Practice Makes Purpose

Getting the work out of your head and into the world

How to get to your best work

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Via Mindshift

He tested it by asking children what aspects of a learning environment make them feel most creative. “One of the things they found most valuable in their arts classes was the freedom not to have to seek right and wrong answers,” Bilder said. “It was that freedom to explore that led them to be increasingly engaged and allowed them to forge connections that allowed them to be more creative.”

There are so many great points in this article from Mindshift but the overarching theme is the necessity to do your work to get to your best work.

When embarking on a creative endeavor the struggle we face is how to get what’s in our head out into the world via our medium of choice.

In this way the creative act can feel like replication. We want to “get it right”.  But it’s not so much about getting it right as much as it is about to creating a connection.

While it is natural to desire the right answer, a creative endeavor is different in that there can be more than one right answer. Sometimes the true answer you seek lies in a question that has yet no be asked.

In either case there is no cheat sheet or shortcut in your journey. You must walk the path and see where it leads you. You must process your ideas to see where they lead you. You have to see what new ideas fill your head.

And along the way we will fail.

That’s when it’s important to remember:

The more you do your work the better you get at it.

The more you do your work the deeper you connect to it.

Do your work to get to your best work.

As an artist there comes a point where you are the one asking the questions AND answering them. And while we all seek approval and rewards for our work the greatest fulfillment, and the biggest challenge, comes when we know in our hearts, regardless of or in spite of external opinion, we put out our best work.

The only way out is through

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Often, it might feel like choosing between two pretty good options. But in your heart you know which one is right. The life of an artist is full of moments like this. Moments where the only wrong choice is to not move forward, to stagnate.

Jeff Goins on showing your work

I love Jeff Goins writing because he so effectively captures the struggle of creative people trying to do good work. Jeff frames things around his medium, writing, but his struggle is one we all face when making the decision to express ourselves.

That expression can come in many forms.

Writing.
Starting a business.
Losing weight.
Eating better.
Making new friends.

In all cases you are making a choice to have an experience based on your own terms and desires. There’s risk in that because if things don’t turn out the way you want, it’s easy to criticize yourself for making the wrong decision.

You can beat yourself up because you’re not good enough. You can beat yourself up because your choice wasn’t what you expected. Or, even scarier, things can go well and you end up challenging yourself to go farther than you ever imagined.

But that criticism is short sighted.

When we think of becoming or doing something, we envision the idealized version of what we seek. We see the book someone wrote or the business someone owns and we want that.

We don’t think about the time behind the keyboard. The time doing research and running the business.

The whole, or end result is great, but you can live an end result. You can’t live a book or a business.

You can be a writer.
You can be a business person.

That is why it’s important to do the things that you desire and express yourself.

Being who you are is a journey. It’s has ups and downs and struggles and laughter. Some days it’s hard and some days it’s easy.

But it’s always YOUR journey so despite how scary it is or how nervous you feel or how unprepared you feel take the path you know in your heart is right and see what happens next.

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