Creating with intention
There’s no substitute for hours put in. Good work requires commitment and emotional investment. You can try to make shortcuts, but your audience will know. More importantly, you will know.
If you don’t feel like it’s risky, it’s probably not worth doing. Don’t take shortcuts, no matter how tempting they may seem.
Do the work.
If you knew everything would be OK, would you spend more time with your close friends? Take more time for yourself? Eat differently? Leave the office earlier?
If you knew the outcome would be OK, would you relax, ease up? Work harder?
How would your strategy change?
If everything was going to be OK, would you save more? Worry less? Sleep at night?
Of course there’s a chance it won’t be. If you’re doing work that’s risky and creative, you’re pushing edges. Emotions become linked with success and failure, and instability tests resolve.
Ease into it. You might surprise yourself by worrying less and making different choices. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Taking responsibility inevitably sets you up, while watching from the sidelines gives you that head start should an anvil hit. There’s always the option to run.
When you step in to do a little more and claim ownership (no matter how small), the work becomes personal. This is where thoughtful decisions are made and jobs are performed with integrity.
“It’s not my job” is too big of a shortcut to take, especially if you’re hoping to get someplace else. Whether you’re looking for a raise, a promotion, a better position or a more flexible company, venture beyond the lines of your job description and look for ways to help your team succeed.
It might not be your job, but it’s definitely your reputation. How safe do you want to play?
Post modified from this Medium article, posted July 15, 2015.
Too often it feels like our schedules are packed and we don’t have time to do the things we really want to do. I want to encourage you to step back and reconsider.
What if the choices you make on a daily basis could be adjusted, and suddenly you find yourself with an extra hour? What would you do with that time?
What if — instead of pressuring yourself to get it all done — you eased off the gas and settled for eight out of ten, six out of ten? What if you gave 70% instead of 110%?
Write down the goals that are most important to you and the daily priorities you don’t want to lose. Look for places you can simplify and back off.
It’s possible to add hours in your day, but you may have to give something up.
For more help, visit zenhabits.
You are an artist.
Maybe you don’t own paints and haven’t touched a paintbrush in years. Maybe you’ve never thought of yourself as creative, and you couldn’t draw a house to save your life. Pictionary is your most hated board game.
But every day you create. You build.
Or you destroy.
You have the choice to hone this superpower. Or you can continue to ignore it.
You can do work artfully or simply go through the motions. You can bring magic and intrigue to tonight’s dinner table, or you can set the plates down and eat as you always have, without special care or thought.
You can head to work knowing you bring with you a perspective that is entirely yours, uniquely mixed with your life experiences, and blended with your lessons and failures and successes. You have the ability to contribute something remarkable to your team.
Art doesn’t need to involve colors. It can be generous and risky with nothing to do with an art gallery.
You owe it to yourself remind yourself of a time you enjoyed art. When you enjoyed building trees out of popsicle sticks or creating rocket ships from marshmallows. When you listened to something beautiful. When you wrote a letter that made someone cry. When you sang with your friends and used a cardboard box as drums.
Trick yourself into believing you’re creative. Then see what kind of day you have — as an artist.