Declare Little Victories: A valuable technique for navigating a creative career

At various points in my life I aspired to be authors Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway, critic/historian Greil Marcus, filmmaker Frances Ford Coppola, and playwright August Wilson and a few other powerhouse creators whose work I admired. Then, at a certain point, you realize that emulation only gets you so far and you have figure out who you are.

Part of that process was defining success for myself. Okay a Nobel Prize or Academy Award is not likely at this point. But I did win a Grammy for liner notes, which was very cool, and I’ve been nominated for some literary awards. All good. But I don’t believe awards equal real personal success or satisfaction. Awards, and award shows, are arbitrary annual events of good work that are given out every year. Someone’s gonna win it. Maybe you do. Mostly likely you don’t. Either way its ultimately irrelevant to your internal artistic journey. Creating to get an award (Oscar, Grammy, Tony, Pulitzer) is like surfing to get a suntan. Yeah, it could happen, but it would only happen as a by-product of hard work and focus. The work is the work and the ocean is the ocean. Diving into either is the only satisfaction guaranteed.

Instead of distant rewards I believe an enduring career (and life) must be defined via internal goals. It can be finishing a project early. It can be writing two songs in the time you expected to do compose one. It’s creating a list of obtainable goals can give you a sense of progress and…