There isn’t one…
“There are no shortcuts to the creative process…the very impatience that drives you to desire shortcuts makes you unsuited for mastery.”
—Robert Greene, The Daily Laws p. 84
Do the work. Trust the process. It will be tough to master anything.
But it’s so worth it.
Julia Cameron writes that every critic she’s ever met was, in reality, a blocked artist who couldn’t bring him- or herself to create art of their own…
So they tear down other people’s work because that’s what’s easier.
I remind you of that to say this: absolutely, let’s hear it for all the amazing and brave creators…
But also have mercy on the critics and encourage them to create something of their own.
(Also, make sure you go through The Artist’s Way at least once in your life… It’s truly life-changing for creators of all sorts).
We kill most of our great, wonderful, creative ideas before they’re ever born.
We write them off, dismiss them out of hand, smother them…
But we can’t know if our ideas are good—if they’ll work or cause the change we seek to make in the world—until we publish them.
Only by letting our ideas engage with the market, the world, or our audience can we know if it’s good.
If you judge every idea before you try it out, you’ll never be creative.
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As you can tell (because I keep quoting it), I’ve been reading and re-reading Seth Godin’s newest book.
Here’s the latest one that’s had my brain buzzing:
“The problem with the model of the well-rounded superhero [talking about Superman being able to solve any problem] is that there are very few well-rounded superheroes. It’s much more likely that we’ll succeed by overinvesting [emphasis added] in just one or two skills.
He continues by giving us a challenge:
“The challenge, then, is to have one superpower. All out of balance to the rest of your being. If, over time, you develop a few more, that’s fine… [But] begin with one.”
My first thought was: “I don’t know what superpower I want to invest all my time in.”
And then it came unbidden: writing.
So what about you? If you could only choose one, what superpower would you want to invest in?
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The secret to winning Jeopardy?
Hit the buzzer before you know the answer
If you wait until you know the answer, that split second hesitation lets the other person get ahead of you.
If you hit the buzzer first, you’ll at least have a chance of getting it right.
But if you wait, the opportunity to succeed instantly passes you by.
(H/t to Seth Godin for reminding me of this principle.)
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What comes to mind when you hear the word “streak?”
One of the first images that comes to my mind is the tail behind a shooting star. It leaves a trail of light behind it, showing you its progression through the sky.
You can take that same metaphor and apply it to any part of your life:
Just like with the comet, you’ll have a trail behind you, showing your growth and development over time. You can see where you started and how far you’ve come.
And the longer your streaks become, the harder they are to break. Can you imagine exercising every single day for 150 days? How terrible would you feel if you made it that far only to break it?
Jerry Seinfeld is famous for his creative streak: starting in the 1980s, he committed to writing one new joke every single day. That commitment seems to have worked out pretty well for him: today he’s worth in excess of $950 million.
My challenge for you is this: pick a habit you believe would have a major, positive impact on your life. Commit to it, track it on a calendar or an app, and get to a point where you’d be devastated if you broke it.
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You have a problem with perfection.
You don’t have writer’s block or artist’s block; you’re worried what you create isn’t very good.
But once you stop worrying about whether something is good or bad, you can get to the business of creating.
To be a professional is to show up and do your work regardless of how you feel. To be a professional artist, then, is to create works of art every day no matter what.
If you’re trying to make a living doing something artistic or creative, you’re a professional. Or at least, you should act like one.
Even if you don’t feel that you have any good ideas. Even if you’re “just an artist.”
An amateur artist only creates when he feels like it, or when the muse speaks to him. Or, God forbid, after getting inebriated so he can “loosen up” and go with the flow.
Remember Field of Dreams? Being an artist is a lot like Kevin Costner building that baseball field.
You don’t wait for the muse to show up before you start creating. If you start creating, the Muse shows up like a curious child. She asks “Ooooo! What’s that? Can I help? Can I do that with you?”
Waiting for a child to do something you want her to do doesn’t work. But if you just start doing it, she’ll immediately perk up and join you because she wants to be a part of your world. The mythical “Muse” acts the same way.
Some days you might have incredible days full of flow and creative ideas, but I’ve found those to be few and far between. Creation comes before inspiration almost every day. It’s why I show up to my morning pages each day after I wake.
I don’t write them because I feel inspired: I write them to BECOME inspired. That’s what a professional artist does–indeed, that’s what any professional does.
A lawyer doesn’t wait to become inspired before writing a brief or rehearsing an opening statement. She’s a professional and shows up because that’s her job.
A surgeon doesn’t wait for the muse to speak to her before operating on a patient. She trains for years so each and every time a patient is wheeled into the operating room, she’s ready to perform.
What if you approached your art the same way? As your job. What if you showed up every day ready to create whether or not you’re in the mood?
Do the work. Go make the Muse curious today.
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It’s a question asked by lots of career counselors, coaches, and well-meaning advisors.
“What do you feel you were ‘born to do?'”
What if the honest answer is we aren’t born to do anything specific?
There is an entire area of philosophy dedicated to this idea that was first theorized by John Locke. (You can check out the basics here.) But I’m focusing on talents and passions today.
Was Van Gogh born to paint? Was Steve Jobs born to create the iPhone? Seth Godin would argue no. His answer to this question is simple. Here’s how I understand it:
No one is predetermined to use a certain medium for his or her art. We simply adopt the means and medium of whatever is available to us in our time.
In one of his podcast episodes, Seth says he doesn’t believe that Van Gogh would have painted with oils had he been born in the 20th century. Nor would Steve Jobs have created the iPhone had he been born in the 1700s (the resources and advancements in science were not available for that to have been possible).
And yet, each of us is genetically unique. You have never occurred before and will never occur again in this universe. Surely that means that we are born with innate talents and leanings.
Part of me thinks that’s true. And yet part of me also believes, as career coach Dan Miller says, “Passion is more developed than discovered.”
By this, he means we become passionate about things we engage with over and over again.
I find this idea incredibly liberating. Why? It means if we aren’t satisfied with what we are doing—if our passions are no longer feeding or fueling us—we can choose a new passion. We can develop it to something that feels like we were born to do it.
Maybe, in the end, it all comes down to choice and what’s available to us in our time.
What do you think? Were you born to do something? Leave a comment today!
What does an artist do? What makes her an artist? It’s simple: she pays attention.
I think I’ve been overwhelming myself with ideas, people, information, podcasts, audiobooks— too many different inputs to count. If we want to be creative, we have to shut out the noise, turn off the devices, and start paying attention to the world around us.
Paying attention might be something as simple as going for a walk outside. Head to the park, and be fully present in the moment.
Paying attention means smiling at the people that walk past you and watching their entire demeanor change. They walk a little taller; they smile back; they pick up their pace. A smile generates energy.
Pay attention when you walk past two women speaking to each other in Spanish. What happens when you say in their native tongue, “Hello! How are you?” They chuckle, both pleased with your willingness to try and humored by your pained accent.
Paying attention is noticing the difference in sound a few dozen yards can make. One side of a park is dead quiet, while the other—less than a football field’s length away and located close to a busy road—is roaring with the cacophony of motorcycles and sports cars.
When you pay attention over a few weeks’ time, you notice the subtle change in attire worn by those walking around you as social and health issues become more prevalent.
Perhaps you’ll notice two small children, obviously strangers and of wildly different cultures, run towards each other on the playground to touch hands, embrace, and play together as if they weren’t the least bit different. Afterwards, you might realize that it’s all invented, the differences we’ve created that cause such terrible strife in our world.
If you listen closely, you’ll notice the gurgling, deep-throated rumbling of a large vehicle puttering past behind you. You’ll hear the sounds of leaves underfoot and voices across the fence.
So this is what it’s like to pay attention. This is what we miss with our headphones in and our phones out, heads down and eyes fixed, always distracted and never present.
We miss the face of a Star Wars alien created by a fortuitous arrangement of knots on a pine tree.
We miss the sheer exuberance of a child as she first lays eyes on the playground and sprints past. We miss her zigging and zagging and the father’s apology for her child’s excitement. Why does Dad feels guilty? Why should he apologize for his child doing exactly what a child should do?
This is what we miss when we fail to pay attention.
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Why do we worry about running out of ideas?
Our minds are idea-making machines; we couldn’t stop them from ideation if we tried.
So why aren’t we creating something new and publishing it every day? Why do we fail to write a blog post? Or take a photo and post it?
We do not suffer from a lack of ideas: we worry the ideas we do have aren’t good enough to show anyone else.
Here’s the secret: they probably aren’t. Most of the ideas you think up aren’t great. They might not change the lives of thousands of people.
But there’s a chance one might change one person. And that small chance is reason enough to put your ideas out into the world.
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