As much as I love to advocate for finding ease and eliminating the layers of difficulty and obligation that creep up on us, I am very good at making things harder for myself.

Maybe that’s why I’m so committed to this work. I know all too well what it’s like to believe that certain habits are necessary when that is not necessarily true — and I know the magic of shedding those habits when it is revealed that they are optional.

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As a culture, we seek to create gentle environments for young children.

We give them thoughtfully designed toys and games and plenty of encouragement. We let them play with paints and make a mess. We tolerate it while they bang around on the piano. We offer them opportunities to help us with tiny tasks around the house, the garden, and in the kitchen.

It’s okay if it takes years for them to learn — we have years.

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One of the most important things that I’ve learned from writing my own songs is how to find “good enough.”

There is a set point that a song needs to reach in which it feels good to sing it, the music and lyrics flow in a way that makes intuitive sense as a player and a listener, and it tells the story I intended for it to tell. Then, it’s complete. Put your pencil down.

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It is the most basic concept in the world: Before you can reach peak performance, you’ve got to warm up.

If this is true for the very best musicians and athletes in the world, it’s probably true for me. And it’s probably true in other disciplines, too.

Though I know that this is the case, I often forget. Even in the middle of warming up, I find myself wondering why my legs or fingers aren’t functioning the way I expect them to.

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When I was a kid, I was just in awe of professional musicians. How do you get up on stage and play song after song and not mess up?

Well, I’m still in awe of professional musicians, but now I understand something fundamental: Most of the time, whatever they’re doing up there is as easy as driving around town or carrying on a conversation.

It takes a degree of effort and concentration, but it’s within the range of routine activities. They’re not pushing themselves so hard that they’re risking a train wreck in front of hundreds or thousands of people. They’re doing something that they can already reliably do.

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