Visual.ly has tipped us off to a fun little infographic by Virus Comix that uses the metaphor of a street map to show the many routes, stops, loops, and warning signs we encounter on the bumpy road to creative brilliance.
Note what’s going on here: Everyone starts out at the same place, with an idea. From there, you can make a few different moves. You can take the scenic route, maybe zooming past laziness, stopping over in the details shop, then heading down the gauntlet of editing, reconsidering, reworking, revising, rewriting, and redoing, before eventually landing on the presentation stage. (On the way, be sure to mind the overthinking labyrinth and the endless loop of comparing yourself to others.)
If that’s too laborious, you can always take the express route, though your idea better be damned good lest you smash headlong into a brick wall. Oof.
The final route is perhaps the most pernicious, that of self-doubt. On the map, it rears its ugly little head time and again, represented by all sorts of bizarre torture devices, from a human crushing machine to some kind of spike-laden steamroller. These are silly cartoon jokes that betray a serious point about creativity: Your biggest roadblock isn’t a dearth of genius or a lack of motivation or even that hapless Wile E. Coyote you have for a boss. It’s your own insecurity. Remember that next time you fire up your creative engine.