What the outsider doesn’t understand is that you are the master of your work. You’re the expert. You’re the gatekeeper.
And what others might see as ready or good enough … is only so when you decide.
So let the works-in-progress be works in progress. Don’t be rushed.
Be as swift or as deliberate as the work demands.
Like a bird knows when to migrate, you know when the work is ready to share.
(Even so, don’t wait forever.)
You could spend months studying diligently — running scenarios, assessing risks, predicting outcomes — such that you will be perfectly prepared for one particular step.
Or you could plan thoughtfully, but spend most of that time developing your resilience, your sense of balance, and your ability to adapt.
In the first instance, you’ll be ready for what you’ve anticipated.
In the second, you’ll be ready for anything.
From the brilliant poet, Amanda Gorman. Beautiful words every creative should take to heart:
“I think if I could go back in time and give myself a message, it would be to reiterate that my value as an artist doesn’t come from how much I create. I think that mind-set is yoked to capitalism. Being an artist is about how and why you touch people’s lives, even if it’s one person. Even if that’s yourself, in the process of art-making.”
Amanda Gorman. “7 Questions, 75 Artists, 1 Very Bad Year”, The New York Times 10 March 2021.
H/T Rob M.
Sometimes, the challenging question isn’t how to do a, b, or c. We have information. We have tools and roadmaps. There are books, schools, videos, and mentors. We can figure out how to do it.
No. Sometimes, the challenging question is: What do you want?
Because when we don’t know what we want, a tension exists between endless possibility and our internal need to have purposeful movement. It can feel burdensome.
Happily, the steps and options are no longer infinite once we begin to make choices.
But first, we have to know what we want.
Too much eagerness for what’s beyond the horizon can blind us to the miracle that is this very moment.
Said another way: Don’t miss the beauty of this season for love of the next.
The next right step on your journey might not look anything like your destination.
Actually, in all likelihood, it won’t.
When you make a promise — how likely are you to keep it?
How about promises to yourself?
For many of us, we’re better at keeping the promises we make to others … and we less reliably keep the promises we make to ourselves.
Or we’re even reluctant to make promises at all.
But the path forward is not through flexibility, loopholes, and revisions. It’s through selective, intentional promises and commitments.
And keeping them.
We don’t get perfect over time.
Yes, we (mostly) learn how to not repeat mistakes.
But ultimately, we’re always learning new ways to err.
How we navigate our ongoing imperfection — that’s the business of life.
Do you keep the unknown, next person in mind?
When we have this general sensibility, we recognize small occasions to practice selfless courtesy.
We push in a chair. We wipe our crumbs off a table. We refill an empty dispenser.
Years ago, when VHS rentals were a thing, one would rewind a tape to the beginning before returning it to the store. For the next person.
Small moments — brief occasions to help to irrigate the fields of kindness in this world.
Anyone can do it. We just have to think of the next person.
What we do communicates our values.
But what we don’t do — what we don’t model, address, consider, solve, engage with — that tells a story too.
Sometimes it’s the latter that speaks louder.
How do you like to work? What’s the ideal space to practice your craft? Some considerations:
Coffee
Tea
Sunlight
Night
Music
Natural sounds
Silence
Chaos
Piles of materials
Tidy stacks
Tools on work surfaces and floors
Tools in cabinets and drawers
Blank walls
Walls filled with art
Partners and coworkers
Solitude
Fast and intuitive
Slow and methodical
For each of us, there are configurations that match our style … and settings that stifle our ability to function.
The important part is in finding what works for you. And it’s different for everyone. (Painters Francis Bacon and Georgia O’Keeffe would not likely have made for good studio mates.)
The way we set our workspaces can have huge impact on our ability to think, create, play, and produce.
Your particular voice deserves a space suited to it. Learn your needs and preferences — and make it so.
Reminder: drinking from a firehose is not a useful way to stay hydrated.
We know this.
Yet we engage with firehoses all the time. News feeds, social media, streaming services, online shopping — even libraries and museums.
Everywhere, there’s more content than we could possibly engage with or consume … even in a thousand lifetimes.
So we take care. We pick and choose. We remind ourselves that we’ll never get to all of it.
Simply: we curate our inputs.
Firehoses will do what they do. But we get to choose how we engage.
In waiting for an event, we can become fixated on the T-minus indicator. Like a countdown until liftoff.
T-minus one week until I improve my diet. T-minus one year until I apply to grad school. T-minus one dependent until I write a book.
But this isn’t aerospace. Often, there’s no need to wait. We can skip straight to liftoff if we choose.
Then, we’re counting the T-plus — the mission elapsed time.
T-plus two weeks since I began therapy. T-plus one month since I started exercising. T-plus a year since I started sharing my work with others.
We only begin to see what happens after we let ourselves depart from the launchpad.
Sometimes we can get a sense that there is a hole in our life. And if we could just find the right thing to fill that void, everything would fall into place.
In truth, things fall into place when we begin to see ourselves as already whole and complete.
In 1871, Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke wrote, “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces. Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end.”
In 1987, boxer Mike Tyson had a pithier version: “Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time.”
However you like to say it, the principle is the same: even the best plans require a level of flexibility, adaptation, and awareness of changing conditions.
Plans in hand, we still have to think on our feet.
“Stay the course” is great advice. Until it’s not.
It can be a striking realization, that our entire life spans just a brief moment in time. That the world existed well before us and it will exist well after us.
And yet, that same realization can be a relief.
In the meantime, we get to make ripples.
Get curious about yourself. When you’re in a rough spot or you’re worked up about something, don’t be harsh or judgmental. Pause and be curious.
Wonder about yourself. What’s beneath the surface? What are the feelings causing the feelings?
Be gentle with what you discover.
It’s been said that you’re the average of the five people with whom you spend most of your time. Debatable, but still an interesting concept.
What if your disposition is the average of the fifty news stories you most recently consumed?
Or the average of the five books you’ve read most often?
Or the average of the last fifty videos you’ve watched?
Immerse yourself in a certain kind of thing and it will inevitably change you.
“I gave it a try.”
This is a variable, highly contextual, personal statement.
What does it mean to try? For how long? At what level of commitment? With what tenacity? With what margin for error? With what expectations?
The act of trying is neither universal nor easily quantifiable. But indeed, trying is essential to many of our endeavors.
When we’re tight under deadline, feeling pressure, and pulling out all the stops — relying on our complete set of skills — it’s exhilarating. We feel fully alive.
When we are intentionally still, having released every other concern, and we focus solely on our breath … it’s exhilarating. We feel fully alive.
We don’t live at the extremes, but it’s useful to visit there to bring ourselves into a more vibrant wakefulness.
