If you’re a creative and you’re in the thick of a long challenge, be encouraged that I feel the same way today.

Part of the reason creative people jump from project to project might be because they haven’t found the thing they love yet. But a more likely explanation is that they have unrealistic expectations for their work.

As a younger creator, this would be all I could have daydreamed about. My favorite living author reshared my work. Now that I have more experience, I realize this is just another day.

“I don’t believe in draining the reservoir, do you see? I believe in getting up from the typewriter, away from it, while I still have things to say.”

 “How much should you charge your client for a video that looks like this?”

Creative people like us are very good at thinking about “brand.” But this can get in the way and block us creatively when we think about it too much for ourselves. 

So is guilt, shame, and debt. You should do whatever it takes to reduce the amount of dread you feel about doing your creative work.

We say we want to direct films, write novels, and perform on stage, but we don’t put in the work to get there.

“The Self-Confidence Jar (SCJ) concept is simple,” Hickman says. “Every time you make a promise to yourself and keep it, you are adding a ball to the SCJ. Every time you make a promise to yourself and break it, you are taking out a ball from the SCJ.” 

Instead of your project being a neat and tidy two-week turnaround, it extends into a third, fourth, and fifth week.

I have a lot of motivational tricks to keep me writing. But at the heart of those tricks is love. They wouldn’t work if I didn’t love it.

I’m not turning down millions of dollars by any stretch, but taking time off work to write my book has been its own challenge.

Are there any creatives who are actually still growing on social in this year of our Lord 2025? The answer is yes, and his name is Seth Stern.

Why would I make one video in the same time it takes me to make six or eight? 

“[The professional] respects the resistance. He knows if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he’ll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.”

When I really don’t want to write my daily blog (or train for this marathon, or write my book, or create content) I’ve started telling myself something…

Zach and I discuss his experience taking on the Cretaive Consistency Challenge, and some untold origins of how it came to be. 

The Creative Consistency Challenge is 85% successful at getting people to produce creative work on any given day.

“You have to finish everything you said you're going to do. Following through is important.”

They force you to get your act together.