The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

Creativity is a choice, it’s not a bolt of lightning from somewhere else.

Creativity doesn’t repeat itself; it can’t.

If you get good enough at throwing, the catching takes care of itself.

For the important work, the instructions are always insufficient.

And we certainly don’t have to believe in magic to create magic.

Art is the generous act of making things better by doing something that might not work.

Waiting for a feeling is a luxury we don’t have time for.

If you want to change your story, change your actions first.

We become what we do.

If we condition ourselves to work without flow, it’s more likely to arrive.

“Do what you love” is for amateurs. “Love what you do” is the mantra for professionals.

Reassurance is futile—and

If anyone can do it, then we’ll just hire anyone.

Yes, you’re an imposter. But you’re an imposter acting in service of generosity, seeking to make things better.

If you want to be a writer, then write.

The practice doesn’t care when you decide to become an artist. What simply matters is that you decide. Whether or not your mom is involved in the decision.

I’m a sucker for writing about the creative process. I love imagining what it would feel like to stare deep into the void, to be touched by His Noodly Appendage, to feel the heavens dictating to me as I move to a transcendent state.

As we engage in the practice, we begin to trust the practice. Not that it will produce the desired outcome each time, but simply that it’s our best available option.

the catch is the side effect of the practice itself.

The practice requires a commitment to a series of steps, not a miracle.

Artists have a chance to make things better by making better things.

ideas that spread change the world.

The fifth hammer is you,

Choosing to offer only comfort undermines the work of the artist and the leader.

we create change for a living.

You may not be on the well-trodden path, but wherever you’re headed, it’s important.

If you care enough, it’s worth doing as many times as it takes.

It might be that the most generous thing to do is to disappoint someone in the short run.

Generous means choosing to focus on the change we seek to make.

The right work to the right people for the right reason.

Because doing something that might not work means exactly that . . . that it might not work.

Reassurance amplifies attachment.

We can hope at the same time that we accept that what we’re working on right now might not work.

We don’t have to be victim to our feelings.

The practice is a choice.

The practice is there for us, whether or not we feel confident. Especially when we don’t feel confident.

For art to be generous it must change the recipient.

The essence of your art isn’t that it comes from a rare place of genius. The magic is that you chose to share it.

We have to be able to say “it’s not for you” and mean it.

Part of the work involves leaving the safety of our own perfectly correct narrative and intentionally entering someone else’s.

those you serve are unlikely to care enough to come to you.

you don’t create a hit by trying to please everyone.

A key component of practical empathy is a commitment to not be empathic to everyone.

It’s culturally impossible to do important work that will be loved by everyone.

Great work isn’t popular work; it’s simply work that was worth doing.

That means that because most of the time you won’t go viral, it’s worth producing work you’re proud of, even if you don’t have a hit in the end.

To a drowning man, everyone else is a stepping-stone to safety.

We are in free fall. Always.

The strongest foundation we can find is the realization that there isn’t a foundation.

Our job is to be generous, as generous as we know how to be, with our work.