I have this annoying and unconscious impulse to speak like the people around me in their accent and choice of words. While traveling in Ireland, I acquired a rather strong Irish accent. When I go to the southern states, I get me all kinds of southern drawling going on. My other half was raised in the ‘hood and so I often find my well-honed English coming out in the convoluted sentence structure similar to his casual conversation voice. I can’t help it without conscious effort. I am not alone in this. However, most people afflicted with this kind of style adoption find the mimicking in areas that are not something practiced since the age of two, like creating original writing or art.

Our source for language and visuals is most commonly, and sadly, from advertising and popular entertainment. Unless you want your work to sound like stilted sit-coms, or your visuals to look like billboards and website sales pages, you have to consciously and continuously expose yourself to work that is in the vein of your own aspirations. As a creative, you probably already know this.

But that, at the end of the day, just keeps you from mimicking the junk you are constantly exposed to. How about your own voice? Where does it come from? How can you be sure you are creating with your own original style?

This, of course, assumes you want to be original. But why would you want to recreate someone else’s work? You need to express you. And that is not so very easy these days.

So how do you find and cultivate your own original voice and vision?

Because you will necessarily create based on what you are exposed to, you cannot excise every instance of work that looks remotely like someone else’s work. But what you can do is practice your craft at the one time of day when you have been exposed to nothing but yourself for hours on end—first thing in the morning.