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I read a lot of stuff every week and it seemed like this week in particular there was a lot of good stuff about living a creative life and just having the right attitude about things that I thought was valuable and worth sharing. I’d love to know what you’re reading, too!
That’s Not Your Job
There were two pieces I read a few days apart that I wish I could send to everyone who sends their creative stuff out into the world.
First I saw Glennon Doyle’s Three Rules for Surviving a Creative Life, which says that if you’re exhausting yourself paying attention to what people think of you’re creations, you’re not doing your job.
All we creative people are here to do is make the thing and put it out in the world. Monitoring, or getting worked up about, or trying to defend ourselves and our work from other people’s reactions is not in our job description.
So: create, call it good, rest.
That’s all we have to do.
Carl Richards, writing in the New York Times, used some of the same sort of language, officially firing people from the job of judging their own work:
When you finish creating something and you start to wonder if it’s any good … nope! Don’t try to answer. You no longer get to decide.
The reason we shouldn’t bother to judge our own work is that we’re terrible at knowing what’s going to bomb and what’s going to be well-received, so all we can do is try our best and then try again.
That means we’re free from both judging ourselves and our work and paying any attention to what other people think of it as well.
How great would that be? (Thanks for sharing this one, Aaron!)
How to Get Your Shit Together
My friend Heidi shared another great post from Educate Inspire Change about the hard truths of life you need to know if you’re ever going to get your shit together (or grow up, whichever way you want to put it).
I know a lot of these but need constant reminders on some of them, such as that spending too much time on social is going to ruin us. Other great tips: avoiding risk is actually really risky, people will hate you no matter what you do, but most people aren’t thinking about you at all so don’t let their reactions keep you from doing what you want.
Important not just for living a creative life, but a good life.
Building Your Power Posse
Eileen pointed out this great article on Thrive Global about the people you need to have in your inner circle to achieve the most success.
You’ve probably heard the idea that you are an average of the five people you spend the most time with, so it makes sense to consciously connect with people who are going to make you better.
The article covers lots of different people you should have in your corner, and I’m so glad to say my five (or so) TCOYOS women are both catalysts and cheerleaders for me, and I’m so thrilled we’re finally getting together again soon for the first time in more than a year.
What have you read recently that’s inspired you? Feel free to drop a link in the comments.
