As many of you know, I’ve been working a lot on Job Hunters, a web series I produced and acted in (and yes, also did Craft Services for). Today we released our Season 1 Finale… and it’s a doozy!
If you have a project idea you’re passionate about, please stop doubting, worrying, and waiting. Tell your friends about it. Have them tell their friends about it. See what happens. Sometimes, you’re lucky enough to find a crazy talented group of people that want to work on your project with you.
I agree with the just do it part. Here’s the part I question a little: “Tell your friends.” On Economists Do It With Models a couple years ago, Jodi posted some research that showed that creative people are better off NOT talking about their creative goals. By talking about it, you satisfy some part of your itch. Enough to wreck a lot of people’s motivations. You satisfy the IDEA of being some sort of creative person.
I put this idea into practice in my own life. I basically didn’t talk about Eat The Babies as I was getting ready to launch it. I set myself the goal of making 100 strips before I launched the site. To get my sea legs before going live. To know that I’d commit. It was REALLY tough but I did it and I did kind of think not talking about it helped.
Anyway… just an idea I thought I’d throw out there. It’s pretty counter-intuitive, but once you put it into practice you can see why it works.
Congrats on the series, by the way. I’m logging it on my “Watch Later” queue on YouTube.
Wow, that’s a really interesting point! I hadn’t thought of that before, but it definitely makes sense. I’d say:
-If you’re able to be motivated on your own and can hold off, keep it a secret, work your ass off, then delight and surprise your friends/family.
-If (like me) you need other people to hold you accountable, find a couple friends also working on projects and set deadlines for them to check up on you. Maybe don’t tell them all about your project, though–that way you can still keep some of that creative “itch” alive!