How To Create Your Unfair Advantage For Yourself & Unleash Your Creative Potential
How to stand out and gain an advantage in an already creatively crowded world.
Pavel Danilyuk | Pexels It’s tough to make an impact with your creations these days. It always was, but these days especially. You are a tiny grey dot in a sea of dots. You work hard to create something fresh. You share it. It might get some interest and a few likes.
Big whoop. You wonder whether you should give up. All this work for very little response is quite defeating. It feels like you are running in a hamster wheel with ever greater intensity but the same results. To make a dent, to gain this ‘traction’ thing, you cannot be another grey dot. You have to be different in some way.
What is that way? Something I’ve had to get comfortable with is the idea that those who succeed have ‘unfair’ advantages. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be such a thing as relative success, and we’d have nothing exciting to pursue. I’m not talking about unfairness in the sense of ‘injustice,’ though some do it that way, too.
I’m talking about figuring out how to think and act in a way that combines wisdom and intensity so that you gain ground more quickly and efficiently than your furry, hamster-faced competitor.
This is your deserved unfair advantage, which will add size and color to your little grey dot. How? Firstly, your primary mode should be that of exertion.
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Most people are in either ‘ordinary’ (going at an average pace) or retreat (victim mentality, hiding, and low energy) modes. To gain ground (and quicker than you think), you must exert in the right areas and double…triple down on those things. If you do what everyone else does, you will stand still or fall back.
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers.
Exertion is the only way to make ground in the torrent of the everyday. Your approach must be to ‘expand and conquer,’ attack your tasks free from distraction, act with a general sense of urgency, and allow time for recovery.
You don’t need to work all day. Exert on more of the things that matter. There can be plenty of time left over. To take this a step further… Create so much that they can’t ignore you.
Do what you’re good at and devote massively to doing it even better, in more volume.
Be like Picasso. Aim for prolific output, energy, and a magnificent body of work. Create so much, with such intensity over time, that you cannot fail to improve your product and tighten your skills.
A 2022 study published in Communication Research on prolific output focused on studying individuals who produce a high volume of creative work, such as prolific writers, artists, or scientists. It examines factors like personality traits, motivation, cognitive processes, and environmental influences that contribute to their high level of productivity. Research frequently utilizes methods like analyzing publication records, interviews, and self-report questionnaires to understand the characteristics of prolific creators.
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Create so much that people won’t help but take notice. This means producing the things that bring you to life when you create them in both quality and quantity. To do this effectively, you might need to isolate yourself for stretches with minimal distractions, turn off the Internet more, and be selfish with your time.
Be OK with doing things differently to the crowd. Follow your weird, and own it.
Train and work when others tend not to: on weekends and earlier in the morning or later at night. Wake up when others are hibernating during the holidays.
Be ruthless in what you focus on. Ask yourself not what are the several things I should put my energy into. Ask: What is the ONE thing I need to do to make this work more than anything else?
Narrow your decision-making to figure out that one thing at every turn. What is the one thing that matters most?
Make simplicity your mantra. Strip everything down.
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Forget trying to be ‘all things’ to all people. Be a beast at something narrow, targeted at a more distinct tribe who dig what you do. Over-deliver on every piece of work and every service. Be unexpected but within your realm of mastery. Aim always to surprise. This is what leads to sticky fans.
Set yourself daily and monthly challenges to tighten up your sense of urgency. Compete with yourself or with an accountability chum. Make it exciting to work.
Recent research by the University of California, Berkeley, on the sense of urgency primarily focuses on how individuals perceive a need for immediate action. This need is often driven by time constraints, potential loss, or fear of missing out. These factors lead to quicker decision-making and behavior changes, sometimes even at the expense of careful consideration. Situational cues and individual personality traits can influence this need.
Have one form of output that must be done daily, which acts as the anchor — the pivotal element — to all of your work.
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In my case, it is a published, illustrated post. The aim is to get one of these suckers out every day of the week (working on it). Understand the compounding effect of accumulated stuff. It adds up and will snowball.
Make a priority of building stronger, working relationships with fewer people who can help you massively rather than only trying to touch huge numbers loosely. Create a list of those people and make them your friends.
Do this by improving their lives. Show them that it is a collaborative rather than a ‘me-me’ relationship. Find and read about someone who has done something you want to do. Talk to them until you understand the steps you need to take to do the same.
Don’t reinvent the wheels. Take what has already been successful, and make it yours.
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Treat your body like a glorious, well-oiled machine. You’ve heard it many times, but the killer whale of all unfair advantages is to be buzzing with good health.
It’s all about energy and doing everything possible to boost and prolong it. The way to do this is to eat clean, unprocessed food, sweat out toxins, take in lots of oxygen, move as much as possible, and train the mind and body daily.
See yourself as a creative athlete. Take that advantage.
Research published in the Journal of Creative Behavior indicates a complex and often positive correlation between good health and creative output. It suggests that individuals with better overall health tend to exhibit higher levels of creativity. Conversely, poor mental health can negatively impact creative ability. However, there is also evidence that certain aspects of creativity may be linked to an increased risk of mental health issues, particularly mood disorders, in some individuals.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient.