Beep, beep, beep.

Blissful dreams become distant memories. My eyes open to a symphony of earth moving and destruction. I drag myself out of bed, groggy and groaning, because those sounds will continue well into the evening and I’m powerless to stop them.

Don’t even get me started on how Alejandra feels about this!

They’re building a new parking garage catty-corner to our apartment. There’s a beer and pizza joint that’s absolutely bursting at the seams. They can’t accommodate the vortex of hipsters and vehicular traffic. Come visit sometime. When you do, we’ll go to the pizza place and I’ll do my best to convince you to order the Armadillo. Trust me.

This construction has been a constant companion during my workdays. Most of the time I can tune it out. But on the worst days, the devilish beeping has me wound as tight as a spring. Combine that with the nearby daycare, and you have the perfect recipe for one stressed out writer.

Maybe they’ll finish the parking garbage before we move out. Maybe not. Regardless, it won’t be long before we run into the next highway being widened, apartment complex being built, or old Victorian being renovated.

As much as I love complaining about all this, that isn’t the purpose of this post. All the construction happening here in town got me thinking.

Yes, places change and grow. There’s always some type of construction happening.

But what about people?

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I should be writing this with an ice pack on my head.

I should know better.

You’d think you’d wise up after a lifetime of getting hit the same way again and again.

But alas, here I am, battered and bruised. Ego shattered.

Why?

It’s very simple.

I forgot to catch the boomerang.

With Pain Comes Sobriety

A sensible person will read those fast few sentences and wonder what the hell I’m smoking.

I can assure you, sensible lady or gentleman, that, with the exception of a healthy caffeine drip, my mind is clear.

This always happens after the boomerang comes back and hits me. There are a few weeks of sobriety before the inevitable slide back into the blurry trenches of daily life.

That’s why I’m writing this now, before I forget it again.

Maybe it will shake loose some cobwebs in your mind too.

Before I Go Any Further…

Before we get any further, there’s something I need to point out:

I’m not talking about a physical boomerang.

I haven’t the slightest idea how to hurl one of those curved pieces of wood. This guy does, though, and it’s pretty damn cool:

The “boomerang” I’m talking about here is metaphorical. But it doesn’t matter much, because the pain from when it hits you is very real.

The Boomerangs You Throw

So what do I mean by “boomerangs?”

I mean our thoughts, decisions, and effort. The things we do today that come back and make their presence known in our lives months – or even years – from now.

If you want to get technical about it, you could consider each day its own boomerang. Or even every little moment.

The biggest differences between my metaphorical boomerangs and the real ones?

We can only throw actual boomerangs so far. Our arm strength is limited. And not just that; we can also watch the boomerang as it flies through its arc. We know when it’s coming back.

But metaphorical boomerangs?

We’re throwing those into the dark. We don’t know when they’ll circle back around again and we’ll need to catch them. Sometimes the lag between “throw” and “return” is so long that we forget we’ve even thrown them!

Our Obsession with Right Now

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

That’s what happens whenever assess my life and end up frustrated.

While I’ve made great strides in my writing, I wish I were further along. The same goes for other areas of my life. Who wouldn’t want to make a bit more cash? Or a more defined six-pack just in time for beach season?

Our evolution as humans makes us obsess about the immediate.

This instinct ensured our survival. When getting food in our bellies and a shelter over our heads was anything but guaranteed, we had better things to do than worry about “the future.”

Things are different now. If you’re reading this, I’ll go out on a limb and say you aren’t worried about being mauled by a leopard while you walk through the jungle tonight.

With your short-term safety sorted out, thoughts eventually turn toward the future…

And that’s exactly where the trouble starts.

Remember the Lag

We want all these awesome things (a fulfilling career, relationships, financial abundance, etc.) that take years of work to acquire.

But the short-term distractions – the shitty food, the procrastination, the malaise that sinks in after you polish off your third beer in front of the TV – are everywhere we look.

With our natural tendency toward short-term pleasure, it’s a lot easier to toss destructive boomerangs than disciplined, self-sacrificing ones.

We don’t see the effects right away in either case. Which explains why I feel so damn impatient about my new workout plan. Or you agonize over your fledgling guitar skills – even though you just started lessons.

If we forget about the lag between our efforts (now) and the payoffs (later), it’s impossible to put in the work and build something epic.

Are You Falling for an Illusion?

Our present circumstances are an illusion.

They don’t reflect the thoughts we’ve had or the things we did five minutes ago. Or even over the last few months.

It’s easy to look at our lives today and rattle off everything we don’t like…

But those are just boomerangs. We threw those thoughts and efforts (or lack thereof) a long time ago, and now they’re coming back to hit us.

My problem is I’m so eager to believe the illusion.

I get pissed off about something I don’t like in my life. I resolve to make drastic changes. And for a few weeks I do – until I realize that I look and feel basically the same as when I started. That’s when motivation withers and it’s tough to stick with it.

I’d be so much better off if I always remembered that the reflection I see in the mirror has a built-in delay. It isn’t who I am today; it’s whoever I was when I threw those boomerangs.

Tricks the Stars Play

Wait until the sun goes down.

Go outside.

Look up.

What do you see?

The night sky. Your favorite constellations. Maybe a few planets.

It’s hauntingly beautiful.

It’s also an illusion.

The night sky isn’t a reflection of reality. It’s video footage from years ago. A celestial graveyard. The last gasp of stars which have long since died.

Even after a star is cold and dead, its light shines on.

The same goes for us. Current you is a product of your past thoughts, effort, and decisions – even if you’ve decided to change them.

It’s Time to Throw Better Boomerangs

Despise who you see in the mirror?

It doesn’t always have to be that way.

That person isn’t real. Not anymore. He or she is basically an animated wax sculpture. Just because you still see them doesn’t mean you identify with them anymore.

We can’t afford to let ourselves forget this.

If we’re always growing and evolving like we should, we’ll often find ourselves shocked by who we find in the mirror. Our present circumstances don’t reflect the work we’re putting in to build a better future.

And that’s okay… so long as we keep working and remember the boomerang.

We can keep believing illusions and lamenting about how we can “never change.”

Or we can decide that every moment matters. Accept that it may take years – or even decades – for what we’re doing to bear fruit. Then go for it anyway.

Did you finish everything you planned to accomplish today?

Or fritter away time on Netflix, Facebook, and other meaningless bullshit?

You start every morning with the best intentions. Which makes it even more frustrating when you’re trying to fall asleep at night, regretting how much time you wasted.

What gives?

It’s easy to blame fate, bad luck, or horrible bosses. But that’s the low-hanging fruit.

If you’re looking to understand what really separates the winners from the losers, it’s willpower.

When Life Isn’t Going The Way You Want, Look Here

If you feel a little down on yourself right now, understand I’m not throwing shade in your direction. I’m writing this for myself as much as anyone else.

Most of the times when my life isn’t going how I want, a lack of willpower is to blame.

I hate to say it, but I need this reminder often.

I might stay diligent for a while. But it only takes a few days for things to slide. I pig out on some fast food. Stay up late working on a project I should have finished earlier. Then, before I know it, I’ve strayed from most of my good habits and fallen into a cycle of negativity.

Sound familiar?

This is the exact problem I’ve set out to understand. I’ve wondered why I can’t just rely on the discipline I’ve built up over the years. Why do I have to constantly check myself to keep things from sliding back down to Mediocre Town?

Why You Must Build Willpower – or Regret It Forever

What is willpower anyway?

There are tons of different definitions online. But I see it as a combination of these two things:

1. The ability to follow through on your plans
2. The ability to forgo short-term pleasures (that don’t vibe with your ideals) for long-term gains

Psychologists have spent decades working themselves into a tizzy trying to figure out which characteristics are the best predictors of success.

All that research has led them to two major factors: intelligence and willpower.

Most of us would love to be smarter. But the bummer is that intelligence is mostly innate, We can push our limits through study and hard work, but not beyond the genetically-defined boundaries we’re working within.

Willpower is different.

It’s more akin to a muscle – one that you can flex and develop over time.

In other words, it’s entirely within our power to build willpower. Imagine a chalice sitting right across the table from you. And in this chalice is the nectar of the gods – the very thing that separates superhumans from the mediocre masses.

All you have to do is get up, reach across the table, and claim it.

Training the Willpower Muscle

All right. So willpower is a muscle.

The question becomes how do we train it?

I’m going to stick to the basics. You know, squats and dead lifts kind of stuff. What are the most important things to remember to make the biggest improvements?

Here are 10 of them.

1. Recognize You’re at War

This is the most important step. You can’t afford to look at building willpower like you would any other skill to pursue halfheartedly.

You have to realize you’re at war.

Remember how I said willpower is like a muscle?

Well, if you aren’t flexing it, that muscle deteriorates just like all the others. Not pushing yourself sets you up for a long, painful slide down into mediocrity.

We are on a battlefield, you and I. Our enemies are legion. A binge session on Netflix. A friend asking you to chill out instead of work. That inescapable pull to collapse on the couch.

These enemies never sleep, and they never let up. Each little battle might not seem important, but the casualties of losing them add up. Before you know it, your willpower has wasted away to nothing.

Every day offers the chance to finally get serious. Or keep putting off your dreams for “later.”

If you aren’t truly ready to change your life, better to bookmark this post and circle back later.

2. Identify Your Enemies

Building your willpower is war.

Now that we understand the nature of our undertaking, let’s turn our attention to our enemies.

They’re lurking in every shadow. They’re external: the boss you hate, the spouse who doubts, the delicious twist of fate that leaves you stranded on the side of the highway. They’re internal too. Those little whispers of self sabotage and doubt.

We have a lot of enemies to contend with, but they attack us in just two ways. They wear us down by:

1. Surfacing as resistance to doing something we need to do (work, gym, etc.)
2. Appearing as temptations to derail us (eat like crap, sleep in, etc.)

Every time we feel one of those sensations, our willpower steps in and tries to get us on track.

A lot of people think that this muscle is limited. It can only lift so much before it gives out – and you give in to those temptations. That’s why it’s easier to knock out a hard task at the beginning of a day than the end of one.

We’re already spending a ton of time exercising our willpower. Some researchers found that we spend around four hours a day resisting temptations. And that doesn’t even include making decisions!

3. Pursue One Big Goal at a Time

Because willpower isn’t something we can ever master, our best bet is to do whatever we can to strengthen that muscle.

Think about how you’d do this in the gym. You wouldn’t just swagger in there and try to bench press double your body weight on the first day. If you attack too aggressively, you’ll burn out and end up injured.

Progressive resistance is the name of the game here. We’re aiming to push ourselves and build up our willpower gradually. Which makes it a hell of a lot more likely we’ll stick with the program.

We have to set our egos aside and pick up the little pink weights if we need to.

Here’s how I’m doing this. I’m picking one aspect of my life I want to focus on as my top priority. Currently it’s writing – and turning that writing into a thriving career. For you it’ll probably be something in the Big Three (health, finances, or relationships).

I’m not saying maintaining all of those things is impossible. But we should have one top goal at any given moment. This might mean making sacrifices in other areas. I’m not as fit as I want to be right now. I don’t spend enough time with friends.

If you can juggle every aspect of life and keep everything perfectly balanced, more power to you! Leave a comment so the rest of us mortals can learn from you.

4. Meditate

I’ll go ahead and admit I suck at this.

I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t seem to make this habit stick.

Meditation is a trope on those feel good self-improvement blogs. Supposedly practitioners can cure their ailments, forgo sleep, exist forever in the moment, and even cure cancer!

I’m joking, of course. But meditation is attributed to so many benefits I’ve lost count of them.

It can even help build willpower by improving focus, impulse control, and self-awareness. One thing I’ve noticed about meditation (on those rare occasions when I do it) is how it expands the “window” between having a thought and responding to it.

So I can see how valuable this would be. If you notice those unhealthy impulses before you give in to them, it’s easier to change course before any damage is done. Each subtle correction builds your willpower just a bit more.

5. Change Your Environment to Take Willpower out of the Equation

One thing I’ve noticed about willpower failure: it often comes down to choice.

Do you take action to improve your life? Or give in to that temptation?

There’s always choice involved. And the more you make, the easier it gets to choose poorly.

But what if you stacked those choices in your favor?

Instead of forcing yourself to make certain choices, you change your environment to avoid them altogether.

Imagine how this might work. Most of us who work on a computer always have a choice to keep working or hop onto social media. Every moment becomes the host of a subconscious battle. It can get exhausting in a hurry!

But if you tried one of those fancy internet blocker tools to cut off the problem sites?

Now you don’t have to make that choice anymore. You free up mental energy to be creative and pursue a better life.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Considering how subtle changes to my environment will help me eliminate bad options and give me better ones.

I’m sure there are a few ways you can do the same.

6. Kill the People Pleaser

This guy is my nightmare.

He’s the laugh at bad jokes, go along just to get along mask I wear. All too often, I find myself letting him run the show. And what happens? My goals and preferences are swallowed up by others’.

(This is probably why I’m so attracted to antihero characters. They do what they want. Fuck everyone else and their expectations.)

Maybe this sounds familiar to you.

But if we want to maximize our willpower, we have to kill the people pleaser!

Changing the way you behave and present yourself – just to be more pleasing to someone else – is exhausting. It’s a minute by minute psychological toll from which it’s hard to recover. With your willpower worn down, it’s easier to make bad decisions in other aspects of your life.

I don’t have many practical tips how to kill the people pleaser – other than to just notice him whenever you can. Feel that sensation in your body? That subtle tension? Take a few deep breaths, relax, and remember that other people are hardly even noticing anyway. They’re too wrapped up in their own thoughts to care.

7. Stop Lying to Yourself and Track Your Progress

Even if we’re honest with others, we have a tremendous capacity to lie to ourselves.

Everything we experience gets filtered through the lens of our personalities. Even seemingly concrete memories are skewed versions of actual events. Hence the wildly inaccurate nature of eyewitness testimony.

“Reality,” as it were, is open for interpretation.

We want to feel good about ourselves. So it’s only natural that we’d lie if that’s what it takes to do that. We tell ourselves we’re doing better than we really are – despite zero concrete record to support us.

This is something I learned about a year back. My perception of how hard I worked, how long I slept, and how well I ate was woefully inaccurate. But I didn’t realize it until I started writing that stuff down.

You can do the same. This doesn’t have to be a huge chore; it can be as basic or complicated as you want it to be. Pick one aspect of your life you’re trying to improve, and record your performance day in and day out.

The results will surprise you. Once the cold slap of reality wears off, it’s easier to take action and improve.

I’m with Peter Drucker on this one:

What gets measured, gets improved.

Until you know what the baseline is, it’s next to impossible to build willpower!

8. Avoid Stress – and Get Better at Managing It

Stress and willpower have a… complicated relationship.

They’re kind of like Superman and Lex Luthor. When Superman is kicking ass, Lex is scurrying away with his tail between his legs. And vice versa.

Cortisol, the hormone made in the body when you’re stressed out, ties them together.

When stress increases, so does cortisol. And high cortisol levels absolutely wreck your willpower.

That’s why we have to avoid stress whenever we can – and manage it well in all the other cases.

We have to sleep enough, eat enough, and exercise. Self-care (which seems to mysteriously disappear whenever I’m writing a new novel) helps keep our willpower muscle limber and well-rested.

You can also willingly expose yourself to stress, which acclimates your body to handle it better.

Hormesis is the term. The idea is to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to increase your body’s stress-management capacity. Cold showers are my nemesis. But they leave me with a ton of energy, a better mood, and a stronger immune system. All thanks to the gradual exposure to stress.

Go slowly with this to make sure you don’t overdo it. You have to confront an uncomfortable truth: your willpower might be so shoddy because you crumble in the face of the slightest stress. You can change that!

9. Say “I Don’t,” Not “I Can’t”

Building willpower isn’t exactly the sexiest idea.

Most of the time, it feels like a real drag.

There are already so many rules life imposes on us. Why impose even more?

But just a subtle change in language can alter how you feel about the process.

For many people, building willpower is entering the world of “I can’t.”

I can’t eat pizza. I can’t sleep in. I can’t screw around watching clips of Conan’s “Clueless Gamer” on YouTube. It’s boring and restrictive.

“I don’t” is powerful.

Whenever you can, change the way you talk to yourself. Shift the I can’t to I don’t.

This is powerful. Instead of framing the process as a series of restrictive choices, you frame it as becoming a completely different person.

10. Forget Everything You Heard About Willpower Being Expendable

Wait… what?!

Didn’t I just rant this entire post about willpower being limited – a muscle you could train but will eventually get depleted?

Bear with me here. While some researchers accept that position, buying into it ourselves can be unnecessarily limiting.

A 2010 Stanford University study found that rejecting the belief that willpower is limited actually makes it last longer than believing it is. So, even if the willpower is like a muscle that gets tired throughout the day, refusing to see it that way will help you in your quest for a better life.

Sounds strange, I know. But the mind is incredibly powerful. Think of this as the willpower placebo effect.

Pay the Price

The most important ingredient separating you from your dream life?

It isn’t money, fame, or your friends’ approval.

It’s willpower.

Willpower gives you the ability to actually do what you say you’ll do. While everyone else slacks off and watches their dreams drift by, you’ll be grinding. Executing. Getting shit done.

Training this is a lifelong endeavor. There’s no better time to start than today.

Is there a price involved?

Of course. But there always is. You either pay the price to build willpower now, or you pay the price of regret until you’re dead.

It’s up to you.

Are you creative?

Do you have what it takes not just to live well, but to produce work innovative and original enough to change the world?

Maybe your jaw clenched after that last line.

I don’t blame you.

Creativity is confusing, intimidating, and downright scary. It’s nothing if not a loaded subject.

We’ve developed preconceived notions about what it takes to be creative. Many of us – myself included – like to distance ourselves off from this very human process. Creativity is reserved for “creative people.” It comes easy for them. But not for squares like us!

Which brings us to the heart of the issue: is creativity innate, or something we can develop?

It takes some digging to get to the truth.

Dissecting The Creative State of Mind

You’re probably well aware of how useful creativity is. Coming up with groundbreaking ideas on command can help you regardless of what kind of life you’re trying to live.

Not to mention being creative is just fun…

Most of us spend too much time plodding around in the carefully-constructed boxes society creates for us. It’s only natural that we get tired of paying that game. Sometimes we just want to flip over the board and try something new.

Assuming, just for a moment, that creativity can be developed, how would you do it?

It’s a mental skill. That’s what makes it tricky. It’s way easier to break down physical skills into manageable, trainable tasks.

Say you’re training for your first marathon. An intimidating thought, for sure. But breaking it down into smaller elements – proper stride, pacing, finding the right running shoe, nutrition, etc. – make it less so. Books arrange those topics into formulas you can follow.

But trying to train creativity?

That sounds tricky for even the staunchest control freak. Ask 100 people how they’d do, and you’d get just as many answers.

So much of creativity seems individual. In our best experiences, we feel more like receivers than active participants. The challenge is to capture all the creativity bursting through us in those moments – like radios tuned to the right frequency before the transmission inevitably turns back to static.

With that said, just because creativity is mental doesn’t mean we can’t train it.

How to Train Your Creativity

How did famous creatives become that way?

I decided to dig into their habits, and am incorporating eight of them to be more creative in my life:

1. Make Generating Ideas a Habit

As children, we’re creative all the time. Because we’re just responding to the way we’re wired naturally without fear of criticism, being creative becomes a habit we do every day.

It’s easy to fall out of that creative habit when we’re older, though. Decades of being told to sit down, shut up, and follow the rules will do that to even the most stubborn individual.

That’s why I’m working consciously now to rebuild the creative habit. The incredible blogger James Altucher gave me the idea of how to do this.

Altucher’s prescription is simple. All you have to do is write down 10 ideas a day. They can be about anything. Pet names, business ideas, things that scare you. Whatever. The key is to force yourself to come up with 10 every day.

This flexes your idea muscle. Writing them down is important too because it sends a signal to your brain to pay better attention. Simply knowing you’ll have to write down ideas today makes you more observant of details you would have missed.

2. Give Your Ideas Time to Incubate

Time is creativity’s greatest ally.

Forcing yourself to generate a lot of ideas is a great skill to develop. But learning to let those ideas marinate and choose the best one is just as important.

You have to give your mind time to breathe. If you come to a roadblock thinking of a problem, one of the most productive things you can do is to step away and engage in a different task.

This explains why over 70 percent of us have creative ideas in the shower! Our subconscious minds are incredibly powerful; they just need time and space to work.

Breaking the routine, stepping away, and sleeping give your ideas time to incubate. This is tough for me to follow because I get so impatient. I want to fill those plot holes in the novel I’m writing now. But the answer is usually to chill out and let my brain work behind the scenes.

3. Surround Yourself with Beauty, Creativity, and Inspiration

We are products of our environment. We can’t escape its influence. So we might as well make it a good one!

For many of us, our environment means a drab cubicle and a computer monitor. Shuffling through papers and dealing with the same coworker drama every single week. When everything around you is sucking our your soul, how could you feel inspired?

That’s why I’m working on tweaking my environment (wherever I can) to inspire me to be creative. My apartment walls are still pretty bare, but I’ve at least hung up a few cool art posters and found a home for my record player.

Some people love keeping toys on their desks. What you choose isn’t important – as long as it inspires you. Wherever you can, alter your environment to feed your creativity instead of drain it.

“Environment” also includes the people you hang around and the media you consume. Who do you think will feel more inspired: Suzie after a reality TV marathon with her negative friends? Or Bob after a trip to the art museum with his college professor?

Nurture your creativity like you’d nurture a delicate plant. Water it, and make sure it gets enough sunlight to grow healthy and strong.

4. Collect Experiences

Creativity isn’t coming up with novel ideas; it’s combining different ideas in novel ways.

That’s why it’s vital to open ourselves up to as many different experiences as possible!

The more experiences we have, the more raw materials our minds have to work with. Then, tomorrow or 10 years from now, a creative idea bursts forth. Often when we least expect it.

If you follow the exact same routine every day, you’re limiting your ability to be creative. At the very least, you can change aspects of how you get through your days without abandoning structure entirely.

You might work at the same time every day, but what if you tried a different route there? What if you ate different ethnic cuisine for a whole week straight? Seemingly small tweaks are often enough to spur different levels of thinking.

Creative geniuses all have one thing in common: a willingness for different experiences.

Take eastern mysticism, a love for typography, and LSD, and you get a Steve Jobs.

Get out there and travel. Go to the other side of the tracks. Build up your raw creative material, and don’t be afraid of being labeled unconventional or eccentric.

5. Ask Different Questions

Some of the best creative insights aren’t solutions; they’re simply different questions.

Take Henry Ford. While his engineers puzzled how to make car assembly more efficient (the current process was for people to gather around each car as they assembled it), he asked a different question: What if we moved the car parts instead of the workers? The assembly line was born.

If you don’t like the answers your mind is giving you, it’s time to ask some different questions.

This is why Sherlock Holmes is silent when first investigating a mystery. His sidekick Watson jumps to conclusions quickly. But Holmes doesn’t make any snap judgments; he coolly, carefully considers the possibilities.

We can’t be afraid to turn the problem on its head. What if the problem wasn’t a problem at all, but an asset? What if instead of “either or” the question was how to do “both?”

6. Get Moving

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Creativity doesn’t happen within the comfy walls of your home. It happens out there, in the real world where things get messy.

The mind and body are inextricably linked. Watch a kid create something, and there’s usually a flurry of activity. They’re running around, making voices and acting out the whims of their imagination.

This explains why some of the most prolific geniuses loved walking and other physical activities. An active body supports an active mind. It also gives your ideas time to incubate as you mull over a problem or brainstorm a creative solution.

7. Let Yourself Be Bored

I firmly believe that we get creative ideas all day long. The problem is the voices are so soft most of us don’t hear them.

It’s easy to figure out why. From the moment we get up until we’re asleep, we’re swimming in a torrent of music, social media feeds, and conversations. The external stimuli drown out the creative voices.

The answer, then, is to pull away from those things and listen closer to the creative voices.

When’s the last time you sat quietly and just… allowed yourself to be bored?

I’m serious. Most of us haven’t done this for years. Not today, when hopping online or checking your texts is within arm’s reach.

It’s time to practice being bored. It sounds lame. But it might be just what you need to get into a receptive state and hear what your creativity is already telling you.

Try this for five minutes a day. Shut off all the electronics. Get away from the crowd and just allow yourself to be in isolation. If you find yourself getting bored, awesome! That happens right before your creativity steps in to entertain you.

8. Become Prolific

The most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work… It is only by going through a volume of work that… the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. – Ira Glass

The last suggestion I have for you is the most important one.

The best way to become more creative is to… keep creating.

Shocking, I know. But it’s amazing how easy it is to overlook this. It’s easier to agonize for years over creating something perfect instead of getting to work, finishing, then starting again.

The more time you spend creating, the better your skills become. The easier it is for you to slip into that judgment-free creative “zone” where there is only you and your unfiltered thoughts.

You can’t force yourself to become more creative on command. But you can force yourself to create more work.

Quantity begets quality.

The more ideas you work through, the better your chances of finding something revolutionary. This also keeps you from developing weird emotional attachments to a single work. It’s easier to move past bad feedback when your mind is already on the next project.

Picasso made more than 50,000 works of art. Mozart composed more then 600 musical pieces. Jimi Hendrix made around 70 albums – and he died at age 27!

If you want to become someone legendary – someone whose works echo through eternity – your best bet is to keep swinging.

I Have to Believe It (or I’d Be Miserable)

The techniques above give me solid reasons to believe I can train my creativity (and so can you). They’ve worked for some of the world’s great creative geniuses; they can work for us too.

But my strongest reason runs deeper than that: faith.

Here’s how I see this. I’m propelled to create. It is my compulsion. I’ve seen what kind of person I become when I bottle it up and refuse to give in. I don’t want any part of that again.

So I’m going to create regardless.

If I take the fixed view on creativity – that some people are just naturally creative while others aren’t – I’m resigning myself to a lifetime of disappointment. Every creative moment becomes another opportunity to beat myself up about not being more creative, or getting jealous of the artists whom I admire.

But if I take the dynamic view – that it’s something we can develop over time – every day becomes an opportunity to explore. Failures sting less. I know that, if I keep pushing, I’ll eventually find one of those ideas that makes everyone stand back and go hmm.

Creativity isn’t so much an act of learning as it is forgetting and remembering. Forgetting past failures and the fear of what people think. And remembering those feelings we had as children, when someone handed us some crayons and we just went wild.

The more creative work you do, the easier it is to get lost in the process. The easier it is to reclaim that sheer exhilaration.

Everyone Can Be More Creative

Every child is an artist; the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. – Pablo Picasso

I don’t think being more creative is like becoming a professional athlete or Nobel prize-winning physicist.

For top performers like those, it takes the perfect combination of genetics and experience. A guy who is hardly five feet tall and 100 pounds just isn’t going to become the next NFL sensation. No matter how hard he works.

It’s like role-playing games too. A priest or rogue with maxed out experience points won’t ever be as strong as a barbarian with the same experience points. The classes are built differently.

Creativity is different.

We were all children once. There was a beautiful time when we were impervious to self-doubt. An era when we followed our ideas with reckless abandon without stressing about looking foolish. We were massively creative.

That means we have all the “genetics” required to reclaim creativity in adulthood. To create is to be human.

If we all have the parts required, what separates the earth-shakers from the rest is the effort they put in to reclaiming that creativity. There’s nothing holding us back other than our own mental hangups about looking silly or failure.

Will those things happen in a creative life?

Absolutely!

But they’re all part of the process. Keep at it, and you’ll realize you’re still okay. Even after all the bumps and bruises.

The World Needs Your Unique Contribution

The world needs nothing more than your unique contribution.

Roll your eyes and scoff all you want, but deep down you know it’s true.

Inside each one of us lives a crackling radio – one dying to be tuned to the right creative frequency.

Will you do just that, and face the self-doubt and criticism head on?

Or will you die with the song still inside you, unheard of except in your dreams?

The choice, as always, is yours.