Yesterday’s post marked my 26th project release. Unless my math is worse than I thought that means I’m halfway to completing 52 Things. It seemed as good a time as any to reflect on how things have gone so far. What have I learned? What have I noticed? How can I shake things up moving forward?

I suppose that my first observation would be that times flies incredibly fast these days. It doesn’t seem like it’s really been six months since that first snowy week back in March. I’m more and more conscious these days of how easy it is to lose time. So easy to let days, weeks, months slip by. Not letting those days, weeks, months slip by is something I need to work on.

My second observation is that I’m surprised at how easily it is to forget the things you’ve created when you’re releasing them out into the wild consistently. This is probably a good thing. It’s good to have a record of what you’ve done, but it’s also good to create for the sake of creating without having to worry about the results. I’ve enjoyed being able to let go and let it be ok to write little 30 second snippets of music. It’s like each one of those is a seed that I could go back and revisit at any time and nurture and develop further.

The other thing about this journey has been that I’m repeatedly surprised by the process of creation. I’m learning to just trust myself and not judge as much while I’m in the process of making something. This has especially been true with composition. It’s so easy to think “Man, this sucks” while you’re first putting ideas down at the keyboard. I’m learning that if you get over that impulse and just trust that you’ll find something you inevitably do find something. Many times that crappy little idea that you begin with forms the foundation of something that’s much cooler in the end. You just have to go through the process and be patient. And if you can’t turn that idea into something right now, then set it aside and come back to it another day. Maybe you just need to be a different you to see the coolness in the thing you thought was crap. Your brain just needs to be older and more experience to recognize the tree in the acorn.

One final comment would be a little constructive criticism to myself. I am concerned that I’m not taking as many risks as I could with regards to the diversity of genres that I’m working in. One of my stated goals in the beginning was to overcome fear and to find out what it is that I like to do. After those first couple of weeks I settled into a comfortable routine of releasing short pieces of music. There have been a couple of forays into scriptwriting here and there, but I really want to challenge myself in the next six months to not settle for only doing the things that I’m good at. Music is the genre that I’m most comfortable in. It’s where the majority of my training lies. The thing is that I know I have other talents. I have other things that I love to do. I know this because in the past when I’ve overcome whatever the mental roadblocks were that kept me from doing those other things I’ve been extremely pleased by and proud of the results.

My challenge to myself for the next six months is to begin to think outside of the box. Begin broadening the definition of what a project might be. Let your creativity loose and play. It’ll be ok.