Share Your Work Publicly

The act that will uncover creative genius is by forcing yourself to create regularly and on a schedule, not just create when you feel inspired.

The best thing you can do is to do a huge volume of work. Creative genius becomes visible when you work consistently to get the average ideas out of the way.

Successful writers do not write elegant first drafts, nor do they feel wildly enthusiastic and confident.

Creating something useful and compelling means you have to permit yourself to let the inspiration flow. You will write a lot of junk but can then sift through it to find bits and pieces of brilliance here and there.

Stop researching, planning, and preparing. Just do the work.

It doesn't have to be brilliant. You just need to prove to yourself that you can produce something.

People who consistently create something will begin to judge their own work.

When you start to overjudge your work, it is natural to feel disappointed that your creation does not live up to your expectations. Practice enough self-compassion not to let self-judgment take over and prevent delivery.

Most groundbreaking work takes at least a full decade or more to reveal itself.

For example, one study found that of 500 famous musical pieces, nearly all of them were created after year 10 of the composer's career. Similar patterns were found with poets and painters and even in the fields of science and math. This period of hard work is also referred to as the 'ten years of silence.'