The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

A Roundup of Tips and Tricks for Creators Build streaks. Do the work every single day. Blog daily. Write daily. Ship daily. Show up daily. Find your streak and maintain it. Talk about your streaks to keep honest. Seek the smallest viable audience. Make it for someone, not everyone. Avoid shortcuts. Seek the most direct path instead. Find and embrace genre. Seek out desirable difficulty. Don’t talk about your dreams with people who want to protect you from heartache.

“If I take this and do that to it, I’m asserting that something useful will come of it.” Assertions are the foundation of the design and creation process.

The practice demands assertions when there are no guarantees.

Assertions are the generous act of seeking to make things better. They’re half a question. “Perhaps . . .” is the unstated word at the beginning of every assertion. Before you find an answer, you’ll need to make an assertion.

Too often, we wait until we’re sure we’re right. Better to begin with an assertion. And then find out.

An assertion is a promise. A promise that you’ll try. A promise that you’ll ship. And a promise that if you fail, you’ll let us know why.

Often, we begin by simply making an assertion to ourselves. It might be too soon to invite the audience into our studio. But the act of claiming the assertion begins the cycle of better.

What are the implications, ramifications, and side effects of what you plan to do? What are your contingency plans? What will happen if it works? (And if it doesn’t?)

When you’re leading people who are engaged in the work, the follow-up questions shouldn’t be seen as skeptical or lacking in trust. In fact, it’s the opposite. These are the questions of co-conspirators, of people enrolled to go on this journey with you. If, “any questions,” receives no response, you need to earn more enrollment and make your assertions more clearly.

And culture is a conspiracy. It’s the voluntary engagement of humans in search of connection and safety. Your assertion begins a cultural shift, because it’s an invitation for coconspirators to join you.

Organizing a conspiracy is fuel for your art.

Attitudes, of course, are skills, which is good news for all of us, because it means that if we care enough, we can learn.

Find this cohort with intent. Don’t wait for it to happen to you. You don’t need to be picked—you can simply organize a cohort of fellow artists who will encourage themselves.

The challenge, then, is to have one superpower. All out of balance to the rest of your being. If, over time, you develop a few more, that’s fine. Begin with one.

When we think of an artist we admire, we’re naming someone who stands for something. And to stand for something is to commit.

We can teach people to make commitments, to overcome fear, to deal transparently, to initiate, and to plan a course of action. We can teach people to desire lifelong learning, to express themselves, and to innovate.

You don’t have to like their work or agree with their assertions. But you need to know who they are and what they’re saying. The line between an amateur and professional keeps blurring, but for me, the posture of understanding both the pioneers and the state of the art is essential. Skill is earned.

Good taste is the ability to know what your audience or clients are going to want before they do. Good taste comes from domain knowledge, combined with the guts and experience to know where to veer from what’s expected.

Creativity doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Finding the constraints and embracing them is a common thread in successful creative work.

Some Favorite Constraints Time Money Format Team members User trust Materials Technology Regulation Physics The status quo

Constraints and your dance with them are part of the practice.

Trusting yourself doesn’t require delusional self-confidence. Trusting yourself has little to do with the outcome. Instead, we can learn to trust the process. This is at the heart of our practice. We can develop a point of view, learn to see more clearly, and then ship our work (and ship it again, and again). We don’t do it to win, we do it to contribute. Because it’s an act of generosity, not selfishness, we can do it for all the best reasons. The practice is its own reward. Trusting yourself comes from a desire to make a difference, to do something that matters.

But only the effort is under our control. The results are not.

No one can possibly do a better job of being you than you can. And the best version of you is the one who has committed to a way forward. Your work is never going to be good enough (for everyone). But it’s already good enough (for someone). Committing to a practice that makes our best better is all we can do.

Elements of the Practice Creative is a choice. Avoid certainty. Pick yourself. Results are a by-product. Postpone gratification. Seek joy. Understand genre. Embrace generosity. Ship the work. Learn from what you ship. Avoid reassurance. Dance with fear. Be paranoid about mediocrity. Learn new skills. Create change. See the world as it is. Get better clients. Be the boss of the process. Trust your self. Repeat.

217. You’re Not the Boss, but You Are In Charge You are in charge of how you spend your time. In charge of the questions you ask. In charge of the insight that you produce.

And then to go beyond the edge, because the only way to know it’s an edge is to cross it. As the artist George Ferrandi said, “If you have to ask ‘should I keep going?’ the answer is ‘yes.’”

Life is on the wire, the rest is just waiting PAPA WALLENDA* Are you on the wire? (Or are you just waiting?)

The path forward is about curiosity, generosity, and connection. These are the three foundations of art. Art is a tool that gives us the ability to make things better and to create something new on behalf of those who will use it to create the next thing. Human connection is exponential: it scales as we create it, weaving together culture and possibility where none used to exist. You have everything you need to make magic. You always have. Go make a ruckus.

The magic is that there is no magic. Start where you are. Don’t stop.