The idea of “decision fatigue” is common in popular science right now. The theory goes that we only have so much mental energy to give to decision-making, and when that decision-making energy is depleted, we are more susceptible to “make choices that seem impulsive or irrational.”

This quote struck me a few weeks ago. It wasn’t until I heard Ryan Holiday say it so plainly that I realized I’m always looking for the third thing. 

“Why don’t I have 100,000 followers? My content is good enough.” Have you ever had a thought like this before?

Breathe it all in, putrid to sweet.

We just launched the second cohort of the 15-Day Creative Consistency Challenge. Each day, a small group of artists and creators will share one creative deliverable on a supportive community platform. There are daily lessons and creative prompts to get the juices flowing. 

Everyone wants to create a smash hit: a movie or a book or a song that is instantly popular, and remains meaningful for decades thereafter. In order to do this, you have to balance popularity and longevity. 

Occasionally, I’d hit a “hot streak” and write four or five blogs I was really excited about on back-to-back days. I also discovered dry periods—days when I had no good ideas, no inspiration, and not much desire to write. 

It’s amazing to me that sometimes I can wait in a long line and feel so impatient and annoyed, and other times I can stand in a long line and feel totally content, patient, and grateful. Nothing physical changes. Only my mindset changes.

Instead of feeling like a failure for not accomplishing some vague whisper of a goal, mapping out your ideal week shows you that you never had time for it in the first place. 

When I was in high school and college, my father tried relentlessly to get one lesson into my head: you can’t do everything. I resisted this lesson with everything in me.

Everyone is busy. Even great composers and Nobel Prize winning authors. The difference between you and people who create great work is not a clearer schedule or more resources or a DNA of genius. 

Art urges voyages.

Building a business takes time. Not because it takes a lot of time to create all the things that a business needs to run, (like a product or a service or a website or a marketing campaign) but because every business is built on trust, and you can’t rush trust. 

Saying “I don’t feel like creating today” is one thing. Allowing those feelings to dictate whether or not you do create today is what separates dreamers from their dreams. 

Working on a plane is funny. The easiest thing to do it to keep working. It’s almost more work to reach below your seat to grab your bag and put your laptop away.

We’re good at considering the costs of being truthful when we make creative excuses. But having a cloudy conscience has costs, too, and we’re not so quick to consider those costs. 

“If I force myself to create every single day, won’t I get tired, uninspired, and won’t it suck the passion out of my art?” This is a fair question.

This self-focused view made my upcoming talk nerve-racking. As I prepared for the talk, I had a third-person imagination of myself, thinking about how people would view me, how I would sound, and if I would come across as cool and smart.

Sure, on paper, you could make an argument that your assets are a better value, or higher quality than your competition. But if the experience of service is not up to the client’s expectations, it doesn’t matter. 

You can read about it, talk about it, listen to podcasts about it, plan for it, vision-board it, and dream about it. But none of those things teach you even close to the amount you will learn once you finally…do it.