to you. What works for you might not work for other people and vice versa. Remember also about taking breaks, sometimes doing less temporarily might mean doing more in the long term. Good luck. 5. About Walking: In the short term and in the long term, if you want to keep going not only creatively, but also in life, we all have to go out. This lesson will cover the effects of walking to our creative side. And this lesson is also a small reminder that any sort of exercise, any shape or form, really helps you to keep going creatively. It can be intense, but it doesn't always need to be. If I were to choose the habit that changed most of my life, it would be walking. I personally have the habit of going for a walk at least twice a day, especially when I'm most saturated from all my responsibilities. Going for a walk really helps. Yes, it helps you physically in the long run, but most of the benefits that I could really feel were mentally. I used to live in Portugal where the weather was always good, and I never had the habit of going outside for a walk. Tim. We i. In Germany or in Belgium now, it is when I realize the importance of going out and about, even if the weather is not as nice. It's cold, it's raining, but I still go out on a walk. Research from the Stanford University divided people into three groups. One were the ones who were sitting, the ones who walked inside the boring room in the treadmill and the other one who would walk in the nature. And they were later tested for creativity. The most shocking result is that while first they were sitting and then they stepped on to walk on the treadmill, the creative output increased by an average of 60%. When the person was walking, according to the study. They were surprised that the difference between just sitting and walking was so great. But they were also surprised that just the active walking. So walking on the nature or walking in a small boring room, they were not much different at all. So walking really is important, no matter the weather, no matter where you are, to boost your creative output. So with that said, why not establish a routine of walking? It doesn't need to be twice a day. It can be whenever you just feel saturated from work and don't know where to go. Walking is a great activity to do that helps us stay consistent in the long term. And, of course, if you have a dog, you don't really need to change much. Good luck. 6. Trap of Job Titles: Thing about job titles is that it may sound cool or prestigious to say to other people. And sometimes that can be a trap in itself. I was a victim of this some time ago, but not anymore. When people use the word creative as a job title, it divides the world into creatives and non creatives. And to me, creativity is really just a tool that anyone can use. Job titles, if taken really seriously, will probably make you feel like you would work a certain way and at the end, will actually restrict you. What if you consider yourself a painter? What happens when to try out filmmaking? If you only consider yourself a writer, what if you want to do embroidery? You cannot wait around for someone to call you an artist before you make art. That's really just not how it works. In that case, you'll never make art. My whole life, I wanted to be a cool scientist or physics researcher. More realistically, I would really work hard for it. And when they reach to that point, I realized the good and the bad parts of it. The good, shallow part when I talk about it to people, is that they think I'm super smart or something, which is really not the case. I'm just really knowledgeable in this area of physics. And while I was working at it, I realized that some of the bad parts were about the constant pressure of writing papers and consistency of the output. And if you're stuck, you're really stuck. It's not like art where you can so many ways around this. If you're really stuck, I would just stay hours at the computer looking at lines of code. And of course, any job has these both sides. It's good and bad. I worked in a really good group that I wanted to stay, but also the bad parts made me rethink this position that I was in. So when I finished my masters, I had two options. One was to continue pursuing this path to continue and being a PhD student. And the second more drastic path was to give up and decided to be a storyteller or what do you call a content creator. Now, which one sounds more prestigious to the eyes of society? Old me would have focused on the cool job title that I would have and the perception that other people would have of me, but new me decided to go for this one. Prestige is a powerful magnet that wraps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. I personally myself chose this path, but even here, I have to be careful what job title I associate to. For the most shallowest of reasons, I could say that I'm myself a teacher, a storyteller, or even a filmmaker. These are all titles that could be associated with me, but I honestly, I really don't care. I do them because of the intrinsic reward I have while I'm doing the things. I naturally gravitated towards them. It was really intrinsic and not about the job titles. I do videos because I find the creative output and the manipulation of emotions through music, video, and other sounds to be really interesting. I teach because I love to teach inherently, and I love to organize classes and people learning from them. I really enjoy it intrinsically. I don't care if people call me a filmmaker or teacher. I don't care about it at all. I could be doing other things completely different, and honestly, it wouldn't matter much to me. Do what you genuinely find interesting. If you are taking this course and you're listening to this right now, then chances are you and me already understand each other. In my opinion, job titles aren't really for you. There are a job for others to define. Now, it is your turn. What excites you? What sparks your interest? Have you thought about if you are just pursuing a job because of the prestigious job title or the positive connotations that come with it? Many, including myself in the past, don't really stop to think about these questions. There's actually a really good book about this problem about stepping away from the default path. If you're interested, I linked it down below. And if you're interesting or have any doubts, you can always discuss it with me in a discussion tab. Good luck. 7. Learn from Children: Anytime I see small children doing any sort of creative projects, I'm always fascinated by how much focus they put into that one task. This hyper focus that seems to be common for any young people. They concentrate so much into the single task. It's fascinating. And without thinking, they really go into this state of flow where they don't know how much time has passed, and they're really hyper focused into the task. And another key aspect is sometimes when they finish, they genuinely don't care. They go onto another activity. They just leave everything behind, and they really they genuinely don't care about the result. They purely do the art to do the art. And I believe what they're doing is doing the art in the purest form. It is doing to do it, doing without the word of how it's going to look like. That is the final goal for any of us, and children do it just like it's nothing. They have this one key aspect that they have while they're doing their many activities, and it is their playfulness, something that adults have lost a bit. As we grow up, playfulness has really decreased because of various factors. It could be playfulness might make us seem childish, or the fear of judgment. As our brains are more developed, we have this perception of how people think of us. But the problem is that it really comes with decrease of risk taking, and with that, it decreases the playfulness that we once had as kids, and it just feels like we don't have it that much anymore. We are so output driven. That we only focus on the results and really never focus on how we do it and what happens throughout. As we grow up, we lose part of our playfulness, which is so essential to experimenting our interests over time. And experimenting doesn't need to be a completely different area. It can be in your same area just with different components. And the goal of this class is to come back to come back to our roots and to really see ourselves deeply inside. And for this, we'll see my first, I think, my first ever video that I've made on Windows Movie Maker. Li I really wanted to do a video back in the day. YouTubers are really popular and actually, this was for a school project. That's how I got into this filmmaking thing. I had this free program Windows moviemaker and I didn't have a camera at the time. So in order to do videos, I decided to draw some pictures and some sort of animation with just a few frames and have a voiceover over it. And, yeah, I actually got the MAX grade for this masterpiece. It was my first ever video, and I was really proud of it. I had so much fun putting the frames together and then recording my voice. And at the time, I didn't know how to cut or the concept of cutting. So I would always repeat my lines throughout until I got one smooth take and I remember it was really a lot of fun. Do you have your first pieces of work? What made you first do it? Most likely, you put the effort because it was something intrinsic, maybe a school project made you do it, but intrinsically, you put a lot of effort because you wanted to do a good job and have a lot of fun along the way. And this is exactly the feeling I want to have when I create. And with that said, this is the first of many class project possibilities that I'm going to propose. And it is to do a bad version of what you do on purpose. If you paint, you can do a bad version of the painting. If you write, you can write whatever you want that sounds silly or cliche. And if you do videos, you can forget all about these concepts of rules of what makes a video good in theory and just do whatever version that comes to mind. Rules is a really important thing because to mimic the mind of a child, you really have to truly forget about them. If you paint, then maybe try first with the darkest colors first and then paint over with the lightest colors. It doesn't really matter. The rule of thirds, I'm not centered this or that. Just really try and do the bad version on purpose, and you'll realize how much fun you're actually having. That is the true goal of the project to really take yourself back to those days. Sometimes we're so stuck in our routine of doing this that we forget what it is like to have fun. And I've made myself also a bad version, and here it is. Now, it is your turn. Try and look back maybe into your first work and the feelings that come to you are really useful for your next project about doing the bad version of whatever art form you do. The most important thing is to actually have fun with it, the playfulness. That is really important. Feel free to share the project in the projects folder. And with that said, good luck. 8. Seek Unfamiliarity: Me, there's nothing more exciting than some slight experimentation. If you're talking about the courses alone, then the courses throughout the time has been having a few different backgrounds, a few different lighting setups that I've been changing throughout the time. And I think now this is my best lighting setup that I ever could have. I like the circle that's around me, the plant, and I like the lighting overall. But it took a few steps along the way, maybe to reach this place. And, of course, buying new gear, new toys to experiment and change a few things around is also very fun. If you are familiar painting with light colors, why not go for the opposite, dark? If you are always familiar in photography, shooting portraits, why not shoot landscapes? And if you're doing music and it always sounds cheerful, why not go for something the opposite? My videos mostly have voiceovers. That's how I feel most comfortable with. But for these classes, I change it up to talk in front of the camera. I feel like it has a different dynamic, a more personal dynamic, whereas my videos are more on the artistic side and the storytelling. And sometimes there's me talking to the camera, but most of the time it's different shots here and there and my voiceovers. That's how my style developed over the years in experimenting a few things, being inspired by others and trying what they try and sometimes working and sometimes not working. And the things that work, they stick with me, and this is how my style is morphed and anyone else. But if I'm always used to doing videos with voiceovers, I decided to once experiment and do a video that's completely different, maybe with no voice at all. This is what happened in this video where I traveled to China and decided that the video should speak for itself. So the sound effects and the music would all combine with the video of the people living in China. It looks a little something like this. Biko ya my so. Bin co, ya, my so. Because of this whole change, I had a lot of fun doing this video. It was something completely different to what I was used to. The focus was different this time. It wasn't me scripting first. It was taking all of the footage that I had, picking the best selection of this compilation of people living in China and Their actions would actually tell the story, alongside with the beautiful music and the sound effects that would really give everything into this one video. I really had fun doing this video. It is a different style, but it keeps things fresh. Again, remember, the playfulness that the children have. I got it back when I tried something different. It doesn't need to be always buying new gear because money is limited sometimes, but sometimes it could be a different slight change of video style, how you film, how you edit, how you paint, how you write, how you produce anything. You can change so many things with stuff you already have, and it brings back the play factor, which is really important in keeping up consistently doing more creative projects. And the more creative projects I do, the more consistent I am and, of course, the more we all improve. That's how it goes. Sustainable productivity. Now, it is your turn. What style do you usually have in your creative niche? Are you used to always doing something in a certain way? Why not switch it up? Just play around. No great expectations, do it and see how it feels like. All this experimentation raises up the play factor, how much playfulness we have. And the more playful and it feels like it's not work, the more consistent we are. Good luck. 9. Let’s Talk About Monetization: We all know this situation. Maybe for ourselves or for others, we always hear this. When I started embroidering and started with simple things and wanted to eventually embroider my dog's face in this sweater, I kept showing to people some of the reactions were Wow. You could really sell this on Etsy or something. It seems that nowadays, in the world we lived in, the ultimate compliment is to be so good at something that you can make money out of it. And to them, I always say, Thank you first. And second of all, I say, No, thank you. I would rather not monetize this skill. And there's a few reasons why. One, it is a hobby. I would focus instead on what would sell instead of what I actually want to do. All of a sudden, it becomes a game about maximizing profits. It's a numbers game, and it's not about what you actually want to do. Second, it focuses on what I cannot control. It's this external validation that I have, the amount of sales or if you're doing videos, the amount of views it gets, it's all of those things, all of these number games are all externally motivated. They don't come from you. They come from the outside. That's something you cannot control. And the third one is that monetizing it just makes it that you work on that all the time, which sounds more like a job and less like a hobby. And for me, embroidery is something that I would like to keep it as a hobby. I would do it for my own clothes and maybe gift to others, but I would not like it to sell to others and always working on it. It wouldn't come from me within. It would come from the outside, and that's for me a go. I'd rather not monetize it. But what if you want to monetize your hobby? I started doing videos intrinsically when I was a kid just for fun. And during my physics course, I did it because it was so opposite to what it was so theoretical, whatever I was learning. I started doing videos intrinsically as I was a kid, and continue it because of my bachelor's in physics was so theoretical. I wanted to do something completely different. And at a certain point, I was able to monetize it, and I pursued that decision. And along the years, I learned a few things about monetization. Yes, sometimes it does feel a little like I'm playing the numbers game, but it's something that I really enjoy. But if you want to monetize your hobby, there's a few things to look out for. The first one is to keep your boundaries safe. Me, for example, I could do videos about certain topics that I know that would do better and give more revenue, but I decided to keep the boundaries to myself where I would delineate what topics I would do because there are things that I really want to do and wouldn't do it any other way. For example, I love to do certain types of videos that have a deep storytelling that make people feel something. It's the sum of these big and small moments that define you. Don't let them escape. A and opposed to maybe keyboard videos that did really well, but I don't want to pursue that niche. While I'm typing mountain, my eyes are already looking at number and processing. The next word is number. That's what I meant with keeping up the boundaries. I could have done so many videos about keyboard, maybe take sponsorships, but that wasn't the path that I wanted to do. So I chose this alternative path, even though it meant that the growth was slower, the numbers were slower, whatever. But that's what made me happy and made me consistent. And that's the thing I really wanted to do. If you can, you can diversify your income sources. For example, while I was a masters, I was also taking a research assistant job where it would take away a big amount of pressure of me creating to earn revenue, and it focused more my creating on the creating aspect of size, the pure art form. By having another source of income, it really helps with taking away the pressure. It's a weird thing when you think about the revenue, the revenue doesn't come, but when you take away the pressure, your mind just all of a sudden can flow with the creativity and you create better stuff, which, in turn, also creates more views and revenue and whatever. But the focus should never be there. Because the truly the most important part, at least to me and many other creatives, is to do the art for the art's sake and to do good videos that maybe motivate people or in this case, good classes that inspire people or change their minds or maybe educate them. But it I'm aware that others see this as more of a business side of things, but for me to keep being consistent is to do what I want, what I feel like I really want to do and try and ignore the numbers. I could have gone down in the keyboard type videos niche but I really wanted to do the storytelling and perfect this videography. It was kind of the hard path, but it's the path that I really wanted to do. That was what I set my mind to the boundaries. And with less revenue pressure, I was able to do the videos that I really want to with absolute no regrets. While money is important, using it as a filter to find work worth doing, especially at first is a big mistake. More important is finding something worth doing indefinitely. This is more powerful and exciting. This is the most important aspect in general for making good work. Now, it is your turn. With all of this monetization aspects in mind, there's a few questions I would like you to think about. So why do you create? Feel free to pause this, by the way, and really think about them. For me, it's a form of expression, an art form that I really enjoyed doing, the stories I could tell and the way I could tell them and the way I could make people feel through my stories and inspired, that was what really gave me motivation. And I tried many art forms, and videos really stuck with me because it was so difficult at the time, but, like, I personally got inspired through seeing other artists through their art and the stories they were able to tell, and I wanted to be also able to tell those stories. So I love choosing the music, the right music, the right sound effects, the right stories, the right clips that makes people feel something inside of them and maybe get inspired. As well as I love to teach, as well, the organization, how to organize the information, maybe help people guide through what I went through. This is, for me, something that really motivates me indefinitely. And second, what are the boundaries you can set to protect your passion, even though if you are making revenue out of it. For me is to not worry too much about the numbers games. Of course, the numbers are important, but I try to always focus on the routine. Routine is the most important thing I can control. The numbers are outside. They're external. I cannot control them. But my routine, the input I can put one video per week, one class or course per I don't know how many months. These are things I can control myself. I cannot control what the other people think. I can control the quality, but I cannot control the numbers and the algorithms and whatnot. Me, focusing on the routine and taking away the pressure of the revenue are what protects me from this hobby to what is a business or a job. I hope these answers could help you and maybe help you think about for your own hobby and best of luck. 10. The Art of Gifting Your Art: Throughout this class, I've always been talking about the importance of routine and breaks, but routine most often because it keeps us being consistent. However, sometimes we are so deep into our routine, constantly inputting and outputting that we forget what our talents can mean to people or what they can do for others. This is why in this class, I'm outlining and highlighting the importance of making gift to others. It could be essentially anything. If you like photography, why not gift someone the gift of photography? So a framed picture, a special picture, a special moment. If you love baking, why not surprise someone with a random cake that you made? If it's music, why not compose something special for a special someone? There is nothing more pure than making something specific to specific someone. We often forget what we can actually do with our talents and both hands. I used to and still love to do photography, so I from time to time like to print these big pictures that are not just small and give to the people. I have gifted some to some of my dearest friends and some to my partner as well. And sometimes I'm just gift them to myself because it's printing my work and I love it. For video making before I started to even monetize or whatever, I did my videos for Amber, that's my partner, and they didn't look that good, but they were really special at the time. Or my friend Adrian, who, in this case, was really stressed about finishing his master thesis at the time. And he was super overwhelmed, and I decided to make a video for him to really take a breather and see how close he is to finishing is one of his biggest goals. Wow. There is something so special to do something specific for a person and just for them and not anyone seeing them. Of course, for Ari and I got the consent to put in here to show it to you guys. But there are so many other gifts that I never shown the world. I put all my focus and effort, and it's something different. If it's going to the Internet or publicly posting, it has a different feeling when you actually do for someone specific. It's actually more fun in a way, and there is a lot of work that goes unseen just for specific people. And it is now your turn. With that said, think about your own talents. What can you do? Whatever skill level you have, there's always something specific you can always do a nice gift for. Think about it and best of luck. 11. Wishful Thinking: We all are sometimes a little guilty of wishful thinking. If only I had a full frame camera like the big creators, then my shots would really look cinematic. That's something I tell myself sometimes I'm personally guilty of this. But gear is the most obvious choice for an upgrade. If only I had those kind of brushes, then I would be able to really paint whatever. If only I had the best computer, then I would really do X, Y, and Z. Sure, gear does matter up to a certain point. But once you reach a certain level, more gear just adds an incremental amount of improvement. And this is something I learned the hard way. For example, I had this camera with a really nice sigma lens, and I thought it would give me more cinematic shots with more open aperture for more blurrier effect. And during my car road trip, when I went from Germany to Portugal, my camera got stolen. It was it devastated me, honestly. Of course, it devastated me financially, but I knew that money always comes. But what devastated me more was the clips that I had, but, you know, what can you do? Fast forward a few months. I bought this camera that you're seeing right now, and for all my videos, I use the kit lens. Instead of the Nice Sigma lens, I use the first lens that always comes with the camera that anyone can use. And I realized something. By being forced to use the kit lens, I realized that my shot still looked almost basically almost equally as good. It was mostly the skill, the lighting skill, the composition skill, how I compose stuff, and I realized that the kit lens. Although people say it's really bad lens, I have really amazing shots with it, and we fell in love with the lens. And I realize its potential. The potential comes from here and not the actual gear. What you do with the gear is more important than the actual gear itself. So, yes, I do think about gear. I do think about, Oh, I wish I had a full frame camera with a nice lens. But I'm always surprised by the fact that I can use the kit lens on an APSC camera and make footage look fantastic. Because of the skills around it and how I use it. Gear matters up to a certain point, but not so much as you think it matters. Another big one is I wish I lived in a big city where all the rbists live. That's a common one, too. We, for some reason, think always that the grass is greener outside or we need the best conditions. But in reality, you have everything you need, out of the ordinary life, to do something extraordinary. Really great artists and creative people can find something really special out of the Mundane. That was one of my most uncertain points. I used to live in Munich where I was doing my masters, and there is a big city, you know? It's always full of things and always places to visit and always bustling around and I moved to Belgium for many reasons. And here, it's more not in a big city, but in the countryside. That was one of my uncertainty points that I would go live kind of in the middle of nowhere. But with that, it forced me to really see the stories that I could really squeeze out of me out of the Mundane, out of whatever I could find. And this very room was the scene for so many videos and so many classes, as you can see, and I was and I am still able to tell so many amazing stories, and my storytelling levels have progressed to levels that I never thought. I still keep cringing and past work for myself. And it is not the gear that's really important. That's all just wishful thinking. Anyone with the mundane and the ordinary can do really something extraordinary. Sometimes the beauty of art is hidden in the ordinary. The simplest of ideas can be really good, as long as you are willing to search for them. With that said, I really encourage you to do the same. Best of luck. 12. If You Ever Feel Like You Don't Know What to Do: When was the last time that you properly organized your workstation. If I look at my computer, it's been a while. We previously talked about the importance of walking and how it organizes our mind mentally and how it boosts our creativity. But in this class, we're talking about physical organization or digital organization. It's astonishing for me sometimes when I do so much and in my breaks, I'm a little guilty of watching too many short form content, and I get too overwhelmed and I try and go to sleep, but can't. That's because my brain is so overwhelmed it didn't have true time to rest, and I cannot sleep. It has to organize something. Something as simple as walking is so fundamentally important to you to organize your mind. We often forget to organize our workspace or our digital space. You can organize your desk to best fit your needs. And now I'm using an ultra wide lens so you can see the whole landscape here. You can see my plant here. You can see I'm using slippers. And this is really my creative area. I've been fortunate enough to have a space for that. I used to live in one room apartments with my partner. I used to live in really small apartments because Munich is really expensive. But here in Belgium, more in the countryside, I get to have more space, which is amazing. And it's been a blessing having a personal space. As you can see, if I pan the camera around, I have my C stand. I have my light setup that creates a spotlight effect, and just other stuff that I use sometimes, and also it is used as a storage place. I have a few lamps here, a few extra things that are not really used for anything, but they are away from any shot because most of my shots, if I walk away here, you see this beautiful window and the setup right here. This place is highly organized to purely just create. A lot of my scenes are here with different light setups and whatnot. I have the window, which I have a lot of setups there. I have here. I have the big plant, which is not always here, just for the class for niceness. And I organized it as best as I could to make the flow of filming a little more easier. The tripod is always set up here, the light stands always set up. The C stand as well. I don't have to mount or dismount anything. Having everything set up already, it makes the process much easier every time I want to start, and it makes all the creative flow flow better without any interruptions. To optimize my workflow, I like to have a bigger screen and a more empty area space, so I can really focus with my phone away. For organizing other aspects are, for example, here, this box has fragile, do not drop because here it contains everything digitally. So all my hard drives that I have all my precious footage in my footage is actually saved in several hard drives in case one of them fails. And all my videography, photography gear is all inside this box. Again, fragile, do not drop because you don't want to drop these. I have some lenses, but I mostly use the kid lens, yeah, other stuff like that, microphones and stuff like that. And if I plug in one of my hard drives, you get to see all of my footage throughout the years. And I first divide them into folders of years. So before 2020 2020, 21, 22, 23, 24, and if I click on every of those ears, they are divided into numbers first in chronological order from the beginning of the year to the last time of the year, and they are divided basically by countries. So I have footage in Germany. I put in a folder that's called Germany. And then when I go on vacation or visit my parents, maybe for a few months in Portugal, then I have a folder called Portugal. Some like this. Sometimes they are subdivided into Portugal, camera name because I might film in different cameras. And this is how I really keep myself organized digitally. If I'm wanting to use some old footage, I go back that year. I remember it was in Germany. It was on that year, and I go back and I can easily find any clip I can use. This organization has saved me probably hours of having to search for a specific clip. Imagine if this wasn't organized like that. It would be chaos. Now, it is your term. If you don't know what to do with your free time, organize, organize, organize. Trust me, it feels like you're kind of wasting your time doing this, but in the long run, if you're trying to look for something specific, it will save you so much time. It helps tremendously keeping the flow going and not interrupting by some silly mistake you've made because you didn't organize something in the past. Best of luck. 13. The Only Way to Compare Yourself: Humans, we are biological wired to compare to each other because it's a survival mechanism. The instinct translates to our modern life in social media to compare our lives with the others to see how do I measure up to others? And for me, I was born from Chinese parents in Portugal, and I always had this natural tendency to compare because my parents' culture is different from the one I was born in Portugal. And I was in high school, and this teacher always told me to never compare myself to others. Of course, to me, this felt a little bizarre. Not comparing, but that's basically what I've do. Like all the food I've eaten is so different of course, I should compare them both. But as I grow older and as I go through more in life, I really start to understand what she was meaning. Of course, you can compare all these things, but comparing yourself to others really sucks away the happiness and the enjoyment you get out of things. In any field, you always have people who are better than me or you who have years of experience, and to compare yourself to them can be devastating. Understand that your art is only comparable to your previous art. Even if you haven't done anything, you're comparing yourself to the past, which is nothing. So anything you do from there is only an improvement. Of course, comparing yourself is not only for creative hobbies, but also for anything in life, as well. Around with social media or many other platforms, we see the best work from so many people, and it's so easy to compare ourselves to them. But we often forget how many years of experience they have. If you compare yourself with others, you might get creative paralysis. This is the fear of starting because you think you can't compete with what you see. And as I try new things, I remind myself that I should never compare to others. If I try embroidery, I shouldn't compare with the best embroidery work. I when I started to do videos, I just simply started, even though they were well, not the best. I truly got to realize my teacher's advice to me to not compare myself with others. Comparing in this toxic way takes away the playfulness. I'm not 100% cure from this. I still compare myself sometimes, but I love to see other people's work and get truly inspired, like, Wow, he could be able to do this, then I want to do that. And sometimes I take away a few things from other people and get inspired, and it all jumbles together, and I can call this that's my own style. If I can clearly acknowledge that they are far better than me, they have far more experience. I'm at the mental state of open mindedness that I can truly enjoy their art form. And comparing myself to my past self is something I like to do often. Well, not too much, but from year to year, actually. So every year, I like to watch the videos I've made the previous year. And I always get shocked by how much cringe I'm feeling because of the decisions I've made or how I told stories. But it is this cringe factor that really signifies that you are improving by a lot. Let's take a look at some examples. Zoom in or out, hold Alt key and scroll with your mouse wheel. And then the next year Munich is a city that is mostly flat, and almost every street has a bike lane, so it's safe. And then the next year, Shopping in Germany is a different experience. And then the next year. Home can be many things to us, but for a lot of people, Home is the place where you were born. But for some, it's not the case. And then the next year. Your attention and time are the most valuable resources in your life. Reality is that we live in a world that is highly optimized to distract you. It's the sum of these big and small moments that define you. Don't let them escape. Te tea comparing ourselves to others is futile. Each and every one of us have a very unique style. It can only be compared to ourselves in the past. I hope you got to understand. It's a very fundamental topic. And the reason I left it at TN is because it was something that I'm always still suffering, and I always want to remind myself, and I hope you got to understand it. With that said, best of luck. 14. Thank You for Watching!: Thank you so much for taking this course. I hope you understand that the combination of all these tips can help you stay more consistent and more in the flow for longer. Please feel free to leave a review. It really helps. If you have any doubts, you can always ask them in the class projects or the discussion tab. If you love to create video, I have other courses step by step on how to do video or the five levels of creative camera angles. I also post weekly videos on my YouTube channel with really detailed videography and storytelling. Feel free to check it out. Feel also free to share any projects you made along the way. It could be the bad on purpose project or the gift you made for someone special if it's okay to share. With that said, I want to thank you again and wish you the best of luck in your future art projects. Thank you, and bye.