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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Make Your Art No Matter What summary
Beth Pickens
Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles
16 mins
Brief summary
Make Your Art No Matter What provides artists with practical advice and emotional support to overcome common obstacles. Beth Pickens focuses on nurturing creativity and resilience, ensuring artists thrive regardless of external circumstances.
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Make Your Art No Matter What
Summary of 7 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 7
Claiming your time
If you’re an artist – be it a musician, a painter, a writer, or any other type of creative – and you’re struggling to commit to your practice, you probably feel like you have a good reason. For most artists, the number one reason is time.
Fighting against time is an existential dilemma. If you zoom out and look at how many people there are on Earth, and how little time we have to make our mark, it can be either dispiriting or motivational. It’s up to you, but the best thing to do is to use this perspective as fuel for your ambition.
Knowing our time is finite pushes us to ask: How do we want to spend it? What choices will we make with this precious gift of existence? The answer is simple but profound: prioritize your art. It’s easy to get swept up in life’s endless demands – jobs, family, digital distractions – but the world isn’t going to hand you time to create. You have to claim it.
To put it another way: You don’t make art for money or rewards. You make art because you’re an artist and you’d be miserable and incomplete if you didn’t. Neglecting your practice will only hurt you, and that hurt will then spread to those around you.
To reclaim your creative time, start by looking honestly at how you use it. Spend one week doing a time audit, which involves taking a few seconds every 15 minutes to jot down what you’re doing. This exercise can reveal surprising patterns. It’ll help you identify habits that aren’t serving you and could be replaced with art-making. The aim isn’t to establish a new rigid regime; it’s about opening up space for what truly matters.
So, take a hard look at your current schedule and find pockets of time for your practice. The bottom line? Time isn’t infinite. Let go of guilt, release perfectionism, and protect your practice like it’s sacred – because it is.
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What is Make Your Art No Matter What about?
Make Your Art No Matter What (2021) offers a clear path to overcoming the challenges that keep artists from creating. With a mix of practical strategies and heartfelt encouragement, it addresses the real-life hurdles that artists face, from time management and financial concerns to self-doubt and burnout. Whether you’re a seasoned creative or just starting out, it will help you make space for your art and build a sustainable, fulfilling creative life.
Who should read Make Your Art No Matter What?
- Aspiring artists
- Established creatives
- Freelancers and entrepreneurs
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