What Separates Creative Professionals From Amateurs
Too often, the creative work we value most, the one that brings the most meaning and satisfaction to our lives, is set aside for other priorities. Whether you’re doing creative work – writing, designing, composing, coding, or just brainstorming – if you want to make real progress, it’s important that you treat your work not as a hobby or a side note, but as work.
This post was originally published on Fast Company .
Writers who finish books, artists who complete pictures, programmers who write successful programs – all of them are not suitable for their work when they have time. Because there is never time. They show up no matter what and do their job.
What separates pros from amateurs? This is not just external confirmation or success. “Most of us have two lives. The life that we live and the unlived life within us. There is resistance between them, ”writes Stephen Pressfield in his seminal book on the creative process, The War of Art . Pros are those who successfully overcome this resistance and succeed in front of it.
The first step to becoming more satisfied with your creative work and making significant progress in it is to change how you feel about it. But what steps do you need to take to become a professional and not just an amateur? “A professional takes on a project that will make him stretch. He takes on a task that will take him into unknown waters , make him explore the unconscious parts of himself. He is afraid of? Hell yes, ”writes Pressfield. “If you are paralyzed by fear, this is a good sign. He shows you what you need to do. “
Don’t get hung up on your work
A common mistake many creative people make is feeling overly emotional about their work. When your work becomes your personality and your primary measure of self-esteem, you put a lot of pressure on yourself, says Pressfield. And that pressure can become exhausting. The pros understand this and resist it.
It’s not about the success of the work. It’s about the process of creating it. “The Resistance knows that an amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is too invested in its success and fears its failure,” writes Pressfield. “The amateur takes it so seriously that it paralyzes him.”
Distinguish between important and urgent
Pressfield defines what he calls the principle of priority: a simple two-step approach to prioritizing the work ahead.
According to Pressfield, the two steps are:
- Know the difference between urgent and important.
- Do what’s important first.
If you try to solve all the “urgent” problems that arise, you may be wasting your time solving unimportant problems, ignoring what really matters to your work.
Create blocks of daily focus
Easier said than done, of course, what matters in the first place. One way to do this is to create what Cal Newport calls “daily focus blocks,” or periods of continuous time exclusively for creative work . This means that no distractions should come to the fore.
Don’t be too ambitious about how long you think you can focus when you first start, Newport warns. He suggests starting with an hour of continuous time and gradually adding 15 minutes each week.
Recognize that fear is okay.
Fear can be the great resistance we face. What if you put in all that time and effort and the result is failure? What if you get harsh criticism after you send it to the world? Or do you finally realize that you really are not fit for the job? “Remember our rule of thumb,” writes Pressfield. “The more we fear a job or a calling, the more confident we have to do it.”
In other words, the fear of inadequacy will be inevitable, and you should direct your energies to try to do your best work and develop your work habits regardless of this fear.
Arm yourself with patience
Creative work takes a lot of time. It rarely comes out right after the first hit . Trial and error and the willingness to screw up is normal. “The professional arm himself with patience not only to give the stars time to align in their careers, but also to avoid breaking out in every single job,” writes Pressfield. “He knows that any job, be it a novel or a kitchen renovation, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts it. He recognizes it as reality. “
It is not easy to make a creative hobby your profession, but if you avoid common mistakes and approach your job like a job, the end product will be better.
What really stands between a creative hobby and a creative career | Fast Company