When you understand that ideas often seem crazy at first, that failure is just a learning experience, and that nothing is impossible, you are on your way to becoming more confident and more creative.
Achieving expertise and doing creative work is all horribly complicated and difficult and paradoxical and frustrating and recursive and James Joyce-y—and any guide, blog, binary, guru, or “nice guy” that tries to suggest otherwise is probably giving you a complimentary colonoscopy.
I can hear Merlin ranting about posting quotes and tips now, but damn this stuff is top notch and it needs to be read.
let’s be honest: although most of us have plenty of perfectly serviceable spoons, everybody knows collecting cutlery is way more fun than using it to swallow yucky medicine.
Seeking advice is addicting and can become a proxy for action. Giving it can also be addicting in a potentially pretentious, soul-rotting sort of way, and can replace experimenting because you think you know how things work. Be suspicious of lists, advice, and lists of advice.
What advice would you give to a graphic design student? - Frank Chimero
This whole post is worth reading many times, in fact, this is the fourth or so time I’ve read it.
Your code will always be a mess. You will have learned a lot. It will never be perfect. And if you start all over, you’ll find yourself in the exact same situation when you get to this point again. It’s a terrible trap to think like this.
I’m going blue in the face saying this, but it’s all about a passion for your craft. Passion. Passion. Passion.
More old-school passion and proof that love is what makes you successful.
Stop looking for recipes about how to optimize your workflow. You want it? Get rid of stupid fluff, and do things that matter. Do one thing at a time. Work like your grandpa did. Yeah, the world is different now, but humans have always had to make decisions about where to put their attention. We’ve just lost our spine.
If you do only what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won’t fail. You’ll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that’s failure by erosion.
Twyla Tharp via
The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.
