Great creative results come when we detach from the outcomes.

It's tempting to force our creative work to achieve some end, and while there are moments when that might make sense, the best creative work comes when we release those ends and let our creativity go where it may.

This episode discusses creating without holding too tightly to a prescribed outcome and how that can lead to greater impact and joy in the creative process.

Takeaways

• Detaching from outcomes allows for a more authentic and meaningful creative process.
• External validation and a focus on outcomes can dilute the message and limit creative vision.
• Storytelling without pushing an agenda allows for a deeper connection with the audience.
• Solitude can be a powerful driver of creativity and helps find one's creative voice.
• Focusing on the process and enjoying the creative journey is more important than the outcome.

Are you on a journey of creative growth? I urge you to join me here as I share what I have learned so that it may serve you:

https://hypermemoir.beehiiv.com/subscribe

So I've been coming across this idea over and over again lately and I wanted to share a little bit about what it is. And I've been encountering it over the last few weeks, a few different times. I was actually having a conversation with a mentor of mine a few weeks ago.

And it came up and it really got me thinking about it. And the idea is this. It's about creating without trying to control the outcome, which is something that on this podcast, I think I've tried to express in a variety of different ways or at least touched on. I don't know if I've ever done an episode where we go into that idea in total, but I think it touches on a lot of things that I've been talking about on this podcast when I talk about creativity, et cetera.

But that conversation with my mentor really clarified the whole thing to me. So I wanted to share what we talked about, but then go deeper into some thoughts I had about how important it is as a creative to not try to control the outcome as much as we might try to do. And I have a lot of issues with that.

person who, as I'll explain, has a lot of outcome driven goals, a lot of things that I want to see happen, but realize that when it comes to being creative, when it comes to building creative skills,

there's a different approach that's needed. And that's what I'm talking about when I say, let's try less to control the outcome and more just to create. And I'll go into that right now. So I'm Chris Waldheims. This is the HyperMemoir podcast where I talk about a lot of things. A lot of it revolves around creativity, finding creative voice, telling personal stories. It's really an ongoing work in progress that I'm still trying to figure out. And I think this episode about controlling outcomes,

really is emblematic of what it is that I'm doing here. I don't know where this podcast is going. All I know is I keep showing up, keep hopefully getting a little bit better at this and enjoy myself a little bit more as I'm on this path with you. So if you like what I'm talking about here, there is a newsletter that you can subscribe to. It's coming out every two weeks now. I think I'm doing two weeks episodes for the podcast and the newsletter. Might go back to a once a week schedule. I had to slow down just to make sure that I could fit it in.

and consistently put it out and make it good. But if you like what I'm talking about here, subscribe to the newsletter. You can find it on my socials, which is HyperMemoir on Instagram, or you can just click on the show notes for this podcast and subscribe. I try to add a little bit of extra stuff to the conversation there. So...

What I'm talking about today is detaching from outcomes. And what it means to detach from the outcome is to go deeper, to really find out authentically what it is that you're trying to communicate with whatever it is that you're creating. And being too outcome driven can pull us away from that. And I'll explain how, but first, one thing I'll share with you, and if you know me, you know that this is true.

is that I'm a very outcome driven person. By occupation, I run a business, specifically I run a law firm, which is all about creating outcomes. Running a business is about creating some concrete outcomes. It's about making money, creating an impact, whatever it is that you want to put in there. Same thing with running a law firm. You're trying to create outcomes for your clients. So I'm not saying that creating outcomes has no place in life because I believe it does.

I just think that if we're talking about creative work, it's really easy to rely too much on outcomes. It's really easy to rely too much on what is this going to create for me? Where is this going to go? And there needs to be some of that, maybe. I don't know where the line is, but I do think that if we can free ourselves a little bit more from what happens if I create this or put this out, we're going to be able to get to a much more authentic place of creation.

So when it comes to art and creativity, I've been learning to surrender and not try to push a particular outcome with my creative work. What I mean by that is when I sit down to create something, even to record this podcast,

When I sit down to create something, I don't begin necessarily with an end in mind. I don't think about how will it be received? What will people think about it? And it's been a process to get there, but I don't think about how it's going to be received. I first think about what is it that I am trying to say. So when I create something new, my first thought and the thought that I try to come back to all the time is what am I trying to say with this? What is my message here? And that's a practice that we can get better and better.

better at as we do that more. And I want to get to a deeper message. So it's really important for me to come back to what is it that I'm trying to say. And here's the thing, especially with art.

One thing that I've tried to realize or that I have realized in my time being a creative, not just for this podcast, but in my life, being a creative. One of the things that I've noticed is that you can't tell what art is going to succeed. You can never tell how people are going to receive things. You might have some idea of how people will receive whatever it is that you made, but you never know for sure. Think about all the movies that come out. Everybody thinks.

that their movie is going to be a hit. Some are a hit, some are not a hit, some become a hit later when they're rediscovered. But we can never tell what's going to be a hit when we're making it, when it comes to creative work. So let me underline that point. We can never really tell how what we create is going to be received. So because we can't predict that, it's hard to base your artistic identity on predicting what people want.

Because of that, it's best to just go with what it is that you want and let yourself be the arbiter of the creative work that you want to see in the world. So that's the point. Some stuff that you create is going to connect with some people.

Some stuff is going to connect with other people. Some stuff isn't going to connect with anybody. And some stuff might connect with most everybody. But every time we put something out, we learn something about ourselves. We learn something about our creativity and we get better. For instance, this episode of the podcast, this is something that I want to talk about. I think it's an interesting topic, but...

Maybe you won't agree. Maybe you're already thinking, this is kind of boring, this is kind of stupid, don't know what he's talking about, I'm gonna switch to something else. But it's also possible that this is people's favorite episode. I don't know, as I'm saying these words, I don't know if this episode is going to be your favorite or your least favorite. It could end up in the middle, like most do. But my point is, is as I put it out there,

I begin to learn, okay, this is what people like, this is what I like to talk about that other people like. And for me, that's where I want to be. I want to find that sweet spot of talking about things that I like to talk about that I'm interested in.

that other people also like. And so to get there is really just a matter of putting the reps in. And that's what I'm doing. Every time I record, I learn. I learn from people. I learn from the audience. I look at my stats and see what people listen to, what they didn't listen to, and then go from there. So feedback is the key. But we can't get feedback if we don't put stuff out there. So we need to put stuff out there without thinking about the outcome. Get that velocity up. That's at least what I tell myself. And that's what I do.

And an interesting idea I had about outcomes is that if we try to control the outcomes too much, and I'm still thinking through this, I'd be curious to know what you think about this. But if we try to control the outcome of what we're creating too much, if we try to control what happens with our art,

then the thing that we think we want is often smaller than the thing that can actually happen, meaning our imagination is often very limited. And we might think I want to have a certain outcome from this piece of artwork, when in reality, if we let go and release the outcome and create exactly what it is that we want, the thing that we get might be much bigger. It might not, but...

I'm always surprised at how the world works, where the most, the biggest things in my life have been completely unexpected. They really weren't planned. There were just things that kind of happened after I did something and I'm like, I could never have predicted that. And it's amazing. It's bigger than I would have imagined. So anyhow, all I'm saying is sticking too tightly to outcomes seems to be a situation where you end up with a smaller vision. And...

Yeah, I'm still exploring that whole idea. And then as I've been talking about on this podcast,

A big part of getting to authentic creative voice really involves getting separate from other people's opinions. So a lot of what we call outcomes really just has to do with other people's judgment, whether that's approval or whether it's money or status. A lot of things that we think of as outcomes are actually things that we want from other people. And we're often motivated by these external factors. I know that I've spent a lot of my life motivated by external factors, whether that's a negative or positive.

negative factor, like I'm worried about what somebody's going to think, or a positive factor. I hope this person pays me a lot of money for this. Those things really dilute the message. Thinking too much about what other people will give you or whatever external validation you get will dilute the message. So looking for external validation in your art tends to dilute the message. Now there's maybe a time and place for all that, but in creating art, what I've been learning is to push all of that away. And...

Interestingly, this kind of goes back to an episode I did a few weeks ago. Maybe it was even last week. I don't remember. But point is, a couple weeks ago, yeah, it was a few weeks ago, I did an episode where I talked about loneliness and grounding. And actually, the interesting thing with that is the word loneliness wasn't the word that I was looking for. So when I made that episode, I'm like, I'm going to use the word loneliness because it kind of fits what I'm saying, but I don't know. But then what I realized, the word that I was looking for.

The word that is really powerful when it comes to creativity, and I will do a whole episode on this because I've been thinking about it and reading about the topic a lot lately, is solitude. So it's about going into yourself, figuring out what you actually want, what's your actual creative desire, and then finding a way to act on that. Separating yourself from other people's energy is what solitude is, and solitude is a really good driver of creativity.

So that's something that I've modified in the last few weeks in terms of my thinking and investigation as I read and think about these topics in between recording. It might start out as loneliness. So solitude might be perceived as loneliness in some ways. But ultimately, if we can embrace it, then it becomes a real good source of creativity. Because when you find strength in solitude, guess what happens?

You don't care what other people think because you're doing it for yourself. You don't care what people think when you find solitude because...

you're doing something that you want to do, something that means something to you, and you don't care about the outcome so much. So that's how those topics tie together. As I said, I'm not going to go too deep into this because I do want to do a whole episode on the topic. I hope you're interested in that too. Hey, either way, I'm interested in it, so I'm going to talk about it, but just wanted to talk about that. Another thing that I've been thinking about when it comes to detaching from outcomes is how we tell stories. So one of the things that I'm learning to tell you,

do better on this podcast and in other places where I show up.

is how to tell stories better. So one of the cool things about stories is if you tell a story without really pushing an agenda, if you just tell the story of something that happened, here's the experience, here's how I felt, here's what I witnessed, here's what I saw, that tends to separate automatically from the outcome because you're just sharing your experience and what you let people do is bring in their own interpretation. You're not forcing a particular interpretation, at least for the good honest stories that I tend to like.

where people are speaking authentically about their experience, which is what I aspire to, either now or in the future. But when people tell a story and they're authentic in that story, it feels like there's no agenda. It feels like they're not trying to drive an outcome. They're just saying, this thing happened or this series of events occurred. I had this reaction to it. My internal feeling was that.

And that tells us a lot. We're hardwired for stories as humans. And I think that's one of the powerful things about stories is it relies a little bit less on outcomes. So that means that it can actually strike a deeper chord. Because if we try to force everything into like, I want people to get this out of my artwork, sure, there's use to that.

But I find that the most powerful things, whether that's movies or books or whatnot, tend to really be the stories that don't have that kind of outcome built in. So that's one other thing. And it really lets you be more real. When you don't try to control the outcome of what you're creating, when you don't try to control the result of what you're creating, I do feel like you can be more real. Because as I said, you go back to the solitude thing where you think about...

What is it that I want to talk about? What's important to me? What am I trying to say? So you learn how to say what you want to say because it's interesting to you and you're less concerned with how it will be received and there's a lot of power in that. And to get there, that requires a lot of inner work of confronting the internal critic, of tackling perfectionism, of moving away from comparison. These are all things I've talked about in earlier episodes, by the way.

as I've been working through them, or at least starting to work through them and think about them. And it's a lifelong practice. I'm talking about these things like perfectionism and comparison, and by no means have I conquered any of them. They come back and it's a constant thing. It's like weeding the garden or chopping back brush or whatever you want to, weirdo like analogy you want to make about it. The point is, is it's always there, I think. But.

I think we can learn, we can get better at pushing those things away and yeah, just learning how to get to our own internal creative voice and get there.

So I think that is mostly what I want to say about this. There's one final point here and I think it connects back to play. So one thing that I've really been interested in lately or just kind of forcing myself to do is do things for the joy of it. And I did an episode a few, yeah, a few episodes back.

about play, about how it's getting back into DJing. And one of the important things about play that relates to creativity and not controlling outcomes is that theme of not doing things for a particular outcome, doing things because you're enjoying it, doing things because you want to. That's what turns creativity into play. And that is what turns the play into really cool, creative results. So those things tend to feed off each other when I enjoy what I'm doing and doing it for me. So for instance, this podcast, I'm doing it just because I'm

because I want to just because I feel like it. I don't need any money off of it. I don't need any approval off of it. I'm just recording it because I want to get good at doing this kind of stuff and see what happens because I'm interested in thinking through my ideas and sharing them with people. But.

Honestly, I don't really care. And so for me, that's what makes this whole thing feel like play. I can enjoy it. I don't have to make anything happen from it. I don't have to make a living from it. I don't have to get anybody's approval on it. So it feels like play and it feels like enjoyment. And there's a lot of things in my life that feel like play and enjoyment because I'm not really so concerned with the outcome. Of course, I'm open to receiving whatever happens, but...

For me, play and creativity is less about the outcome and more about the process. So that's all I have to say about this topic. So I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Yeah, and like I said, it was a bunch of ideas that I had and it's really interesting how this idea of not controlling the outcome connects to the idea of play and connects to the idea of separating yourself from other people's opinions and separating yourself from things like judgment or comparison or perfectionism, all these things that are kind of externally focused and moving back into things like, what is it that I want to say? What's important to me? What do I enjoy? That's the essence of

of what I'm trying to say when I get down to talking about not controlling the outcome in your creative work. So hopefully this helped some of you. We'll see. Email me, message me, find me on Instagram, and let's talk about it because I'd really be curious to know what people think. I hear from some of you, but not all of you. It's cool if you don't want to, don't mind. But the more I can hear back, like I said in this podcast, the more feedback I get, the more interesting it makes it for me. And then when that starts to happen, then I can kind of play off that and...

learn okay this is what people like or this is their reaction and we go from there. So anyway thanks for listening this is Chris of all times I'll see you on the next episode of HyperMemoir subscribe to the newsletter and if you feel inspired leave me a review on the podcast platforms. Bye!