A little flattery can go a long way toward deterring our escape velocity. So can a little cash. More sinister than either is the impact a well-placed doubt can have, particularly a “for your own good, just wanting to make sure you’ve thought about this” doubt—voiced by one of our nearest and dearest.

thinking ignores the fact that a creative life is grounded on many, many small steps and very, very few large leaps. Rather than take a scary baby step toward our dreams, we rush to the edge of the cliff and then stand there, quaking, saying, “I can’t leap. I can’t. I can’t. …

Be very careful to safeguard your newly recovering artist. Often, creativity is blocked by our falling in with other people’s plans for us. We want to set aside time for our creative work, but we feel we should do something else instead. As blocked creatives, we focus not on our responsibilities to ourselves, but on our responsibilities to others.

9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity. 10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.

quickly notes that when the mind is focused on other, the self often comes into a far more accurate focus.

Experiment with this two-step process: ask for answers in the evening; listen for answers in the morning. Be open to all help.

Instead of enjoying the process, the perfectionist is constantly grading the results.

We are the instrument more than the author of our work.

Commit yourself to a weekly artist’s date, and then watch your killjoy side try to wriggle out of it. Watch how this sacred time gets easily encroached upon. Watch how the sacred time suddenly includes a third party. Learn to guard against these invasions.