It’s never going to be “the right time” to make your art.
You’ll always have some other distraction, let alone responsibility or need that requires your attention.
Stop waiting. Just decide that the right time is now. And start.
You’ll be amazed at how everything then falls into place and the universe cooperates with that single decision. It’s an inflection point.
Now is the exact, right time. It always is, always was, and always will be.
“Good checklists are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything–a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps–the ones that even the highly skilled professional using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical…
We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.” -Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto
So come on and chickity-check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self
Chickity-check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self
-Ice Cube, “Check Yo Self”
One of the many useful things about checklists is they take emotion out of decision-making. They’re straightforward. All you have to do is follow the list. (Or don’t, at your own risk.)
Seth Godin’s recent post about “project resistance” is magnificent. You can read it Here. If you’re wondering if your work isn’t good enough or you’re just facing “the resistance”, as Steven Pressfield brilliantly termed it in The War Of Art, consider all the possible symptoms Seth lists. Maybe print out and keep close at hand. It can serve as a checklist every time the resistance rears its ugly head. And rest assured, if you’re trying for something great, it will.
“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.” -Steve Prefontaine
What makes my good friend Joe one of the world’s best handicappers is that he can evaluate how well a horse ACTUALLY ran a race. As opposed to how they finished. He uses tools like Beyer ratings, Sheets numbers, Pace figures, etc..as well as watching replays of past races. All that and more factor in to his analysis of a horse’s quality. He’ll be the first to tell you that a horse can finish second or third or even out of the money and run an incredible race (for example, maybe it had a bad jump or was boxed in or the jockey gave it a bad trip).
A great scene in the movie WITHOUT LIMITS–which is about the legendary distance runner, Steve Prefontaine–involves Pre and his coach, Bill Bowerman. Bowerman repeatedly challenges Pre to run from behind in order to conserve energy and win more easily. But that’s not Pre’s style. He only wants to sprint out front and win wire to wire. It’s his art.
But…Pre does listen to his coach one time for a big race.
Unfortunately it’s not a good outcome. Pre gets boxed in by the other runners and can’t make a closing move until it’s way too late.
But he does try. Coming from waaaay back, he runs the fastest single lap time ever recorded in the event; it’s an almost inhuman time. But not enough for the win and Pre is distraught. An apologetic Bowerman says he just ran the greatest race he’s ever seen in his life. And that he’s so proud to be his coach. From then on, Bowerman will let Pre be Pre.
You can’t control if you win the race. There are way too many other factors beyond your control that determine the outcome. But you can control your effort. Always, always, always.
Win the effort race.
“The first principle is not to fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.” -Richard P. Feynman
General William T. Sherman: “Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?”
General Ulysses S. Grant: “Yes…Lick ’em tomorrow, though.” – Conversation between the two generals after the first day of the Battle of Shiloh during the American Civil War
“I did the best I could” is an admirable goal and something we should all shoot for. But at the end of the day it’s just a feeling. It’s entirely subjective and up to you.
Don’t fool or lie to yourself.
If at the end of the day, you feel you came up short, analyze why. Then forgive yourself. Turn the page. And go get after it tomorrow.
Perseverance (noun)
: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering : STEADFASTNESS
“I will persist until I succeed. The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning, and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner. Always will I take another step. If that is no avail, I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I will persist until I succeed.” -Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman In The World
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston S. Churchill
“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
– Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” – Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
What’s common among all stories of people who show tremendous courage and perseverance–from ancient tales of the Spartans to Biblical narratives like the Canaanite woman to Louis Zamperini in “Unbroken” to today’s single parent working multiple jobs to provide a better life for their child–is they all have no idea if what they’re doing will actually work. In fact, the initial feedback is that it’s not working and they should just give up.
So what is it that allows these folks to persist against all odds and evidence to the contrary?
I believe it’s the following:
A burning desire.
An unwavering and at times, irrational belief in themselves and their mission.
A refusal to give up.
And as my favorite actor Jack Lemmon said about his own career…”blind faith.”
Keep making your art.
P.S. – Pictured above is the Mars rover. It’s been looking for signs of life on Mars since landing there on 2021. 960 days and counting. Nothing yet. But not giving up. Its name?…Perseverance.
“A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. -James P. Carse, book Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
A finite game is one bounded by rules and time. Think of your favorite sporting event for example. Whoever has the most points at the end of the set period wins. To win is the purpose of the game.
An infinite game is boundless. Wins, losses and keeping score do not matter. The purpose of the games is to just keep playing.
Can you turn your passion project into an infinite game? Sure, there might be finite games/measuring sticks along the way. But overall, as long as you get to keep playing, keep making, keep learning, keep growing…that’s the win.
Put another way…if you’re alive and are pursuing something you care deeply about, you won. Now, keep playing.
P.S. – Can you guess what movie the above image is from?
“God’s one and only voice is silence.” -Herman Melville
“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.” – Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.” ― Virginia Woolf, The Waves
“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence -Simon & Garfunkel, song “The Sound Of Silence”
Perhaps the answer or creative breakthrough you seek can only be found by listening to the silence.
Spend valuable time each day cultivating it.
P.S. – This scene/montage from my all-time favorite movie.
“You have to become undeniably good at something. Nobody ever takes my advice, because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear…but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’ If you are just always thinking, ‘How can I be really good?’—people will come to you.” -Steve Martin, memoir Born Standing Up
What sticks out to me the most from the above Steve Martin quote is “nobody ever takes my advice, because it’s not the answer they want to hear.”
If you ask and receive advice from someone who’s uber-successful in your desired field, why wouldn’t you take it? Or at least try it for a set period of time?
Which begs the question…Are you really seeking advice? Even if it’s a cold comfort.
Or are you just seeking affirmation of a prior belief and confirmation of what you’d like to hear?
If you encounter an issue or potential problem, first think about whether or not it will matter in 5 years.
If it won’t, don’t spend more than 5 minutes worrying about it.
If it will matter, and you’ve thought about it 5 or more times without taking any kind of action, stop worrying and do something. Take one teeny tiny step.
Remember, do nothing. Get nothing. (Other than more worrying).
Do something. You might get something. You will most assuredly learn something. And you’ll end your worrying.
One day.
Or.
Day One.
You decide.
Is today day one of you making your art? (In addition to art, insert any good intention or desired habit here like exercising, eating healthy, getting control of your finances, getting more sleep, signing up for that class, etc…)
Or is today just another day, in a long string of days, in which you tell yourself you’ll get around to it…one day.
You decide.
The Vs. Studio Blog