Excellence

Sometimes, it starts with fear.

Fear is your friend- an indicator of something you don’t understand. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn’t do but more often than not, it shows you exactly what you should do.

In the face of fear, experiment. Dive in, dig deep. Allow the experimentation to discover a style that resonates with you. Set aside time for play as the top priority of your creative process. Ignore your grand vision and ideals. Continuously play in the process. Herein lies the buds of excellence.

Excess effort is inevitable when you pick up a new skill. But you learn how to get more out of each movement and prune the wasted ones. This is the exercise of competence- where practice looks effortless. Herein lies the sheers of excellence.

Repetition of the best moves lead to muscle memory and requires minimal metacognition to manage. Your best effort optimizes for shortening creative time frames and the ability to still be prolific. Herein lies the knowledge of excellence.

A piece of art is sometimes created within a short period of time. Other times, it is the conclusion of a experimental series of smaller thought pieces reworked together. Regardless, the creative process will take as long as you let it.

Excellence is achieved when this painful process is easy.