Adam Grant describes five stages that tend to trigger different emotional responses in the creator.66 The energized, optimistic feeling at stage 1 (“This is awesome!”) is followed by a more realistic stage 2 (“This is tricky”). Then comes the dreaded stage 3 (“This is crap”), followed immediately by stage 4 (“I’m crap”). If the creator somehow crawls out of that pit, they work their way to stage 5 (“This might be okay.”), and finally arrive at completion, stage 6 (“This is awesome!”).
