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People think that being “average” at something is inherent.
You’re either born “great” or you’re born average. And worse, once you become average, then you can no longer improve. They believe it’s set in stone and there’s nothing they can do about it.
They are just, well, average.
Consider this…
The next time you walk into the office,and that little voice in your head says, “Oh yeah, I said I was going to spend my first 15 minutes organizing my calendar instead of browsing Facebook,” listen to that voice and do it.
And when you walk into your first meeting, and that little voice says, “Oh yeah, I said I wanted to become a better listener,” make it a point to listen to what others have to say before speaking up with your own opinions.
And when you get started on whatever big project you’re facing that day, and that little voice in your head says, “Oh yeah, I promised myself I would work on not being so distracted,” turn off all distractions and put yourself in a position to succeed.
When you leave the office and you think about what to have for dinner,and that little voice in your head says, “Well, I really want McDonald’s, but I said I was going to start eating healthier,” go to the grocery store and buy some chicken and vegetables to cook up instead.
And as you’re eating dinner, and that little voice in your head says, “I know I really should work on my startup idea,”instead of pouring yourself another glass of wine and turning on Netflix, make some tea and get to work.
And as you start to get ready for bed,and that little voice in your head says, “I said I wanted to get fit, but I couldn’t make it to the gym today,” then, even if you’re exhausted, listen to that voice and do four sets of pushups in the middle of your apartment.
When you hop in the shower, and that little voice in your head says, “I really should scrub behind my ears; I never scrub behind my ears,” listen to that voice and just scrub behind your ears, jeez.
As you fall into bed and reflect back on your day, you will see that “greatness” is not a destination.
It is not a title.
It is not some mountain peak you climb and then one day “attain.”
Greatness is a series of daily habits.
It is a choice.
Which means if you want to stop being average, all you have to do is choose, in each and every moment, to listen to that little voice inside of you reminding you to be great.
The
most common and cliche’ advice about seeking a happy life and
prosperous career is to “follow your passion.” Millennials are notorious
for seeking fulfilling and passion-filled jobs, only to be left
disappointed and disappointing.
The primary problem, according to Newport, with the passion hypothesis is that all the attention is focused on the self. People
who want a job they are passionate about are less concerned about what
they can give to the world and are more concerned about what the world
can give to them.
There Is No “Right” Job
“Everything popular is wrong.” — Oscar Wilde
Most people are unsuccessful for a reason. They operate with faulty assumptions about how the world works.
One
of those assumptions is that we as people have preexisting passions we
need to “discover” and then follow. Famed psychologist and author of Mindset, Carol Dweck, would call this a “fixed mindset.”
Rather than selfishly seeking a life you’re passionate about, Newport recommends becoming a “craftsman,” wherein you develop rare and valuable skills. Newport calls these rare and valuable skills, “career capital.”
Here’s how this work:
You determine skills and abilities that would be useful to the world.
You set clear goals for mastering those rare and valuable skills.
You engage in deliberate practice, pushing your skills and abilities to mastery.
As
you develop confidence, you begin to deeply enjoy what you’re
doing — and become very passionate about it. As Newport explains, “Passion
comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something
valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much
less important than how you do it.”
As
your expertise, confidence, and passion grows, you begin to see your
work as a “calling” or “mission” (like passion and confidence, your
identity and personality are byproducts, not innate).
Because
you have developed such mastery of rare and useful skills, you have the
perspective and context to discern the “cutting edge” of your field.
You can then begin making distinct connections and projections into what has been dubbed, “The adjacent possible” which Steven Johnson described as, “a
kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of
things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.”
In other words, this is how you become an innovator and a shaper of societal and global change.
Quick Re-Cap of Takeaways and Then A Road-Map of the “How”
Here is a quick recap of the core ideas in developing mastery:
You don’t have an innate passion that you should “follow,” instead, your passion follows you
Confidence isn’t what leads to success, instead, successful behavior is what leads to confidence
As
you develop “career capital” through mastering rare and valuable
skills, you’ll begin to develop confidence, passion, and personality
Thus, your personality doesn’t shape your behavior, but instead, your behavior shapes your personality
You are the shaper of your identity, happiness, and the impact of your life’s work
If you believe the reverse of any of these things, you have a “fixed mindset,” which assumption will keep you stuck and rigid.
How To Develop Mastery, Make Millions, and Be Happy
“If
you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (“what can
the world offer me?”) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (“what can
I offer the world?”).” — Cal Newport
This
final section briefly sketches the “how-to” in developing mastery,
making millions, and being happy. All three of these things are
byproducts of making congruent, aligned, and consistent choices.
Develop Mastery
If you want to become successful, it’s better to follow what successful people did to get there than to follow what they do after achieving “success.”
What people do after becoming successful is often very different than what they did to get there. This is true for a few key reasons:
“What got you here won’t get you there.”
In other words, what got people successful isn’t what keeps them
successful. There are levels, and your strategy must change the higher
up you go. If you don’t evolve and adapt, you’ll plateau.
Which
is what most people do. They reach a certain level of success, become
comfortable, and stop growing. To quote Greg McKeown, “Success becomes a
catalyst for failure.”
In order to get out of a plateau, you must embrace a learner’s mind, leverage your position, and laterally jump into new projects that force new growth and development.
If you look at any person who is honestly seeking a higher level of success, they are usually waking up early, studying and learning lots, seeking advice and feedback, and creating, testing, and failing.
This
is harder to do once you’ve gained a certain level of expertise and
success. Once you become comfortable, it’s hard to go back to the
discomfort of learning and humility. Some of the world’s most famous
chef’s continually remake their menu from scratch, even after they’ve
become world-class and received global recognition, because for them,
it’s about the process of growth and creativity.
According
to Tucker Max, many people who become good at something immediately
believe they are good at everything. They aren’t. And this is a key
reason many successful people plateau. They get “fat and lazy,” and stop
doing high quality work and pushing themselves to greater mastery. They
stop thinking about what they can do for the world and instead focus on
what the world can do for them. According to Cal Newport, if you stop
developing more “career capital,” it begins to fade away. You can only
use up so much of what you got until you have to get more. Career
capital is a resource that you use. And if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.
Make Millions
“Life gives to the giver and takes from the taker.” — Joe Polish
Developing mastery to the point of making actual impact will not develop until you begin:
Investing in yourself, and
Investing in key relationships
If
you invest in the stock market, you may be able to get a 10–15% return.
However, when you invest in yourself and in relationships, you can
often get a 1,000% or 10X return.
According to Strategic Coach founder, Dan Sullivan, growing by 10X is actually easier than growing by 2X.
When
you make investments in yourself, you shatter unhealthy and limiting
subconscious patterns. You upgrade your sense of what you can be, do and
have.
When
you invest in key relationships, you put yourself into proximity to the
best and most generous mentors available. You gain immediate access to
people and ideas that could never have been possible without such
relationships.
Investing
actual dollars in both yourself and others dramatically changes the
psychology of things. When you invest in yourself, you become highly
committed to what you’re doing. Investing in yourself is an act that
facilitates what Charles Darwin would call, “Selective Pressure,”
which is a phenomenon that alters the behavior and fitness of living
organisms within a given environment. It is the driving force of
evolution and natural selection.
Investing in yourself creates internal supply
to match the external demand of the investment. The bigger you invest,
the bigger the psychological leap — which then facilitates a radical
upgrade in behavior, confidence, harmonious passion, and outcomes.
Investing
in relationships creates the optimal level of synergy — where both
parties can go higher and deeper than ever before — because both are
invested in each other. Crazy stuff happens when you invest dollars into
the causes and cares of other people. It changes the dynamics of the
relationship incredibly. Those you invest in will go above and beyond to
help you in all you’re doing. It becomes more than a relationship — it
becomes a mission to help you and what you’re doing.
Joe
Polish, founder of Genius Network, has what calls the “Magic Rapport
Formula,” which leads to 10X relationships and growth, and includes the
following concepts:
Focus on how you will help them reduce their suffering
Invest time, money, and energy on relationships
Be the type of person they would always answer the phone for
Be useful, grateful, and valuable
Treat others how you would love to be treated
Avoid formalities, be fun and memorable, not boring
Appreciate people
Give value on the spot
Get as close to in-person as you can
When
you engage with givers who operate by these principles, incredibly
synergistic possibilities arise. I’ve engaged in such possibilities, and
can honestly attest to the 10X principle. My income has gone up at
least 10X the last three years in a row — from making basically nothing
to making seven figures — and I anticipate 10X continuing to happen as I
humbly engage these principles.
The
only way this is possible is by continually honing your “career
capital,” investing in the right relationships, and then generously
GIVING your rare and valuable skills to the success of other people’s
goals.
It is by giving that your rare skills and abilities continue to develop and grow.
It is by giving and investing in other people that your network becomes
world-class and your ability to make lots of money becomes easy. Your
network is your net worth.
Be Happy
“Don’t
aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more
you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be
pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side
effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or
as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.” — Viktor E. Frankl
Happiness is a byproduct. You cannot pursue it directly. It comes from dedicating yourself to a cause you firmly believe.
In
order to dedicate yourself to a cause you believe in, you must invest
yourself in the development of rare skills and abilities, which then
lead to confidence, passion, and purpose. That purpose is your “cause,”
which you now have skills and passion to contribute to.
You love what you invest yourself in.
Happiness comes from investing yourself deeply into something and someone other than yourself.
Happiness can’t come from following a self-centered and obsessive passion
aimed only at making yourself feel good. Happiness comes from
self-growth and using that growth to make the world a better place.
Either you’re focused on:
Growth or greed (“what can I give to the world” vs. “what can the world give to me”)
Giving or taking
Nurture or nature
Possibility or rigidness
You’re
happiest when you’re growing and giving. When you’ve become dedicated
to something bigger than yourself. When you’re engaged in work you have
control and autonomy over and which work is making a tangible impact in
the lives of other people. You can only have this type of work by
developing mastery, investing in others, and being a giver.
There
is an appalling amount of real misery and suffering in the world. It is
not far away from us. It lies at our very doors. All of us need a
feeling of deep sympathy or sorrow for another who is stricken with
misfortune, accompanied by the strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
Let
your feelings be at hand, and feel and commiserate as soon as touched.
Let your tenderest feelings come in contact with the miseries of the
distressed as soon as ever they present themselves.
A
feeling of their sorrows and weaknesses. A benevolence, which excludes
no person, not even strangers or enemies, from its tender regards, which
disdains no condescension, grudges no cost, in its labors of love!
Inward pity and compassion to distressed objects, the most tender regard
to persons in misery, and such compassion as is free from all hypocrisy
and deceit is the need of the hour.
The heart, even more than the brain, determines you.
Real
strength or weakness is closely linked with moral nature. One may have
the beauty of Venus and the charms of Cleopatra, and another the figure
of Adonis and still be void of “good” manners. Stand by the weak and
defenseless. There is no nobler feature in anyone’s character than a
determination to do this.
There
is no good in a sour, misanthropic temper. None in rudeness, stiffness,
and repulsiveness. None in violating the rules of good breeding.
Compassion
prompts us to do good to all, to forget all national or sectional
distinctions, and to aid all those who are in circumstances of poverty
and want. It would be the most lovely and desirable principle on earth,
and all, especially in their early years, should seek it. Nothing that a
young person can gain will be so valuable as the feeling that regards
all the world as one great family, and to learn early to do good to all.
Be even to thy enemy in distress as kind, humane, and merciful. Let a
young person have a large mental capacity, it will not weigh for much if
that be all.
Compassion Heals.
All
who are afflicted know how much it diminishes their sorrow to see
others sympathizing with them. How sad would be a suffering world if
there were none who regarded our griefs with interest or with tears! It
would be miserable if every sufferer were left to bear their sorrows
unpitied and alone and if all the ties of human sympathy were rudely cut
at once, and people were left to suffer in solitude and unbefriended.
We
owe sympathy to others because it is an effective means of contributing
to their moral perfection, and because by withholding it we inflict on
them a grave moral inquiry. We are tenderhearted or compassionate when
we feel affection for someone else, when we look beyond our pain to see
the pain of others. It not only lessens the misery of humanity but also
unites humans to each other as to make them responsible for the good and
comfort of one another.
While
we differ in “opinions”, we should still treat each other kindly, that
we should aid each other in necessity. A good thing done 3,000 years ago
works now, and will work through all endless times and years. No good
effort has ever been lost, or ever can be.
Those who teach the most about humanity, aren’t always humans— Donald L. Hicks
GIRAFFE
Never mind how hard you fall, always remember to pick yourself up and get back on your feet. When a baby giraffe is born, he falls from an altitude but manages to stand in his own feet.
EAGLE
Eagles have excellent vision and concentration. To catch their prey, they focus on it with laser like intensity,
and set out to get it. We should also do the same with our goals, by
focusing on one task at a time. Many obstacles will come in our way to
distract us but we should stay focused on our goal. Give our full effort to it until the task is accomplished.
DOG
Source : youtube.com
Dogs are the only animal that is committed and loyal towards their taker. They teach us the loyalty and commitment towards our work also teaches us to Love Unconditionally …
CHAMELEON
Chameleons are mostly known for their ability to adapt
to their surroundings in order to catch their preys. Just like that, we
should also be adaptable & flexible to our surroundings in order to
achieve our goal.
WOLF
Wolves
can live in any situation. They can make the most of the available
resources. Similarly, we humans should also try to make ourselves
comfortable in every circumstances life puts us in.
DONKEY
Donkeys know the value of hard work and they know how to keep calm in tough times. Likewise, we can also deal calmly with our lives when the time is tough.
SHEEP
Sheep’s are the symbol of innocence and purity. But on the other hand, they are also known for making sacrifices. Similar is the case with us, in life we also have to make many sacrifices but that doesn’t mean we have come to an end in life.
CAMEL
Camels know how to survive in toughest conditions. They keep moving until they reach their destinations. We humans should also keep moving until we reach our destination i.e. our goal.
COW
Cows are generous, patient, selfless and loving.
Cows have a carefree attitude and they give love to others. Just like
cows, we all should try to be patient in every circumstances of life and
we should live in harmony with others.
PIGS
We can learn a very important lesson from pigs. To love yourself…and be proud of it. To accept yourself, to accept what you are and accept the way you are.Simply saying Be Yourself.
ANTS
Ants do teamwork. Ants work well together. They do not stop until they accomplish their work.You Can Find More here….
BUTTERFLY
They don’t harm others.Butterflies
pass through so many painful stages of their life then also they don’t
harm others but simply live their life. Similarly, if we can silently
endure our hardships without hurting others then that adds beauty to our
hardship and above all makes us a better human being.
Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine-Jack Ma
Life
Evolves! Our perception towards life is different in different phases
of our life, be it our childhood days, teen days or as an adult. Every
act we perform today impacts our life in one way or other.
We
are all now busy in building a better future for ourselves. To get a
better tomorrow means to do something Everyday, do something which will
improve us, make us a better person. Everyone wants to have a better future, but does everyone get it?
There
are many obstacles which come in the way of building a better tomorrow.
But it depends on you, how hard do you push when you face obstacles?
How many times do you get back afterlife has beaten you down time and
time again?
The quality of your life, quality of your future depends on the effort you put today.
GIVE UP ON THESE IN ORDER TO IMPROVE YOURSELF:
Image Courtesy: Quickmeme
Give up Your Need of Approval from others
Give Up Taking “No” As an Answer
Give Up Distinguishing Between Your Private and Work Life
Give Up Your Reluctance to Ask For Help
Give Up Fixing Your Weaknesses
Give up your excuses
Give up multitasking
Give Up Your Dependency on Willpower
Give Up Waiting for Luck
Give up Other People’s Versions of Success
Stop associating with Toxic People
Believing you’re not up for the challenge
Undervaluing what you have
Competing with other people
Seeking permission from others
Ignoring the vision you have for your future
Waiting to start
Not setting yourself up to win before you start
HOW TO IMPROVE YOURSELF:
1. Appreciate the under-appreciated:
Some
jobs require more effort than skill. The difference is in the effort.
All around you are people who work hard with little or no recognition. Vow to be the person who recognizes at least one of them every day.
Do
more than say “thanks” to a person who does a thankless job. Exchange a
kind word. Not only will you give respect, you’ll also gain the best
kind of respect — the respect that comes from making a difference,
however fleeting, in another person’s life.
2. Answer the “unasked” question:
For
a variety of reasons — maybe they’re hesitant, or insecure, or
shy — people often ask a different question than the one they really
want answered.
Behind
many questions is an unasked question. Pay attention so you can answer
that question; that is the answer the other person doesn’t just want to
hear… but needs to hear.
3. Don’t wait for anything:
You
don’t have to wait to be discovered. You don’t have to wait for an
okay. You don’t have to wait for someone else to help you. You can just
do whatever you want to do. You may not succeed. But you don’t have to
wait.
4. Appreciate whatever you have:
You
have big plans. You have big goals. You’re never satisfied, because
satisfaction breeds complacency. So most of the time you’re unhappy
because you think more about what you have not achieved, have not done,
and do not have.
Take a moment and think about what you do have, professionally and personally. At this moment you have more than at one time you ever thought possible. Sure,
always strive for more… but always take a moment to realize that all
the things you have, especially your relationships, are more important
than anything you want to have.
Appreciate whatever you have, because it’s real, and it’s awesome and it’s YOURS.
5. Love your work:
Love
your work, when you’re working, that feeling shows in everything you
say and do. Love is a feeling, and feelings are often selfish. Turn your
feelings into an action. Actively love the people you love. Show them
you love them by words and deeds.
6. Be Yourself:
You
worry about what other people think. Yet no matter how hard you try,
you can’t be all things to all people. But you can be as many things as
possible to the people you love. And you can become the best version of
yourself.
Be yourself, that’s the one thing you can always do better than anyone else.
7.Set Goals:
Set
goals for yourself, where you want to see yourself after 6months, one
year, or 2years. Don’t get upset if you can’t do this right away. Start
small and just begin to visualize.
8. Accept Failure
Newsflash
you are going to fail. You are going to fail many times in life.
Failing is Okay. In fact, you should embrace failure. When you stretch
beyond your comfort zone, you are growing as a person. It is only
natural that you will fail. Don’t fall for the lie that failing is bad.
9. Learn a New Skill
Learning
a new skill breeds confidence in us. When we learn something new, we
get excited and are eager to learn more. This increases our self
confidence and we grow and want to learn more. It’s a cycle that fuels
itself.
So
what is it that you have always wanted to learn but always put off?
Write a short list of things and then start working on learning those
new skills
10. Don’t waste Time:
Take
some time to understand how you waste time and become more productive
with your time. Read more. Learn about something new. Spend more time
with loved ones. These are self growth activities that will lead to
happiness and success.
11.Deal with Negative Thoughts and Emotions:
You will always have critics, including yourself. You need to learn to deal with any negative thoughts and emotions you have.
At first, you may find this difficult to do. But over time, controlling your thoughts will become easier.
Understand that negative thoughts will always be with us.
12.Surround yourself with Positive People:
If
you are always hanging around with unmotivated people, you too will be
unmotivated to succeed in life. On the other hand, if you hang around
with successful people, you too will find success.
13.Reflect:
At
the end of the day, reflect on what happened. Was it a good day? Even
if bad things happened, find ways to spin them into something positive.
In other words, don’t let the negative thoughts take root in your mind.
Be thankful for all that happened to you today and vow to be an even
better person tomorrow.
14.Overcome your Fears:
All
of us have fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of
risk… All our fears keep us in the same position and prevent us from
growing. Recognize that your fears reflect areas where you can grow. I
always think of fears as the compass for growth. If I have a fear about
something, it represents something I’ve yet to address, and addressing
it helps me to grow.
15.Ask for feedback:
As
much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking for
feedback gives us an additional perspective. Some people to approach
will be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since
they will have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively.
ASK YOURSELF:
If what you are doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow?
How much effort you put in today to guarantee the future? To guarantee the empire that you dreamed of as a kid?
Most of us claim that we have been working hard because we got tired.
You
worked until you got tired. Tired is not equal to hard work. It’s how
hard you work after you get tired. When you get tired, that is when the
real work starts.
If
you want better than average, you have to work harder than the average
to get the desired result in the future. If you want greatness, your
effort must be greater than great. Your level of effort equals your
level of results.
Give your all every day, every minute of every day. Your best effort in each present moment, will lead to your best future moments.
Leave
the past behind, so you can focus on your future. We must let go of our
past pain, our struggle, our story, not because it wasn’t important but
because your future is more important.
Leave the darkness of your past behind so you can focus on letting the light of your future.
DO THESE THINGS FOR A BETTER TOMORROW:
Learn
to love yourself, because if you appreciate the person you are, you
will be able to ooze love and appreciation to everyone else around you.
You won’t have moments of insecurities or uncertainty.
Get rid of the things you don’t need in your life and replace them with things that bring you happiness and success.
Put your best foot forward and never let yourself turn up under dressed and without the enthusiasm your life deserves.
Be happy for yourself and for others.
Create opportunities for yourself and others
Never sacrifice your integrity.
Change the behaviors you have that you don’t like, don’t just accept them.
Challenge yourself and push yourself to do better, to be better and to make a difference to the world you live in.
Love unconditionally in a way that people will remember you for long after you have left this world.
Michael Phelps
is considered the greatest Olympian swimmer of all time. Everyone
thought that no swimmer would be able to win 8 gold medals in just one
Olympic Games. Michael
did just that and he has 19 Olympic medals, 15 of which are gold! The
remarkable thing about him is that as a child he suffered from ADHD and was on medication for some of that time. Most people assume that people with ADHD
suffer from restlessness, impulsiveness and a very short attention
span. But they also have an incredible capacity to remain hyper focused
on an activity they are passionate about. Michael has been able to use
this with enormous success. By channeling his energy and focus, he has
been able to exploit the positive side of ADHD.
Phelps
has shown that he can beat the most disciplined and strongest swimmers
in the world and is an inspiring example to anyone who suffers from a
mental disorder or other disability. He has another secret in that he uses the power of visualizing success before he starts any swim. He started this process when he was only 7 years old. He realized there were no limits to success and once you are passionate about your objective, nothing can stop you.
CONCLUSION
ALWAYS REMEMBER:
· The pain that you feel today will be the strength that you will feel tomorrow.
· The future depends on what you do today.
· Do something today that your future self will thank you for.
· You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
· Start everyday with a new hope, leave bad memories behind, and have faith for a better tomorrow.
If
you found this helpful, please help in spreading this message by
recommending this post. Also, feel free to share your own ideas about
this in the responses below. Thanks for reading 😀…
The
amount of bad writing advice out there is astounding. People who have
never published anything selling courses on how to make a career as a
writer. Terribly written Medium articles telling you how to improve your
prose. Marketing books from writers who not only haven’t sold many
books — but their own marketing books don’t sell. All this bad advice
adds up and makes a harder thing — an already difficult industry to
navigate — even harder.
Over the last year, I’ve been lucky enough to interview some of the best writers on the planet for WritingRoutines.com. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to be able to ask Pulitzer Prize winners, #1 New York Times
best-selling authors, brilliant novelists, talented journalists and
expert communicators about how they practice their craft. I got valuable
lessons from each one. I’ve collected a few of the best below,
alongside some of the insights — or hacks as we call them today to get
more people to click — from writers I wish were still alive to interview
or ones I wish to interview someday if the opportunity presents itself.
I hope you learn as much from them as I did. Enjoy!
***
Devote Yourself to Someone Greater First
“If
I am asked today to advise a young writer who has not yet made up his
mind what way to go, I would try to persuade him to devote himself first
to the work of someone greater, interpreting or translating him. If you
are a beginner there is more security in such self-sacrifice than in
your own creativity and nothing you ever do with all your heart is done
in vain.”
— Stefan Zweig, author of The World of Yesterday and in the 1920’s and 1930’s was one of the most popular authors in the world
Wake Up Early And Read, Read, Read
“I
wake up around 5am. I have 2–3 cups of coffee. I read and read and read
for two hours. I read high quality literary fiction to be inspired,
high quality non-fiction about a topic I am fascinated by in order to
learn, I read inspirational or spiritual writing to feel that special
something inside, and often I will spend some time studying a game. Then
I might read the literary fiction some more. At some point, I get the
urge or the itch to put the books away. I go to my computer and start to
write.”
“It
was a time everyone was pressing wonderful houses on us. ‘I have a
perfectly marvellous house for you to write in,’ they’d say. Of course
no one needs marvellous houses to write in. I still knew that much. All
you needed was one room. But somehow the next house always beckoned.”
— Budd Schulberg, author of What Makes Sammy Run? and the Academy Award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront
Edit Ten Times
“I
repeatedly edit it many times, at least ten. I just keep on doing it,
until I can’t think of further improvements. I can’t say that is a
process in any formal sense, simply a recognition that the “process” to
date hasn’t worked very well and so it must continue. I don’t pretend
this is efficient.”
— Tyler Cowen, economics professor, author of Average Is Over and contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and many other publications
Nobody Gets Talker’s Block
“No
one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers
he has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the
muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his
life has died down.”
— Seth Godin, New York Times bestselling author of Purple Cow and more than 20 other books
Do the Three Passes of Editing
“[My
editing] rests on three passes. The first pass is when you write the
best chapter you can. The second pass comes later once the whole book
(or whole part of the book containing the chapter) is done. During this
pass, I come back to the chapter on my computer and cut and tighten. The
final pass is when I read through a printed version of the chapter on
paper. Reading on paper is necessary if you’re going to root out odd
constructions or minor errors.”
“The
way out of this mess is through. A friend of mine who used to do
long-distance running gave me some advice on dealing with pain as a
writer. “What do you do about the cramps?” I asked. I was noticing they
hit my in the gut usually at the three or four mile mark. I thought he’d
have some great advice on how to avoid them altogether. In fact, I
assumed this was the case. His answer surprised me, though. ‘Cramps?
What do I do? I keep running, and eventually they go away. I run through
the cramps.’ What do I do when I feel blocked? I write through the
block.”
“I’m
an “absolute quiet” kind of person. If I’m writing at home, and there’s
any noise at all, such as my wonderful hubby puttering around and
coincidentally clearing his throat, I wear my Peltor Sport Ultimate 10 Hearing Protector Earmuffs.
I’m so used to them that when I need to concentrate, I put them on even
when there isn’t any noise. Earmuffs are like a signal to my
brain — Okay, focus! On planes, I often wear noise canceling
headphones.”
“It
really depends on the genre of work I’m doing–I always try to keep
models in mind, though the model will change depending on what I’m
working on. For the book on Cato the Younger, Jimmy Soni and I were constantly referring to Tom Holland’s book on the Roman Republic, Rubicon; for our book on Claude Shannon, to James Gleick’s The Information and Sylvia Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind.For my academic work, people like Danielle Allen are great models.”
“Don’t
lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t
have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true
blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your
bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.”
“Writer’s
block is miserable and part of it can be just being in a really bad
place. Sometimes if you’re just in a bad mental place, it doesn’t matter
what work you put in. You have to fix bigger things than your writing.”
— Hari Kondabolu, the comic who the New York Times called “one of the most necessary political comedians working today.”
Get a Giant Sketchpad
“Notebooks
have always been big for me, both in the early stages of a new project
and as a way to get myself unstuck if I’m struggling. But I have giant,
chicken-scratch handwriting, and would always end up jotting down
thoughts over half a dozen pages and then never really looking at them
again. I have probably fifty illegible notebooks sitting in desk
drawers, and I would easily have filled fifty more had I not been
introduced to the most elegant solution by a friend, the author Ashley
Cardiff: A sketchpad. A 9-by-12-inch artist’s sketchpad. This has been
my great revelation. It’s unlined so I can read my bad handwriting and
large enough that I can group several ideas together on the same page.
Plus, it gives me an excuse to buy fancy mechanical pencils.”
— Liana Maeby, author of South on Highland, which actor/writer BJ Novak called “the kind of book kids will steal from each other.”
It’s All Material
“I’m
never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I am
thinking, ‘Can I do something with that?’” [By the way, this advice echoes a phrase I’ve learned from author Robert Greene,
“It’s all material.” Meaning everything bad that happens, everything
frustrating or delayed or disappointing — all of it can be fuel for a
book. It can teach you something that helps you improve your business,
it can become a story you pass along to a friend.]
— Jerry Seinfeld, creator of Seinfeld and named by Comedy Central the “12th Greatest Stand-up Comedian of All Time.”
Understand How the Pieces Fit Together
“To
write a clean and fluent piece of any kind, you have to understand how
its various parts fit together — how a change here will affect something
over there. With a short piece, you never lose sight of the whole
because you can read and reread it many times as you work. That’s what I
do. I make a change and then I read the whole piece to see how it
works. But I can’t do that with a book, so I have to find other ways to
stay oriented. I reread or skim sections of the book that I know relate
to the part I’m working on, I keep notes about the larger structure, and
I use Word’s phrase-search function to move around and check up on
things. I also make a huge effort to commit as much of the book as I can
to memory. It’s exhausting and it seems psychologically damaging in
some way, but it helps me to understand when jokes need to be repeated,
how much space needs to intervene between similar kinds of scenes, how
ideas should be patterned, etc.”
— Aaron Thier, author of Mr. Eternity and recipient of a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts
Run to Keep Yourself Sane
“The
twin activities of running and writing keep the writer reasonably sane
and with the hope, however illusory and temporary, of control.” [This is
not unlike many other writers — including Murakami and Malcolm
Gladwell — who use running as a coping mechanism.]
— Joyce Carol Oates, author of over 40 novels, including Them, winner of the National Book Award
Before You Write, Crystallize Your Thinking
“If
I’m just starting, I never consider the page blank. I’ve been writing
in my head long before I sit down at the keyboard. In fact, I sometimes
start inadvertently, by describing to someone what I’m doing.
Conversation often crystallizes my own thinking far more effectively
than solitary reflection. When I put the first words down, I know
they’re likely to change, which I find liberating — no need to get it
perfect the first time. But I want the first sentence to set a tone or
indicate a theme for that chapter, so I have to start with a clear sense
of the meaning of the events that follow, and how I want the reader to
feel.”
“Don’t
start writing the play at once, but get a little notebook and put down
everything you think about your play in the notebook, just as the ideas
come to you without rhyme or reason especially. Let the play accumulate,
as I call it; let it percolate and stew in your mind; and write down
any ideas, bits of dialogue, descriptions, words — anything you think
you might be able to use. Many of these things will come to you
unconsciously while you are walking home from school, bathing, mowing
the lawn; be sure to get them all into your notebook.”
— E.P. Conkle, professor emeritus of drama whose plays have been produced on Broadway
Take the Necessary Medicine
“I
tend to edit heavily and repeatedly as I go along, so I don’t make the
distinction, at least by myself. For the books that I’ve written for a
larger public, however, I’ve had the help of an immensely gifted editor
(Alane Mason, at Norton), so there I do separate out the tasks: in
effect my own writing/editing; and then a further editing after
receiving her suggestions. I tend to hate the latter experience, though I
recognize that it is almost invariably good — a bit like swallowing
disagreeable but essential medicine.”
“When
I have writer’s block it is because I have not done enough research or I
have not thought hard enough about the subject about which I’m writing.
That’s a signal for me to go back to the archives or to go back into my
thoughts and think through what it is I am supposed to be doing.”
“What
am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom
will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?”
Then finish with these final two questions: ‘Could I put it more
shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?’”
“Writers
are usually encouraged to write a “vomit draft” and just get something
out, however terrible it is, in order to overcome The Fear, get some
momentum, and move to more of an editing mindset, where’s it’s less
scary to make progress. I don’t do that. I think that’s just a trick to
try and lower the stakes so you can overcome procrastination and The
Fear. And while it’s good for that, I think it’s bad in the long haul
because you’re producing a lot of junk and that’s going to be hard to
fully clean up. I treat writing a lot more like architecture. You
wouldn’t work without a blueprint, construct a crappy building, then
knock it down and build a better one. That would be ridiculous. You’d
put together a really tight blueprint, then construct the building once,
the right way, and if it needs tweaks, they’re relatively small. As the
old saying goes: ‘Measure twice, cut once.’”
“Never
stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but
turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.”
— Jeanette Winterson, a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award and author best known forOranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which was adapted into a BBC drama
You Don’t Need to be Kissed by a Muse
When
asked if writing comes easy: “Haha, no, I’ve not been kissed by a muse.
For me, writing is a craft that needs constant honing.”
“I’ve
got a theory that most writers are either frustrated musicians or
painters — and which of them you are depends on whether you write for
the ear or the eye. As a former musician and former speechwriter, I
definitely write for the ear. I listen to music all the time for
inspiration and energy. I tend to make playlists as the sound track for
writing different books. They serve as snapshots in time. So, I’ve got
one for Wingnuts — lots of The National, Drive-By-Truckers, Radiohead
and Randy Newman — and one for Washington’s Farewell that’s more
classical, jazz, the Americana series by Chris Thile, Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar
Meyer and the soundtrack to Hamilton.”
“I
try to imagine comments, questions, and criticisms that the book will
generate. Then I try to rehearse the reply or answer. My friends are
great critics of my writing and I always make sure they have read the
drafts and galleys and been brutally frank with me about their
reactions. They know I can take it.”
“I
remember Salman Rushdie telling me how he gives it the first energy of
the day. As soon as he gets up, he goes to his office and starts
writing. He’s still in his pajamas. He believes there is a “little
package of creative energy that was nourished by sleep,” and he doesn’t
want to waste it. He works for an hour or two and then goes to brush his
teeth. I have a very similar approach. Only I brush my teeth before I
start. I guess that’s my pre-writing ritual.”
— Cal Fussman, best known for the “What I’ve Learned”Esquire column and a master interviewer who has talked to the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Muhammad Ali, John Wooden, Richard Branson
