Episode 204: Liposuction For A Cause || Carrie, Donna, Bruce

What if cars had lockboxes to store cell phones while driving?

What if we used dogs instead of towels after showering? 

What if religions subsidized hover boards for unpopular teenagers? 

What if we repurposed unsightly cellulite as soap for third world countries?

In this episode of Steal Scott’s Ideas, Carrie, Donna and Bruce gather in St. Louis for some execution in public.

**Sponsored by Bother Box

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Execution Lesson 204: Bear witness to your invisible streams

Building momentum in the creative process is simple, but not easy.

Here’s the way you have to think about it. All momentum really needs to get started, is a moment.

Nothing complex and detailed. Just something that adds energy to the system. Now for most creators, that means sitting down and giving it their best shot, every day. Even if that session only lasts an hour. Even if that session only lasts twenty minutes.

The intoxication of flexing their intellectual muscles for that daily burst is a glorious feeling, and because of the potent halflife of creativity, that feeling will lasts until the next day when they sit down and get to do the work again.

And on that next day, they will have a little more momentum that before. Which will make them not want to break that chain.

That’s the simple part. Next, let’s talk about why this strategy is hard to execute.

First, because it requires deep intention. That requires making the daily negotiation of deciding how much meaning you need to make in order earn that feeling. It’s going to be different for every creator. Some use page quotas, some use time quotas, some use emotional quotas, and so on. Figure out what your critical number is ahead of time and stick to it no matter what. In my opinion, this is the hardest part of the process. It’s all mental.

Not to be overshadowed by the second hard part, which is the actual, physical labor of creating. It’s true, making our ideas real takes consistent and persistent application of energy toward those ideas. And if we can’t train ourselves to commit to trying, working hard, and giving it our all, then there is no hope for us.

The final hurdle that many creators struggle to overcome is the results piece. Because so much of the artistic battle is accepting the cold fact that we won’t know what the outcome will be, if any. We might spend the whole day creating shit work, or worse yet, staring at the screen creating no work.

Fortunately, there is a quiet glory of merely making things. And if we can learn to love that process despite the fruit it produces, then momentum will never elude us. If we can learn to bear witness to the invisible streams that move through us every day, and actually feel the things inside of is that needs to come out, then after a number of days, we will gain so much momentum that will become easy to succeed.

But it all begins with that moment. Something that adds energy to the system.