When starting a new creative project—any kind of project, from writing a book to designing a new type of semiconductor—one of the better questions to start with is “what do I offer that’s distinct from what’s already available?”
This isn’t always going to be the most vital question: some areas can sustain several near-identical burger joints, for instance, and part of the appeal of some fiction sub-genres is that the books they encompass are similar enough to each other that they all evoke the same general (and desirable) vibe.
In many spaces, though, standing out from what’s come before is important.
In the business world this is often called a “Unique Value Proposition,” but the same concept arguably applies to most creative endeavors, and identifying our personal UVP within applicable spaces requires we ask ourselves some at times difficult questions.
Who am I, what do I offer, what makes me distinct from other people, and what should I make (or do) as a result of that distinctiveness?
What’s my thing?
Further complexifying these questions is the fact that many of us create not solely from the perspective of who and what (and why?) we are, today, but who and what (and why!) we are becoming.
What’s my thing now, and what will my thing be in the future?
We aim to be the best possible version of ourselves, in other words, and that means not just creating the things we can make, today, but aspiring to create what we suspect we’re capable of making, someday, and working that into our plans.
It’s difficult to make plans based on theoretical versions of ourselves, and that theoretical self’s (also theoretical) output—but that’s sort of what we do when we dream up a new project and attempt to make it a reality.
(There’s nothing at all wrong with doing more of the same, by the way, if the same is fulfilling for us and for those on the receiving end of whatever it is we’re making. But ideally there’s some kind of growth baked into these projects and relationships, too, and new projects tend to be so compelling because they offer us something our existing creations and capacities cannot.)
I’ve personally found—when dealing with the analysis paralysis that can sometimes emerge from the “I need to make something that doesn’t exist yet, and also something that I maybe can’t make yet” conundrum—that incorporating a lot of lot of flex, an abundance of wiggle-room, into the earliest blueprints provides me with the best blend of stability and optionality, moving forward.
Keeping things plastic allows me to shed the stuff that initially seemed cool but which don’t end up working in real life, and to try out new ideas that I didn’t think of ahead of time, working them into the modular scaffolding as I go, but still helps me move in the general direction I originally envisioned (though with enough foundational support that I can quickly and confidently make in-motion adjustments, not worried the whole thing will collapse around my head as I experiment and progress).
Throughout this process, I try to remind myself that I’m at the core of everything I make, and (for better and for worse) that will inform every facet of the things I create and do.
And it’s important that I don’t lose that latent, me-shaped uniqueness, even as I sand away unpleasant rough edges and attempt to make initially confounding components more meaningful for those on the other side of the creator, createe relationship.