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I have spent years teaching about marketing, branding, blogging, social media, podcasting, speaking, ecourses, newsletters, websites, digital downloads, videos, and so much more. But I’m going to say it:

Creating is the best marketing. Period.

Meaning: doing more of your craft, publishing it and sharing it is the best way to develop an audience. That is what I am obsessing about in 2018. How can I create more. How can I encourage my clients and members of my mastermind to create more. How can I provide you more resources for you to create, and then use that as the foundation for powerful marketing.

I mean, look at the “books” pages of authors such as Joanna Penn, Jonathan Maberry, or Chuck Wendig. Their output is consistent, and a little bit astonishing.

For visual art, look at the Instagram feeds of Debbie Ridpath Ohi, or Lori Richmond, or Elise Blaha Cripe. It is filled with the creation of new art. Some are big projects, others side projects, and some mere experiments.

For each of these people, they have focused on craft first, and connected it quickly to publishing and sharing. And it reminds me of a video from illustrator Jake Parker that resonated with me called “You Need a Product Not a Project”:

There is so much wisdom in the video, including this nugget: “The world desperately needs people who finish things.” In other words: your writing and art can’t change people’s lives if you don’t finish and share it.

For myself, this year is about focusing on creation first, with two big goals:

• Publishing more books. Yes, I write every day, but I have only published one book. That changes this year. I am now writing for much longer each day, 7 days a week, and feel a clear drive towards finishing instead of just crafting.
• Learning to play guitar properly. I have dabbled with the guitar for more than 20 years, but this is the year that I will finally master that craft. Much like writing, I am practicing every day, often multiple times per day. I am following the guide of JustinGuitar.com (wonderful resources that one of my Mastermind members turned me on to!)

I am a much better writer than guitar player, yet I have found that my guitar practice is already teaching me to be a better writer. I am reminded of the fundamentals of how to improve my craft and stay focused. What I am discovering is:

• I can optimize my days to fit in little “extra” moments to work on my craft. For the guitar this is may be a few moments of practice a chord change that I have trouble with. Just 5 minutes of rote practice. For my writing, I may flesh out an idea, or do a tiny bit of research.
• I need to be ready to create anywhere. For guitar that means I now have a guitar at my home office and one in my studio. I practice on an electric guitar that isn’t plugged in, so there is no noise to bother my family or neighbors. For writing, this means getting better at idea capture — via my phone, voice recorder, or small notebook.
• I need to stay accountable. I have someone on my team whose job it is to switch between the the role of Nurse Ratched and Mr. Rogers: to give me clear and firm accountability at times, and validating support at others.
• I have become more aware that my attention is a currency that I have to spend wisely. Picking up the guitar again, I got excited to produce some full songs, so I ordered an amazing keyboard (the Korg Minilogue) for an very low price on eBay. Going to sleep that night, I realized something: every single moment I spend on that keyboard is a moment I am not practicing the guitar. I messaged the seller the next morning asking if I could cancel the order. My attention is a choice, and every “great deal” on a new piece of audio gear steals my attention from my craft.
• I have been surprised that one creative habit reinforces the others. The more I play guitar, the more I want to write. The more I write, the more I want to play guitar. This is a massive creative shift in terms of my mindset and enthusiasm each day for creation: it feels accessible, compelling, and like the obvious choice when I have a moment of downtime.
• Many (most) writers and artists I talk to experience some form of doubt or imposter syndrome in their lives. When you create every day, I find that these voices are more muffled — because it is more difficult to doubt your work when you see progress on a week-to-week basis.

I know that many of you look to me for tutorials and resources on marketing, so I will be working hard to provide that this year as well. Always feel free to email me and let me know the topics you most want to see me cover.

I also want to share with you a few amazing resources for writers focused on improving your craft and ability to publish. All of them involve my good friend Jennie Nash. She is a book coach, but she’s also a genius when it comes to writing, editing and books. She is the one who helped me when I was writing Be the Gateway, and she and I chat all the time about what it means to create great work, and best serve your audience.

She is offering three courses through Creative Live:

1. How To Land A Literary Agent
2. Self Publishing For the Entrepreneur
3. Take Your Writing From Good To Great

If one of these topics interests you, then show up for the live event!

When I worked with Jennie, I was amazed at the clarity she provided, helping me hone in on exactly the book I wanted to write, and then structuring the process in a way that felt completely approachable.

Creating is the foundation for sharing your work, growing your audience, and truly changing people’s lives with your writing or art. Make this the year where you create every day.

Thanks.
-Dan

Reminder: today is the last day to register for my Mastermind group which begins on Monday. Work directly with me to develop the power habits you need to find success with your writing and art. You can find details, a video walk-through and registration here.

There is enough room in the world for your writing, art, or whatever you choose to create. That is why I love working with writers and artists — none of us are playing a zero sum game. Regardless of what you create, it has an equal chance to inspire someone.

The challenges that we face as creators are actually things that unite us. 20 writers can sit side by side in a room crafting short stories, and each move an audience in unique and compelling ways.

This is why I spend each day working closely with writers and artists, and why I try to connect them to each other. Because together it is easier to overcome challenges of creating, publishing, and sharing. Together we discover new ideas, new processes, and new ways to understand our own creative visions.

At the end of each year, I analyze my work, and set a clear path for the new year. For 2018, I’m basing my plans on a single word prompt: “intention.”

Intention is the opposite of reaction. Reaction is when you fill your days feeling off course with your personal creative goals, because you are busy reacting what other people are doing. Reaction may look like this in your daily life:

• Checking email first thing in the day instead of first working on your writing, art, or other creative work.
• Scrolling endlessly (and often) through social media, clicking “like” again and again, instead of creating something unique yourself.
• Choosing check off items on your to-do list that provide the most immediate validation from others, even if it means pushing off more important goals. An example of this: how many of us know that we have a horrible fitness routine, yet we know all the gossip going on around town? Or all the latest sports scores. One provides immediate validation (gossip and sports scores), while the other (fitness) requires weeks/months/years of slow and lonely work. The same applies to how too often, we trade long term creative goals for short term validation.
• Operating from a place of fear of letting others down, instead of creating what you are capable of; the things that no one will give you permission to create.

So this begs a question: what does intention look like? Let me take you through a few examples:

Putting the Phone Down

This is what author Abby Mathews did when she recently took a vacation with her family. She shared this with me on the immediate and long-term effects of this decision:

“I’ve definitely felt a huge impact from “just leaving it at home” during the vacation. But part of that is just retraining my mental habit of checking it, too. If you don’t have your phone with you, obviously you can’t check it! But I’m also trying to let go even if it is in my pocket. If I have to stand in line for 5 minutes at the grocery store, why do I need my phone to occupy me? Why do I need to check my email while I’m waiting for my kids at school pick-up? Why am I not allowed that time for my brain to wander without direction from technology? The [post-vacation] benefit is that I have gotten way more writing done because I’m not distracted by things that don’t matter.”

What I like most about what Abby found is that it wasn’t about adding anything to her life. She didn’t need to go buy a new journal or course or product. She simply removed something from her life, and found that it opened up new doors to her writing and focus.

Picking Up the Camera

I have been doing my own experiments like this in the past few months. I didn’t like how my phone was always in my pocket waiting to distract me when I was at home with my family. When I tried to put it down, I found that I resisted because I’m a photographer, so I was always reaching for my phone to take a photo.

Can you see the obvious solution here? It took me awhile to figure it out. I put down the phone, and picked up the camera.

Instead of carrying my phone around my house, I picked up my compact camera (The Canon G7x) and attached it to my belt with a small case. Now I can take photos and videos whenever I like, without any distraction of the phone. What’s better is that my camera takes way better photos and videos than my phone does. I’m actually capturing more moments than I would have otherwise.

Writing First Thing in the Day

Longtime readers of my newsletter will know that I tend to write first thing in the day. I share a photo of it on Instagram each morning… the same boring shot of me in front of my computer, each day of the year, working on my next book.

When I began this practice, it was actually pretty difficult to resist the urge to check email first. What I found is that I craved the immediate validation that comes with reacting to others first. But once the habit was in place, it now seems natural to delay email by an hour in the morning, and creating first.

My Advice to You

As Abby mentioned above, being intentional is about creating a mindset shift within yourself. It is not about downloading a new tool or buying a new product. More often than not, it is about creating “less” in your life, not “more.” What I mean by that is that for everything you say “no” to, it allows you to say “yes” with more vigor to the things that matter most. To your writing or art. To your health (mental or physical). To your family and friends.

For 2018, I have outlined three clear intentions for my creative work. This week, I have been meeting with someone on my team to brainstorm ways to truly make them a priority in my life. To ensure my days are filled with intention, not reaction.

What is your intention for 2018?

Thanks!
-Dan

This past year, I doubled down on my creative work. I made some big changes, focused on increasing the clarity of what I do, while improving all the details:

I signed a lease on a private studio space:

I spent the year continuing to dig deep into my research on successful writers and artists. I wanted to give myself daily reminders of their journeys, so I started hanging their photos on one of the studio walls:

I have written every single day since May 1 (plus plenty of days before that.) It is the first thing I do every morning, regardless of what else is going on in my life. This is all work for my next book, which has recently undergone it’s third major “let’s start this from scratch again” moment. Each time I approach it anew, the better it gets. That said, it will really need to be finished in 2018!

I put even more resources into my mastermind groups, each month finding new ways to optimize a small aspect of it. The results have been off the charts, I have never had such amazing feedback from writers and artists.

I brought on new members of my team this year, and every one of them has helped me grow. Most recently, I have had the absolute pleasure of welcoming Yvonne Kochanowski (aka author Yvonne Kohano) to the team. I find that the process of working with others creates deeper clarity in the work I do.

My consulting with writers and artists has become even more fulfilling. Here too, I tried to optimize many smaller aspects of the process. It genuinely feels like an honor to be in the trenches with these creators to push things forward. When one has a creative vision, it can be both thrilling and terrifying. I would say, that is how I spend my days with them. On the edge that creative work often takes us.

For 2018, I’m doubling down again on each of these things. But I’ll need help with that: new collaborators to help me become better at what I do. For your own work, I encourage you to consider: how will you move your craft and your career to the next level in 2018?

I speak to so many people who struggle alone with their creative work. Something I am considering this week is how working in solitude can hold you back. In so many other areas of our lives, when we want to grow, we collaborate with a coach or trainer. Why is writing or art any different? For instance, you may hire:

• A personal trainer to get you to show up to the gym, create a personalized workout routine, and give you encouragement to get through it.
• A financial planner to get you to make concrete decisions around money. Most people have a very emotional relationship with money, and even those who do take control, are often drowning amidst a see of conflicting advice.
• For any kind of sports, coaches are expected and required. Not just at amateur levels, but intermediate and advanced. I live very close to the Jets training facility, and often see members of their coaching and support staff around town. It’s not just one coach, it is a large support staff.

Today, I want to encourage you to assess your creative work and take small actions toward growth:

• How you improve your craft?
• How you better manage how you share and publish your work?
• How you better understand those you hope to reach in order to better engage them?

A few years back, I read this book: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It’s a wonderful book that I highly recommend for improving your craft. Atul is a surgeon, yet he talks about the value of bring in in a coach to get even better:

When he had a coach join him throughout his workday, he uncovered a huge problem: “I wasn’t effective at listening. With patients, I was talking 90% of the time. I didn’t ask enough questions. I carried that over to my team, where I was doing 90% of the talking.”

Can you imagine that? Someone whose job it is to diagnose patients and manage complex teams, not really listening to anyone. He has a longer video where he digs into this more deeply. He mentions having a 2% complication rate, meaning that 2 out of 100 patients experience a serious complication as a result of the surgery he performed. To get it down to 1% meant optimizing a lot of little things, and he listed them out. But even besides that wonderful point, it was astonishing to me to hear him share data about what some may call his “failures.” The idea that 2 out of 100 people he treats are harmed by it. Do you have that data for your work? Not that your work could potentially harm someone, but whether or not it is effective towards your goals.

As a writer or artist, this data is not necessarily the point. But it may be worth considering: “What is the effect I want my work to have on others? How can I assess ways in which that moment of connection truly happened and where I missed the mark?”

When you work alone, juggling every aspect of creation, publishing, and sharing, like Atul, you may miss 1,000 small ways to improve. That is why I am a big believer in collaboration and doubling down on one’s creative work.

I want to be a better resource to helping you in 2018. I need your help in order to do that. Please let me know: If there is one thing I could help you with, what would it be?

Thanks!
-Dan

All I do all day, every day, is work in the trenches with writers and artists. Today I want to share the 3 essential habits that successful creators use to battle distraction, create work that matters, and grow their audience.

Let’s dig in…

#1 Focus on One Thing

The first habit is to focus on one thing. I mean this in two ways. The first is that they have total clarity on what matters most. They have identified the projects they should be working on, and how these lead to their larger goals.

What this means is that they have to constantly say “no” to distractions and competing priorities, in order to say “yes” with vigor to what matters most. This sounds easier than it is. Often, we don’t say “no” because we fear letting others down, and the potential social backlash that can come with this.

The second way to consider the value of “one thing,” is how you focus your attention. Writers & artists who get things done are those who focus intently on the task at hand. They don’t have email up, aren’t checking Facebook, and don’t drop the paintbrush when they should be working so that they can check the news.

There are a lot of practical ways to focus on one thing. Successful writers and artist focus on their “one thing” in the following ways:

• They put the phone down. Or they set it to ‘airplane mode’ or ‘silent mode’ for a period of time. Or even, *gasp* turn it off.
• They make time to create. It is on their calendar, or part of their daily routine.
• They have communicated to others what their “one thing” is. They aren’t worried that by sharing this, the other people will reject them. I know, that sounds silly to many of you, but creating can feel as though you are welcoming others to judge you. When you communicate to others that you are creating, it is also a signal that this is important, perhaps more important than other tasks they would prefer you to be doing right now. The writer and arts needs to resist the sense of judgement this brings.
• They turn off email. Turn off the TV. Shut down the computer if they don’t need it for creating.
• They have standard methods of saying “no” with grace. This is indeed a habit. If you only say “no” once in a blue moon, then it will feel arduous, even painful. Make a habit out of this that feels kind and meaningful to both you and the other person.
• They assess their “one thing” and progress toward it at regular intervals. I think of these as reminders — that can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly — that helps keep you on track to creating work that matters.

When I talk to people who create, one thing I hear often is that they are buried in email. It is a constant source of distraction and frustration. I want to help you fix this, so I invite you to Join me for a free workshop on Wednesday Dec 20th at 2pm ET: Inbox Zero Every Day. Finally Take Back Control of Your Time and Attention. You will learn so much in this hour, I’ll take you inside my personal system for having total control over email. Sign up here.

#2 Develop Systems that Free You to Create

Most writers and artists I know resist the idea of systems around their creative work. They prefer to be inspired by the muse, and to frame their creative work around this idea of feeling free. They worry that a “system” will make them feel constricted. That it will turn their joy into another boring task.

Yet, I have found that systems don’t need to be constricting. In fact, they can be freeing, allowing you to create more often, with more depth, and greater fulfillment.

Before we dig into this further, I think we have to talk about a hard truth. Creating is difficult. Really difficult. Even for writers and artists who are successful.

I saw this post recently from artist & illustrator Rebecca Green. It’s worth noting that she has 223,000 followers on Instagram — she is someone who is successful in so many ways. Yet recently she posted this:

“I have to be honest, my well is empty. Bone dry. It’s been a rough last six months and recently, strange as it sounds, when I show up to my drawing table, I have an immense urge to weep, sing, or run. Anything but make art. This is of course, extremely difficult when you make art for a living, so I suppress those feelings and keep pushing and showing up and am happy to do so. I am though, experiencing a major burn out that’s unlike anything I’ve ever gone through. Work has always ebbed and flowed with periods of intense creativity and moments of resentment, but this time feels a little too deep. I find myself unmotivated, lost, and not sure who I am, what I make or why any of it matters.”

Why do I share this? To encourage you to prepare for the fact that creative work is a journey. This is why I want you to find clarity in your work, to develop systems to support it, and collaborators (more on that below!) to help you along the way.

Don’t think that if you just reach a certain milestone, everything will become easier. Instead: prepare for success. Find your clarity, your systems, your collaborators.

What can systems look like for a working writer or artist? Some questions to ask yourself to get started:

• How do you know you will have the time and energy to create next week?
• How do you know when to begin a project, but also when to end — to publish and share — the project?
• How do you connect with others who appreciate the kind of work you create? Do you wait for haphazard connections during the 2 days a year you go to a conference? Or is it a system to reach out and connect?

Each of these answers can be comprises of simple systems you create for yourself.

#3 Find Collaborators

If you want to be certain that you will fail, then try to be a “lone wolf” with your creative work. Tell yourself that you need to do it all on your own. Successful writers and artists collaborate. They have a wide range of formal and informal partners in their work.

I don’t just mean having a literary agent, or a gallery who represents you. I mean having relationships with colleagues with create work similar to yours. Or having true connections to people who like the kind of work you create — not just having “followers” who clicked a button on social media.

One of my favorite ways to do this is via a mastermind. I just posted a new 30 minute podcast episode where I explain:

• What a mastermind is
• Why masterminds are a powerful way to ensure you make progress
• Different ways to create or join a mastermind
• My best advice on how to manage a mastermind successfully

You can listen to it on my blog or via iTunes.

I would love to know: what is one habit can you change today to make your creative life more productive?

Thanks!
-Dan

P.S. Reminder: My mastermind program is open for registration. Choose your own adventure:

• Craft Your Creative Roadmap for 2018
• Build Your Creative Power Habits
• Find Your First 10 Super Fans

Register for one of these here: https://wegrowmedia.com/mm/

Today I want to share simple steps to set goals for your creative work that you can (and will!) actually achieve in 2018. I want you to be able to battle distraction, avoid overwhelm, and truly take meaningful steps to improving your craft and sharing it with others.

(Heads up: I’m hosting a live chat about this topic today! Join me on Facebook at 2pm ET on my page: https://www.facebook.com/wegrowmedia/. I will talk through these tips, and would love to answer questions you have and brainstorm to help you set good goals for 2018.)

This time of year, I hear that common refrain from many people: “Where did the year go?!” Packed into that expression is a sense of regret that they didn’t accomplish what they hoped to this year. That they spent the year reacting to an onslaught of distractions that were created by others, instead of creating a clear path to their own focused goals.

Okay, let’s dig in…

Why Set Goals

“Goals” sounds scary though, right? Like a big ominous expectation that has no place in your days that are already packed with other responsibilities. Maybe you think, “Goals are for people who are more structured than I am.” Or “Goals are for people who have more free time than I do.”

I want to encourage you to think of goals as a way to honor what you know you are capable of with your creative work. Setting goals isn’t about becoming a rigid planner. Rather, it is about being honest with yourself about what you want, giving yourself permission to pursue it, and clearing the path to get there.

What I find in speaking with writers and artists is that they are often buried in to-do lists. These are usually tasks set by others, meaning that this person is spending their days reacting to the needs of others, instead of setting their own clear intention.

Goals are a firm way to be clear about what you hope to achieve, without excuses. It is about having to confront that within your own mind and your own heart. As actor and artist Jim Carrey puts it, “You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Setting goals are a way for you to stop waiting for others to give you permission to pursue what you love.

They are also a wonderful mechanism to maintain control over your time and energy and avoid distractions. They allow you to wake up each week knowing what you need to work on, and provide a reason to not check Facebook or the news first thing in the morning; to instead, spend those 10 minutes on your creative work before the rest of your day begins.

What’s more, goals are also a framework to communicate to others what is important to you and why. Again, this goes back to waiting for permission. Oftentimes, a writer or artist will work in secret because they are afraid of judgement. They bide their time until they are convinced their work will have obvious public validation.

But that isn’t how great work goes from idea to reality. It is nearly always a collaborative process that requires social risk. It requires you to put your work — and yourself — out there, before validation is guaranteed.

Goals help you feel better about this part of the process, because you understand that this short-term sacrifice of uncomfortableness is in service of something bigger. Something you dream about becoming reality.

Perhaps what I like best about goals is that they can help you determine how you want to spend your days. Goals need not be an arrogant and bold statement of achievement. When done well, they provide a richness to your days because you feel total clarity with how you spend your time, who you spend it with, and what you are creating.

Get Clarity On What Matters Most to You, Then Double-Down On It

Stop trying to do more, and instead, focus your energy and time on what matters most. This is a mindset shift that states “doing more” is not the badge of honor; doing only what matters most is.

To achieve this, you have to set your priorities and make difficult choices. The writers and artists I work with lead complicated lives. They juggle kids, family, health, home, jobs, volunteering and so much else, all in addition to their creative work. What I have found is that those who achieve the most make polarizing decisions about where to spend their time and energy. It is rarely at the expense of things that they truly care about. In fact, what I find is that they double-down on those things.

What I encourage is to look at all of your goals together, not just “creative goals” as if in a vacuum.

Then, say “NO” to most things. But this is the key: say “YES” with VIGOR to those few things that you truly care about.

Use this as a decision-making tool when new opportunities come up. Should you go to that PTO meeting at your kids school? Do you binge watch the new season of the show that everyone is talking about on Netflix? Do you drive out to Wal-Mart for that big sale? Do you spend 20 minutes checking Facebook? The easy answer to all of them is “yes” because they scratch an itch. But the right answer is to consider your goals, and how you can instead use this time to work towards them. In some cases, that results in a “yes” to items above. In many cases though, the answer is “no.”

People who achieve a lot say “no” a lot. In doing so, they say “yes” to that which they care most about.

This is not just a process of setting goals, but one of considering what motivates you. You don’t want to be one of those people who starts that new diet on January 1 and then ends that diet on January 23. How to stay motivated? Set good goals. Here’s how…

How to Set Good Goals

Here is a step-by-step process on how to set goals that are clear and achievable:

1. Create goals that are specific. Oftentimes, grand goals sound fun, but are so vague that they are impossible to know how to break down into a clear step you can take on a random Tuesday.
2. These goals should be controllable by you. Don’t pick a goal of “I want to get published,” because that may require so many others to make choices on your behalf.
3. Good goals are measurable, meaning you have to have a clear way to know if you have achieved them or not. Be careful of setting goals based on vague feelings such as, “I want to finally feel great about my art!”
4. Align these goals to a defined timeline. Consider what can be achieved in a year, a quarter, a month, a week, a day. Set reasonable milestones that break down the big goal to smaller steps.
5. Consider your time and energy, and how you can look at your weekly schedule to optimize for working on these goals in small ways. Too often, people thing time alone is what matters, but I have found that your energy is the more useful resource to pay attention to. If you can spend even a short amount of time each day during a period where you have the most creative energy, it is astounding what you can get done in a week.
6. Break down goals into smaller components. At every part of this process, focus on one simple step. Keep breaking down bigger achievements into their absolute smallest component.
7. Put the tiniest step on your calendar or schedule. Make this unmovable when other priorities come up.
8. Achieving goals often requires simple repeated actions. Consider what habits you need to create, and try to remove emotions from doing them. Just do the work each day without judgement on whether it was “good work.”
9. Work with collaborators in this process. The surest way to ensure you will fail is to try to do all of this alone. Success requires collaborators. Identity others who can help you work through this and act as accountability partners.

Easy peasy, right? Wrong. This is a difficult process. It’s why I encourage you to do it with collaborators who can help you work through it and hold you accountable.

What are your goals for 2018?

Thanks.
-Dan

P.S.: Tomorrow is the final day to register for my January Mastermind sessions at the discounted price.