An idea you accept becomes your responsibility

The card, Erik reads it

Practice. I write my ideas down the day they arrive. I give an idea I care about time and priority, rather than only working on it when I have nothing else to do. Purpose. I know what I like about my own work. Method. When something I made is as good as I can make it today, I finish it instead of waiting until I'm better.

Open, Erik [seventeen, delete]

I'm seventeen and I've decided that by eighteen I'll be a published author. My friends are at the mall. I'm at my desk rushing chapters, taking shortcuts, because I want it done. When I read the result I can't stand it. I hit delete.

I try to write a book a million more times after that. Every time the same thing. Great for two weeks, then I lose interest, cut corners, hate it too much to show anyone.

Here's what I believe now. When an idea comes to me, I have a choice. If I accept it, it becomes my responsibility to bring it into the world and do it justice. Rushing it isn't fair to the idea. Neither is waiting until I'm a better writer.

Erik, this book [something small, 100,000 words, first third of my life]

When I start this book I tell my friends I'm "writing something," small and simple. I have to protect it from my own expectations. I'm allowed to take years.

At one point the manuscript is a hundred thousand words and I don't know what it's about anymore. I'm trying to say every thought I've ever had. So I go back to the original question. Then I realise I'm having a child in November, and after that I'll be a different person. This is a book about the first third of my life. I cut it in half. Thirty thousand words. For the first time I know what I want to say and I'm not afraid to say it.

Nina, first question [her business as her idea, moving it to Sweden]

Erik asks: Your coaching business is your idea. You moved it to a new country, kept your German clients from Sweden, and there were months when nothing sold. What kept you giving it prime time instead of leftovers when there was no evidence it was working?

[Nina answers. Follow-up: Was there a moment you wanted to shrink it to protect yourself, the way I called my book "something small"?]

Erik, judgment [two moments, creative first, critical after]

I used to think judgment was the enemy of creativity. It isn't. Every rewrite of this book came from judging the last one. What I had to learn was when.

Judgment shows up at two moments. Sometimes at the very beginning: an idea arrives and a voice says don't, it won't work. Sometimes the next morning: yesterday felt easy, and now I read it and feel shame. Did I write that?

What works for me is order. Creative first, critical after. When I let myself be fully creative, my best ideas come out. So do my worst. But they all come out, and if I'd judged them as they arrived I'd never have found most of them.

Nina, second question [creativity in the body, ecstatic dance]

Erik asks: You do ecstatic dance and you lead people in it. I'm guessing that's what creative first, critical after looks like in a body. What happens to people when they stop watching themselves move?

[Nina answers. Follow-up: Can you tell when a client is judging themselves mid-movement? What do you say?]

Erik, when it stops being mine [comments, is this true for me]

The moment I publish a video or a chapter, it stops being my work and starts being our work. I read every comment and I want to. When something is received badly, I have one question: is this true for me? Sometimes I'm not ready for a criticism yet, and it comes back months later and I think, damn, they were right. Other times someone wanted a different book. That's the book they need to write.

Erik, what this gives you [today's level]

The method line is the one I'd take. When something is as good as I can make it today, I finish it. Not when it's perfect. Not when I'm better. Today's level. An idea doesn't have to get you to the finish line. It has to get you one step closer, and then it leads to the next idea.

Close

What's the idea you've been carrying for months and not giving prime time to? Name it in the comments. Next: love for your future, and the school trip to India I didn't take. Book link below.