I created this blog to display my creative pursuits as they develop and discuss the progress of some of my personal projects. I have recently graduated from college and am trying to decide in which direction to point my life. So far, my interests stretch across a vast creative odometer of mostly income-less activities! I'm currently working on writing three different novels (having recently completed my third, finished novel), a habitual journaler, I am a flawed cartoonist, a daily sketcher, a seasoned musician (primarily viola and violin but also guitar and piano), a frequent photographer, a stubborn knitter/crocheter, an inspired stitcher, and a happy painter! Basically, if I find some kind of material, I like to see what I can do with it! Always fun, never paid...
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about life, recently (graduating from college seems to free up a lot brain space for constructive musings). I think that success in life (at least in employment and/or personal goals) takes two things. First, I think there's always a lot of luck involved in any endeavor. Sometimes, it's just about being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, or saying the right thing and making yourself heard. But the other factor that I believe is essential to success is extremely hard work. I've recently been living my life by the idea that if you want to be good at something, it is essential that you do it every day, at least for a little bit of your time. Now, if you want to be really good at something, that's when you start doing it for hours upon hours each day.
That's why at the end of the day, I'm always scrambling to get in my word count on whichever writing project I find myself most attracted to, trying to play some kind of instrument, and do some drawing. If you try to incorporate important hobbies in your life each day, you have no choice but to get better. The more time you spend with something, the easier it is to pin-point your flaws and begin to improve them. More importantly, it gives you a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. No matter what happens, you've created something. It doesn't really matter if it's a piece of literary drivel or the most inspired writing you've ever created, it's still something you've done.
I'm not sure which book this is from, but sociologist Malcolm Gladwell writes (and this is vastly paraphrased so stick with me!) that every person who reaches the point of expertise in their field has spent at least 10,000 hours working on their selected skill or type of employment.
That's true dedication.
This resonates with my beliefs on success and reminds me of the thoughts of one of my favorite authors, Sara Douglas. I was reading her blog a few years ago and she discusses (once again, I'm paraphrasing) how annoyed she gets when individuals praise her for her "talent" at writing and express their desires at being born with such a "gift." She urges readers to understand that her skill at writing isn't something she was born with, as I'm sure many professionals would agree, but something at which she has spent years working. Of course, there are always highly-talented people who are born with natural gifts for certain things (Mozart anyone?) but the rest of us normal folks have to shut out distractions and hunker down to work, work, work.
Personally, I'm happy to have been born as the latter. I have spent a lot of time trying to learn the nature of discipline and I think all the work I've devoted to it has allowed me to establish good, creative habits to keep me motivated and continuously working.
Anyway, that's all for this evening. I hope you all have pleasant nights!
No comments:
Post a Comment