Craft mastery doesn't come without self mastery. Every Monday and Friday you will receive a concept, personal story, or idea aimed to aid you, the artist, entrepreneur, human, in the never-ending journey towards mastering your life.
Prioritize the Right Practice
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"All creation is practice, but not all practice is creation."Like squares and rectangles creation and practice look similar and they even overlap in properties but they are not one and the same. Because of this, it's easy to confuse one for the other And making this mistake can prove detrimental to any and all of your creative endeavors. A square has 4 equal straight sides, and 4 right angles. A rectangle has 4 straight sides, and 4 right angles. Did you spot the difference? The key word here is equal. All sides need to be the same length in order for the shape to qualify as a square. This means by definition a square is a rectangle. But a rectangle doesn't need to have all equal sides, it just needs straight sides and the 4 right angles. So if a blueprint of a machine needs a square piece of machinery and you feed it a shape that might have the slightest unevenness in the sides (a rectangle)... that could spell doom for the operation. The same is the case when talking about creation and practice. Practice means to perform or exercise a skill repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency. Creation is the action or process of bringing something into existence. So, by definition creation is practice. Creating is a skill you need to exercise repeatedly in order to improve your proficiency. Practice however can take on many different forms outside of creating. You can spend all day practicing your scales but if you didn't make a song you didn't create. To make a song, you need to exercise your knowledge of scales in order to make the song therefore you practiced. So why am I blabbing about geometry and music theory? Well I see to many artists (myself included sometimes) "Productively Procrastinating" by prioritizing the wrong practice. Don't get me wrong, the technicals NEED to be practiced in order to be great. But the above statement is also the perfect excuse for you the artist to succumb to your fear of the vulnerability of creating And instead practice technicals, and only the technicals, forever. Creating is hard, and it's scary most of the time. It's not unheard of to face your darkest demons every time you sit down to create but that is exactly what you need to do to be great. On the creativity coin, creating is heads, and the technicals are tails. Both are practice, but both do not yield a creation. So if you're truly short on time, like we all are prioritize creation. Creating frequently will teach you the technicals. If you enjoyed today's article forward this email to a friend, If you're that phenomenal friend you can subscribe to The Thriving Artists' Newsletter for weekly wisdom on using the process of mastering your craft as a vehicle to your spiritual enlightenment and material success here. And as always you can share this article on your socials by copying and pasting this link: PS:EP 014 of The Thriving Artist Corner "Being Vs Animal" is now live on YT and podcast streaming services!
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Dio Deji Oduwole Creator of The Thriving Artists’ Newsletter Musician, Music Producer, and Educator https://newsletter.thriving-artists.com/ |
The Thriving Artists' Newsletter
Craft mastery doesn't come without self mastery. Every Monday and Friday you will receive a concept, personal story, or idea aimed to aid you, the artist, entrepreneur, human, in the never-ending journey towards mastering your life.
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