What is a Multidisciplinary Creative?

20 Sept

Written By Jasmine

Are you constantly having new creative ideas and multiple things you want to create? Do you have skills in more than one creative discipline? Do you deep dive into new territories as soon as a new discipline has piqued your curiosity?

If you relate to any of these questions, there’s a likelihood that you are a multidisciplinary creative.

But a multidisciplinary creative is more than that. Let’s dive deeper!

Multidisciplinary

“Multidisciplinary” basically means that we, as creatives, have skills in several creative disciplines.

Other terms to use for a multidisciplinary creative are “multidisciplinary artist”, “renaissance man”, “jack/jane of all trades”, “multipotentialite”, etc. The essence is that you have skills in different disciplines. One of the most historically famous (at least in the Western world) multidisciplinary creatives was Leonardo da Vinci who was the essence of the “renaissance man”.

That sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? But, as with everything in life, there are pros and cons to being a multidisciplinary creative. Let’s dive into those, starting with the pros.

Pros

One of the pros of being a multidisciplinary creative is that problem-solving is likely to be relatively easy for us because problem-solving requires creativity. That means that a multidisciplinary creative, who has delved into different creative disciplines and learned how to use different creative muscles, can easily flex the specific muscles they need to solve the problem at hand.

Another pro is that multidisciplinary creatives tend to pick up new skills faster because they know what it’s like to learn a new skill from scratch. That even goes for creative disciplines that aren’t very similar (say, writing and sculpture). I’ve found that I tend to “fill in the blanks” with my intuition when I learn a new skill and it magically works every time. I’m sure other multidisciplinary creatives are the same, and I think that’s because we’ve done it so many times it’s second nature to us.

The next pro is that multidisciplinary creatives have an enormous curiosity that helps fuel the desire to learn more and become more versatile in their creativity.

Gaining confidence is another pro. And I mean that in the confidence we build knowing we can create whatever we want to create because we either already have the skills we need to create it, or we can learn the skills we need to create the thing we want to create. That confidence in our own skills is also a great boost to our motivation to take all the little steps we need to create the thing.

Another pro is that multidisciplinary creatives can see things from different perspectives because of their different and unique combinations of skills, knowledge, and experiences. That usually lends itself to coming up with interesting and fresh new ideas and innovations (remember Leonardo da Vinci?).

But being a multidisciplinary creative is not just pink clouds and unicorns.

Cons

I’m not someone who sugarcoats reality because I feel like it’s much easier to face my issues and struggles if I’m honest about them and their existence. That’s why I want to be honest about the struggles of being a multidisciplinary creative, because they do exist.

The first con is that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the ideas we have and the things we want to create. Having a creative career (whether we’re working for ourselves or someone else) as well as several creative hobbies is very common for a multidisciplinary creative. And that can get overwhelming really fast, especially if our creativity gives birth to new creative ideas (which it does very often for me).

Another con is that it’s common for multidisciplinary creatives to suffer from FOMO and/or shiny object syndrome. Suffering from FOMO and shiny object syndrome makes it easy to get sidetracked from the things we truly want to be focusing on. If we’re having a hard time prioritizing and making tough decisions on top of that, then it can lead to being stuck instead.

Always being busy is another con, especially if it means we’re not taking any breaks. Breaks and rest are essential to be creative. I don’t know if there are any scientific studies supporting this, but I’ve personally noticed that I get amazing ideas and the energy and motivation to create those ideas whenever I work out regularly. I don’t know if it has to do with oxygenating my brain, but it works every time (and, in contrast, it doesn’t flow as well when I’m not regularly working out).

Another big con is that it’s easy to feel like we can’t relate to what entrepreneurs and other CEOs are constantly telling us about niching down. Niching down might feel like a life sentence to a multidisciplinary creative. And while that is sound advice to people who are experts and specialists, it’s not the best advice to a multidisciplinary creative. Fortunately for us, the times we’re living in right now have a place for all of us multidisciplinary creatives as well.

How to Thrive as a Multidisciplinary Creative

Now that we’ve gone through the pros and cons, let’s go through some of my tips on how to thrive as a multidisciplinary creative:

Prioritizing and focusing is key: I’ve found that it’s helped me a lot to always do the most important creative work first. Being fully focused when I have my creative time has also been key to making the most out of the time I have every day. If that means getting rid of all my potential distractions before I get to work, then so be it. My creative time is precious to me, so having my phone out of sight and everything on “do not disturb” is a small sacrifice.
Find a creative process that works for you: A creative process is very individual to all of us multidisciplinary creatives. That includes everything from when during the day we’re most creative, when we have time in our schedule to be creative, where we like to find inspiration, how we plan your projects, how we create our projects, how we share (if we share) our process of creating our thing, etc.
Finish what you start: Whether what we create is only for us or our work, finishing what we start will build the confidence that we can create whatever we envision. That confidence will help us a lot in the long run, especially when we’re doubting ourselves. It’s always a good reminder to look at our previous creations and realize that “Hey, I actually made that thing.”
Find a community of like-spirited multidisciplinary creatives: This will be a place of support and comfort, which is really important. Especially for multidisciplinary creatives that work a lot on their own.
Take breaks: Nothing refuels my creativity quite as much as rest. And I don’t just mean sleep. I also mean taking breaks from the internet, from screens in general, from the projects I’m working on, from learning new things, etc. Regular breaks will help us come back feeling refreshed when we need to.

Now I would love to hear from you…