As you consider the gift that you have to offer – the expression that is uniquely yours, and yours alone to give away – consider this: the impact of a gift given away in freedom is vast, while a gift spent on the giver quickly fades.
Are you acting, or waiting? Steve Jobs once said “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
What is the first thing you do in the morning? The last thing you do at night? Your first action when taking on a new project? Your impulse when receiving good (or bad) news?
If you asked those questions to many highly productive creatives, they’ll have immediate answers. Not because they are micro-obsessive about their schedules, but because over time they’ve developed predictable rituals around key areas of their life and work.
Here are three career investments that I think every single creative should be making now, and should continue to make consistently. These are the three aspirations that you should be chasing in order to ensure that you won’t be left behind.
For creative pros – those charged with turning our thoughts into value every day – the promise of a quick path to successful work is alluring. If there were proven ways to avoid the uncertainty and pain of the process, they would be worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, they don’t exist. Not really, anyway.
Brilliant work is no accident. It’s forged daily by those willing to engage their work with urgency and diligence, and to empty themselves of whatever is burning within them.
