Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life

That’s the thing about creativity: You don’t need to see the whole path. You just have to take the next step.

The creative path is difficult enough; why couldn’t we help one another learn and grow?

Creative lives and creative careers are each designed. They happen intentionally. The so-called lucky ones, the people who live wildly creative lives or are paid to do what they love, built what they have deliberately and strategically. They created a vision and worked toward achieving it. Every one of them started exactly where you are now—or even

We internalize the idea that our calling is too risky, too impractical to even consider pursuing.

If your creative practice isn’t everything you’d always dreamed it would be by this point, isn’t it time to give up?

You’re reading this book because you’re not where you think you should be. This dissatisfaction may be driven by your resentments against fellow creators. Why did he get that award and not me? How did she get that grant while I applied eleven times? It might be driven by a relentless inner critic. This could be so much better. Why can’t I do this

What matters is that you start. All you’re deciding to do is to try. Do whatever you can with what you have. It will never feel like the right time. You will never be “ready.” Avoid preparing too much. Start before you are ready. Start with fear. Start with uncertainty. This is one of the biggest secrets of the most creative, happy, successful peop

In moments of self-doubt, adopt a new mindset: stop avoiding the things you don’t want and start chasing the things you do.

Saying that something is done means we don’t get to play in that particular sandbox anymore. That can create its own fear.