Sometimes creative people are criticized for being moody or introverted, so I found it interesting that Simon Cowell, hardly anybody’s idea of a shrinking violet, has times when he needs to escape. The following are from an article by Rebecca Hardy in MailOnline (the Daily Maile website):
“Nothing in particular brings it on. You can be having the best time of your life and yet you're utterly and totally miserable. I get very anti-social, depressed and irritable with people. I don't have time for them. I can't make phone calls and stuff. I just sit on my own for days. I'm not sitting in a darkened room rocking. Things might have gone really well and then I torture myself. I cannot believe it. I have to find something to make me miserable.'
'My loneliness is self-imposed,' he says. 'I can go through a few weeks where every single text or phone call starts with the word "why". "Why haven't you called me?" "Why aren't you speaking to me?" It's because I just want to be on my own for a while. I relish it. I'm almost ecstatic. “
He mentioned that at one point every day of his life for the next 18 months was planned out in detail, with no possibility of taking a break. So maybe we’re lucky not to be quite so successful—or not to define success in the same way.
And maybe the moral of the story is everybody needs time to themselves--and if you schedule that yourself, maybe your mind won't impose it on you.
(in the UK, you can get my newest book, 'FOCUS: THE POWER OF TARGETED THINKING, published by Pearson, which will help you focus your attention and find your best way to be creative and productive.)
