“Yes, and…” by Becca Wyant Offers Sage Advice for Navigating the Creative World

Becca Wyant—a photographer, graphic designer, writer, and brand consultant—gives us a peek inside her creative process. Read the below excerpt from her Medium piece, “Yes, and…”

It can be hard to navigate the creative world. I am constantly getting lost in it, and more often than not, I find myself asking for directions. To always know where to take the next step is merely impossible. And I don’t think anyone truly has the map that holds the right paths, or even the correct landmarks.

Figuring out how our creative minds roam, what we want to do, what we’re actually good at, what work brings us joy, how to make money doing so, and how to do it in a professional setting? That can be challenging, to say the least. A lot of those pieces can feel immensely different from one another.

How I went from a little girl with dreams of being a star on the big stage–to becoming a creative director and photographer–is a bizarre journey with quite the Frankenstein road map.

I went from singer, to actress, playwright, videographer, graphic designer, photographer, to creative director. I bounced between side projects, personal projects, questionable experiments, brainstorming, conferences, and then finally, necessary and scary career-driven moves.

I made a lot of mistakes. Made a fool of myself plenty of times.

And it took me awhile to realize my value, my voice, what I believed in, best practices to organize and share my work, and the right way to fuel my creative process.

There are endless actions you take that can help you get to where you ultimately want to go. I want to share three areas of focus that I have found to be extremely helpful in my personal and professional creative development, as well as in improving team innovation and communication.

First (and possibly an on-going) thing to do to help decipher what’s right for you and how best to grow: a lot of saying yes.

But specifically, it’s being thoughtful in your yeses, and realizing that you’re saying more than just agreeing to something. You’re not becoming a “yes man,” but rather saying “yes, and…”

Much like in improv theater, ‘yes, and…’ means to accept an idea or direction, and then breathe more life into the story. It’s saying yes, and asking yourself how you can make it epic. Yes, and this might be a risky move, but I’m going to try. Yes, and I might screw up. Yes, and I will learn.