The first pitfall — Rulerless

I’m starting to build a map of the experience of a creative person who longs to create something new.

I’m thinking of it almost as an old school board game-style journey, like Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, or Life — except with less randomness.

There are choices to be made along the way. Some of those choices keep you progressing linearly. Some open up shortcuts. And some are dead ends.

A moment of silence for the two top Google searches regarding Candy Land.

I don’t want to moralize or suggest that there is one right answer when it comes to some of these choices. There are so many ways to go in life. However, if we agree that the destination is joy and fulfillment, that narrows things down a bit. Some moves will leave us stuck in Molasses Swamp for awhile, delaying the joy and fulfillment we’re looking for.

Here’s the first big pitfall that I see along this journey to the fulfillment of our creative potential and the joy of delighting ourselves and others with what we create: Expecting that the thing you choose to make, the fulfillment of your heart’s desire, will make you a living.

I’m not saying that you can’t make a living at it. I’m not trying to crush your dreams. I’m simply suggesting that there’s no universal law that an invention of your own brain must translate to economic value for others such that you will be able to pay all of your bills with the proceeds from your sales.

“Do what you love and the money will follow” is just an idea that someone made up. It’s not like gravity or the seasons.

So much of what I do for clients is help them to give themselves permission to do a project without the pressure of having to make a living from it. Do what you love, period. It’s called art.

On an individual level, this can be a touchy conversation. Who am I to say that something is never going to make any money? But my recommendation to someone who is struggling to pay the bills with their art is often very unglamorous: Find another way to make money. Get a job if you have to. Follow the excellent advice of Derek Sivers.

You don’t have to be miserable doing this. It can be fun. The same ingenuity that motivates a would-be creative entrepreneur to pursue their passion can be applied toward finding all kinds of clever ways to bring in cash. And those same business skills can then be applied to bringing the ultimate dream closer to reality.

Ironically, when you get better at finding ways to make money, you can come up with all kinds of fun and interesting ways to do it. You may discover something that you find as joyful and fulfilling as the thing you felt so called to do.

At the same time, your special project may find its way to being economically viable once the financial pressure is off. You can pursue your calling without feeling like a failure the entire time, and that allows you to stick with it. And that increases the likelihood that you’ll come across some aspect of what you’re doing that someone else wants to pay for.

Really, the pitfall that makes us stuck and miserable is believing that there is only one thing that can make you happy and one way to get it. When we realize that life is not at all like the cursed game boards of Candy Land, Sorry!, or Monopoly, possibilities open up. We see that we can make all kinds of moves that lead us to interesting places, and we can pursue them in any order. And we discover that there are so many ways to win.