What is the main message of The Practice?

The main message of The Practice is to embrace the daily practice of creating and sharing our work.

How long does it take to read The Practice?

The reading time for The Practice varies, but it can be read in a few hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is The Practice a good book? Is it worth reading?

The Practice is worth reading as it encourages us to overcome creative obstacles and build a fulfilling creative practice.

Who is the author of The Practice?

The author of The Practice is Seth Godin.

The Practice Summary of Key Ideas and Review

Name: The Practice
Rating: 4.6 (173 reviews)
Author: Seth Godin

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Strategize your way to creative excellence.

There’s no hard-and-fast formula for realizing your artistic ambitions. But that doesn’t mean that creative success is a matter of random chance. Many people who achieve creative excellence adhere to a shared set of processes, practices, and attitudes. So what’s stopping you from joining their ranks?

In a word: nothing. After all, creativity is a skill that can be learned and honed. The blinks that follow share the insights and strategies you need to professionalize your creativity. Armed with tips and techniques to bolster your creative practice, you’ll be able to turn your creative dabblings into polished professional work that’s ready to share with the world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why selling your work doesn’t mean selling out;
what the band Steely Dan can teach you about perfectionism; and
how you can learn to love your critics.

Key idea 1 of 8

Trust yourself to find your own path to a creative practice.

Don’t ever tell yourself, “I can’t be creative.” You can. And, in fact, you already are. Every time you’ve doodled in the corner of a notebook or hummed a song in the shower, you’ve expressed yourself creatively.

You have the capacity for creativity and for transforming your raw creative ability into professional practice. But be prepared: the route to establishing yourself as a creative professional can be tricky to navigate. There’s no predetermined roadmap to professional creative success.

As the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, puts it: “It is better to follow your own path, however imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s perfectly.”

The key message is: Trust yourself to find your own path to a creative practice.

So how do you find your creative path? Your path lies in your process. Trust in your process, and your path will manifest itself.

But that trust might be hard won. Ours is a world that values outcome over process. We don’t judge a plumber’s work by the quality of its process; we judge it based on whether or not the toilet still leaks. Sadly, many apply this same attitude to creative endeavors. We judge the success of a book by the copies it sells, the success of a musician by how many stadiums she can sell out.

But fixating on outcome can lead creatives to make shallow, market-driven choices. The fact is, there’s no such thing as an outcome without a process leading up to it. To find your authentic creativity, focus on your own creative process, which naturally will be different than anyone else’s. By trusting in your own unique process without placing value on its outcome, you’ll discover your path.

Of course, it’s sometimes hard to trust process. You might feel the guitar notes you’re strumming will never meld into a harmony, or the sentences you’re jotting down on your commute will never amount to a book. Even the most established creative practitioners confess to feeling overwhelmed by self-doubt. But here’s the good news: Your feelings don’t matter. Your actions do.

Unlike our feelings, our actions are within our control. So, do your process, even if you feel like you can’t.

Trust in yourself; trust in your process. Sometimes your process will result in a good outcome. Sometimes it won’t. But every time you recommit to it, you recommit to uncovering your creative potential.

Key idea 2 of 8

Your creativity is abundant and necessary, so be generous with it.

Novels in bottom desk drawers. Dance routines practiced in empty rooms with the curtains drawn. Canvases stacked in storage lockers. Plenty of creatives make art for the sake of making art. And that’s fine. But a creative professional? They create for an audience.

If you want to be a creative professional, you need to get comfortable with sharing your work. Be warned: this might be easier said than done. From embarrassment to perfectionism, there are plenty of reasons you might not want to share your work. And guess what? You need to ignore all of them.

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Key idea 3 of 8

Build on your creativity to forge a successful career.

If you’ve made the decision to be a creative professional, that means your art is your work. It may not be your job or the gig that pays your bills, but you need to treat your creative practice as a career. And, just like in any other career, you’ll have to put in the effort to develop your skills and strive to hit key performance targets if you’re going to make it to the next level.

If you treat your creative practice as a hobby or an outlet, it will never grow to be more than that. But if you make a professional investment of time, resources, and skills into your practice, you can turn your passion into a lasting career.

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Key idea 4 of 8

Your artistic intent shapes your output, so make sure it’s clear.

Have you ever tried to plan a piece of creative work? If you have, you know that the final product always deviates from the blueprint in some way. Outlining a novel won’t stop a new character from creeping in, and storyboarding a short film is no guarantee that all the scenes in your sketchbook will make it to the final cut.

In fact, working creatively can be so unpredictable that some people elect not to plan at all. But whether you’re improvising or working to an outline, there’s one thing you always need to establish before you start work: your purpose.

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Key idea 5 of 8

Creative blocks won’t happen if you don’t aim for perfect.

At one point or another in your creative career, you’re probably going to come up against the dreaded creative block. You’ll lose inspiration. You’ll break out in a sweat at the sight of a blank page. You’ll wonder if you’ll ever have another good idea again.

Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But if you fear creative blocks, or if you’re currently struggling with one, take heart. A creative block is nothing more than a cultural construct. In other words, it doesn’t really exist.

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Key idea 6 of 8

Embrace criticism, but only within limits!

What makes someone a true creative professional? It’s not how much money they earn from their work, how many fans they have, or how many glowing reviews are attached to their name. In fact, to be a creative professional, you only have to do one thing: ship your work; in other words, deliver it to an audience.

Sounds simple, right? That’s because it is. The internet has democratized creativity, and now there are more ways than ever before to share your creative work with others.

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Key idea 7 of 8

You can optimize your chances of achieving greatness.

Some creatives find fulfillment simply in shipping their work to a modest audience. Others have their eye on a bigger prize: greatness. They don’t just want to perform well; they want to be at the pinnacle of their field.

What propels certain creatives to that pinnacle? Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be a uniquely gifted genius to reach the upper echelons of creative excellence. With commitment and a bit of strategy, you can work your way to the very top.

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Key idea 8 of 8

Creativity thrives under constraints, so embrace them.

The alt-rock band REM are world-famous musicians. But for a long time, early in their career, they just couldn’t crack the very top of the charts. Finally, they released their album Out of Time. It was a smash hit that spent two years in the charts, and it propelled the band from indie renown to superstardom.

What was the magic ingredient that made Out of Time so successful? It wasn’t more creative freedom or greater resources. Quite the opposite: the band embraced constraints and limitations.

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