PP 004: Hitting Home Runs: The Secret to Creating Your Best Work
Whether you accept it or not, every time you’re at bat isn’t going to be a home run.
Every time you share your creativity with the world, it’s not going to be your absolute best–and that’s totally okay.
There is too much pressure trying to outdo yourself each time when in reality, success happens from daily disciplined routines of showing up and working on your craft.
Always swing for the fences and invest everything you have into your work.
Pour all your passion, excitement and expression into each breathing piece you create.
Just know it’s okay if it doesn’t perform as you had hoped or expected.
Performance Doesn’t Define You
I can’t tell you how many times I drew up “my best piece” or wrote my “best content” to only hear crickets in the statistics world.
It sucks and it does bother me—I’m human just like you.
There were even times I would delete my artwork based on how it performed in the first 10 minutes on Instagram.
I can easily tell which piece is going to be a "dud" and which will be a "hit"….and as I write this, I haven’t had a major “hit” in awhile.
I don’t recommend going this route as letting yourself and your work be defined by likes, shares, comments and followers is a slippery slope that leads to disappointment.
The Secret to Hitting Home Runs
Alright, the secret to hitting home runs is…………………….getting up to the plate more often.
Simple right?
It takes a lot of bad and mediocre work to stumble across your best.
There’s a story I recently read in the book “Art & Fear” in which a professor divides his ceramics class in half.
One-half of the class would be graded on how many pots they could create at the end of the session.
The other half would be graded on the quality of their pots.
At the end of the session, the first half created a ton of pots while the second half had only a few well-crafted pots.
So who got the better grade?
The side that made the most pots because in the process of making as many as possible, they found ways to make better pots through higher volume and more practice.
They weren’t stuck on perfection which allowed them to create more high-quality pots in the end.
The morale of the story is:
You can’t focus on perfection.
Bad work is necessary to get to the quality work.
Hitting home runs requires more at-bats.
You can’t be defined by everything you create as it’s not always going to be the best. It’s about finding ways to progress and experiment in the process.
This is the main reason I leave all my old work on Instagram so people can scroll back and see the progress.
When people claim I make it look easy, I direct them to the archives and explain I still have more room for improvement.
Stay in the Game
If everything you shared was a hit, it would get outplayed quickly.
The passion would fizzle and you’d have to search for what’s next.Creativity is all about the challenge.
It’s about showing up and working towards the vision every day.
Life will through you curve balls, but I encourage you to stay in the game and overcome the adversity.
Like baseball, you’re going to strike out. You’ll experience hitting funks in the pursuit of hitting home runs.
In creativity, you’ll face criticism, rejection and hatred. This is all part of the process but stay in the game.
Stay in the game long enough and get as many at-bats as possible—Eventually you'll get ahold of one and crush it out of the ballpark.
When this happens, you know you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be on your creative path.
Always swing for the fences and never hold anything back in your work.
You won’t always hit a home run, but in order to hit one, you have to get up to swing.
You’re on deck, my friend. Take a swing and put your work out there.
Key Takeaways
The performance of your work doesn’t define you.
It takes a lot of bad and mediocre work to stumble across your best.
Swing for the fences and pour everything you have into your work.
Don’t focus on perfection, higher volume and practice leads to quality.
Find ways to progress each time and experiment in the process.
Stay in the game when you face adversity.
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CREDITS
Music - Blookah
Executive Assistant - Paige Garland
Photo & Video Specialist - Colton Bachar
Social Media Coordinator - Hannah Schick
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