In Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon guides readers through his view of effective self-promotion. As he sees it, the best way to promote what you do—whether you’re an artist in the traditional sense or someone who uses creativity in your job—is to publicly share it all the way through your process, from the earliest phases to the finished product. This kind of sharing allows you to focus on honing your skills while making yourself available to be discovered and appreciated. Kleon attributes much of his own success to this practice of sharing.
As a bestselling author and illustrator, Kleon’s work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He rose to fame with his book Steal Like an Artist, which was the first in a trilogy about creativity in our digital culture. Show Your Work! is the second book of that trilogy, followed by Keep Going. He’s been invited to share his ideas at several prominent venues, including Pixar, Google, and TEDx.
Kleon follows a similar structure in Show Your Work! to the one he used in Steal Like an Artist—he presents his ideas as 10 pieces of advice, which he intersperses with his original illustrations. We’ve reorganized these ideas into five themes:
Along the way we’ll consider other views on these topics, including perspectives on how you can overcome perfectionism and how you can handle criticism.
Many creative people hesitate to share their work because they don’t feel they have anything worth showing. Kleon believes a solution to this problem is to share the process of creating, not just the finished products. By distinguishing between these two aspects of creativity, Kleon seeks to reframe the idea of sharing your work.
Kleon offers three main reasons for why you should share your work all the way through your process. First, doing so lets you focus on developing your skills while growing your audience. Second, it’s a powerful way to make valuable connections. Third, it can enable you to live the life you want to live.
Many artists and creatives feel that the best way to find an audience is to simply be really good at what you do. Kleon agrees that it’s important to be good at what you do, but he believes that you don’t have to put off finding an audience until you feel that you’ve gotten good enough. Instead, by opening up your learning process for others to see, you can focus on honing your craft while you attract an audience—thus getting more return on your investment of time and effort: You’ll both improve your skills and expand your market by engaging in the same activities.
As Kleon sees it, the most successful creatives incorporate sharing into their routines. They don’t wait until they have finely crafted, finished pieces to unveil; instead, they share the work that goes into making those pieces all along the way. Kleon suggests that by doing this, you can make your learning process work for you as a powerful tool for self-promotion.
Overcoming Perfectionism
Kleon’s suggestion that you show what you’re doing while you’re in the process of developing your skills is an uncomfortable one for many people with a certain personality trait: perfectionism. Perfectionists typically set unreasonably high standards for themselves or others and obsess over succeeding. The irony of this is that perfectionists often fear failure so much that they don’t ever start working toward their goals—they’re paralyzed by the fear of failure.
In this frame of mind, a perfectionist will hesitate to share the less-than-perfect stages of their process because they’re just not good enough. This type of thinking easily becomes a barrier to ever finding support for their work.
Experts suggest that one way to overcome this mindset is to avoid comparing yourself to other people. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown argues that one way to stop comparing yourself to others is to celebrate your individuality: Focus on how your creativity uniquely expresses your skills and experiences.
By sharing your work throughout all phases of the process, you can tap into a network of interested people with whom you can make valuable connections, writes Kleon. These connections can serve a few purposes: They can become sources of creative collaboration and sources of support—financial and otherwise.
According to Kleon, inspirations, techniques, and ideas have always spread from person to person in a network of influence. The internet in particular now enables this by allowing people to connect around shared interests and ideas and form collaborative relationships.
Whether you recognize it or not, you’ve probably been influenced by people who do things you admire—writers, musicians, businesspeople, and the like, whose work shapes your tastes and aspirations, writes Kleon. By discussing these influences and by sharing your own ideas, techniques, and inspirations with others, you can form friendships with like-minded individuals. Inevitably, many of these people will have creative interests and aspirations like yours—connecting with them will build a network of relationships that can lead to collaboration and new creative projects. Moreover, such relationships can serve as an incubator for all kinds of new creative ideas, says Kleon.
(Shortform note: Some experts have argued that isolation is better for creative thinking than working with others. Biochemist and science fiction author Isaac Asimov believed this, suggesting that truly novel creative ideas are generated by individuals, not by groups. He felt that the process of generating such original ideas is embarrassing because it requires you to generate many bad ideas before you come up with a good one. Therefore, in a group setting, people will come up with and share fewer ideas—thereby limiting their creative potential. For this reason, he believed idea generation is better done in private than in public.)
According to Kleon, many creative people feel discouraged if they can’t find support for their work in their physical community. Sharing your work online is a solution to this because the online community is vast and surely includes people who can offer you support. Many of those people want to know how art is made—all the messy details and mistakes included—because they, too, want to make art. As you put your work out there, you’ll become a source of inspiration and encouragement for them. Kleon claims this dynamic is reciprocal: People you encourage will often happily encourage and support you. They’ll offer helpful feedback, or they’ll even support you financially because they want you to carry on.
(Shortform note: Many people feel encouraged to pursue their own creative hobbies when they see other people expressing their creativity. Data suggest that many adults have creative interests they feel are unfulfilled. A recent study found that over two-thirds of Americans who participate in a creative hobby wish they could use their creativity more in daily life. Younger adults (ages 18-34) especially felt this way: 74% wished they could be more creative in life than they are. A significant minority of those surveyed (40%) said that seeing others expressing their creativity on social media inspired them to pursue their own hobbies.)
Kleon believes that by letting people see both what you make and how you make it, you’ll not only get to spend time doing the work you love while attracting interested people—you’ll also invite opportunities that can allow you to craft the lifestyle you’ve wanted. Do you want to earn an income off your creative hobby or skillset? Do you dream about doing the work you love all the time?
Kleon adds that being transparent about how you work can set you up for this: A potential employer may see value in your skills and offer you a job that allows you to do more of what you enjoy, or a patron may commission ongoing work from you. If people are familiar with what you can do because they’ve seen what you’ve shared, such possibilities become real. Yet you’ll only generate them by putting yourself out there. If you instead choose to not show what you do, it likely won’t ever be seen, understood, or appreciated, claims Kleon. That’s a recipe for giving up and never realizing your aspirations.
(Shortform note: Kleon’s suggestion that displaying your work online can generate new career opportunities is consistent with the advice of experts. Career counselors advise keeping an online portfolio to showcase the best of your work and your process of creating it. They suggest this is valuable whether you’re in a creative industry, such as marketing, or a non-creative one, such as accounting. Employers like to see how you come to your ideas, work with others, and improve on earlier versions of your projects. Professionals suggest using online platforms like Behance, Dripbook, Tumblr, or simply your own website, to display your portfolio.)
Kleon offers specific insights on how to share your work with others. He recommends first and foremost engaging with social media platforms to showcase your creative process and help people find you. In addition to social media, he recommends having your own website. In this section we’ll explore specific ways you can start sharing your work online.
(Shortform note: In the time since Show Your Work! was published, numerous studies have found that social media has profoundly negative effects on mental health. Kleon’s advice to use social media as a primary means of sharing your work should be considered with this in mind. It’s still valuable for advancing your creative career—in certain fields, such as the fashion industry, it’s even considered a requirement—but it’s important to monitor its impact on your well-being. One study found that limiting social media use to 30 minutes per day can significantly improve your mental health.)
Before you can start sharing, you have to gather material, claims Kleon. A way to do this is to simply document your work. Use your smartphone or some other device to record what you’re doing at any stage in the process. Not only will such photos and videos serve as material to post online, they'll also help you study your methods and develop your skills and techniques.
The Best Way to Improve: Deliberate Practice
By taking videos of or otherwise recording your creative process, you can study your techniques, learn from your mistakes, and take deliberate steps toward improving. This is an element of a particular approach to improving your skills called “deliberate practice.” In his book Peak: Secrets From the New Science of Expertise, psychologist Anders Ericsson coined that term to describe the best way to efficiently improve your skills in any area.
Deliberate practice involves several components:
Evaluate your performance with precision: For instance, record the exact speed at which you play a challenging piece of music.
Engage in competition: Aspire to be the best.
Follow best practices: Don’t concern yourself with pioneering a new technique. Instead, follow time-tested strategies.
Be coached: Seek out the guidance of experts—take their advice and learn from their insights.
Work hard: If you want to improve a lot, you have to put in a lot of effort.
Kleon believes there's worthwhile material to capture at any phase of your process.
If you’re in the early stages of making your piece or don’t yet have any work to show, consider sharing the work of artists who’ve inspired you. For instance, if a poem gave you the idea for the piece you’re starting, share it, advises Kleon. You’ll find that other people like that same poem. They’ll then realize you have something in common, and they’ll likely take an interest in your work when it’s ready to share.
(Shortform note: By sharing the work of others, we signal what our tastes are—this is an important way humans connect with one another. According to researchers, our tastes in poetry, art, music and the like amount to a core part of our self-identities. We have a powerful connection to these identities and tend to feel more affinity for people who share our tastes than for those who don’t. Sharing our tastes publicly, then, is a good way to attract others who identify with the same things.)
Just note that if you share the work of others, you must be comprehensive in giving attribution. According to Kleon, the most important attribution online is the hyperlink—be sure to include it so it’s easy for people to find the source. If you don’t know where a work came from, Kleon says, don’t share it. Proper attribution is a great way to build real connections with like-minded people, and it’s also just the right thing to do.
Hyperlinks Are an Important Part of Building Your Online Presence
Giving proper attribution for the works you share is not only important for the reasons Kleon lists—finding connections with like-minded people and doing the right thing—but also because it can help you build your online presence.
One way this could happen is that if you mention a source, you might end up in a search result if someone else searches for that source. A second way it might happen is that any hyperlinks you add when attributing the work of others can help improve your website or blog’s search engine optimization (SEO). SEO refers to how highly a site ranks in search results—the better the SEO, the earlier it will come up in search results—and the more hyperlinks you have, the better your SEO will be.
The hyperlinks that most improve your SEO are inbound links—other websites, blogs, or social media sites linking to yours. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to get other websites to link to yours because the people running those websites have to add those links voluntarily on their end. Kleon’s suggestion to include links when you share work, however, is a good way to encourage other people to link to your site. If you’re generous with linking to other people’s work, they'll likely be generous with you in return.
If you’re in the middle of your process, show people what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, recommends Kleon. Share your research for your novel, geek out about your red sable paint brush, ask others how they record acoustic guitar in stereo, and so on. Teach what you’ve learned. These kinds of posts are engaging and sure to attract those who care about the same things.
(Shortform note: Social media marketing experts find that asking questions is one of the best ways to get people to engage with your posts. Consider how you can ask relevant questions at any phase of your creative process to boost your audience engagement.)
If you’ve just finished a piece—show it, insists Kleon. Then show the outtakes and edits. This kind of transparency makes you more accessible to people and helps them get to know you.
Kleon writes that if you have many finished works, tell people about opportunities you may have coming up: a gallery showing or a book reading, for instance. Share your memories of how a certain work came to be, or ask for constructive feedback. Kleon claims there’s always a way to help people engage with your work at any phase.
(Shortform note: While it’s important to show your finished piece or pieces, it’s also important to steer clear of bragging about opportunities or successes you’ve had. Studies show that bragging—whether explicitly or implicitly (the “humble-brag”)—makes you less likable. A better approach is to stay humble. Share your gratitude, share the facts, share when you’re asked, or hire someone to promote you, so you don’t have to talk about yourself.)
Kleon advises you to make sharing a habit, preferably a daily one. A practical way to do this is to post on a social media platform such as Instagram, Tumblr, or Youtube every day. He encourages you to try out new platforms as they emerge—if you find something that works for you, stick with it. Whatever platform you use, make time to do it daily. Regular posts generate a steady stream of content for people to see, which creates more opportunities for people to connect with you.
According to Kleon, posting to your blog or sending an email to your subscribers are also effective ways to share on a regular basis, and they give you even more control over the content. For instance, certain social media platforms limit the number of characters you can use in a post. By contrast, in a blog post, you can write as much as you want. Consider adding blogging and emailing to your routine.
(Shortform note: Digital marketing experts don’t agree about how often you should post; however, in general they advise focusing on the quality of your posts over the quantity. With this focus, daily posts may not be ideal. The main reason for this is that creating interesting, useful posts every day can be hard to sustain. Since it’s more important to make posts that are relevant and add value for your followers, simply do that at whatever pace you can sustain even if it’s less than daily.)
Posting your work daily is good, but if you post without providing any explanation—no context or backstory, for instance—you’ll be missing out on the opportunity to engage people even more, claims Kleon. He suggests that this is because people tend to value things based on their understanding of the context of those things. For example, if you bought a marble bust from a thrift store and later found out it was an ancient Roman artifact, your opinion of its value would probably change.
How Pleasure Works
Kleon refers to the work of psychologist Paul Bloom on this point. In his book How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, Bloom argues that we enjoy things more if we believe them to be authentic or unique.
Based on his research, Bloom believes that humans can’t help but prefer things that they understand to have some special origin. This is why it’s important to explain the special origin of your work to people—if people believe a piece is special, they derive more pleasure from experiencing it. Therefore, one way to get people to enjoy your work more is to simply tell them why they should.
Contextualizing your work is a matter of crafting a story, according to Kleon. This isn’t a skill that comes naturally to everyone, so he suggests you follow good examples: fairy tales and myths, for instance. Such stories have a problem, work done to solve that problem, and a solution. More basically, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
For example, tell people about the sunrise you saw on the way to your office or the hours of research invested before finally discovering the one resource you’ve been hunting down for days. When you finally publish your book, followers may be more inclined to get a copy since they know how much labor went into it.
(Shortform note: Communication experts offer several tips for telling a good story. One particularly useful idea is to start with the message. That is, figure out exactly what point you want to make before you start crafting your narrative. For instance, if you hope to convince people to listen to your new song, you might consider telling them about the quirky instrument you found during the recording session that ended up making it into the release. Once you have that point nailed down, it becomes easier to put together the story that will help you make that point.)
As important as it is to post and contextualize your work on social media, having your own website gives you more control and an even better way to build an online presence. Kleon is adamant that you should have one. If you don’t already have one, buy a domain name and build a website (or have it built). Fill that site with your story—your interests, thoughts, products, and so on. Even if people don’t visit your site now, if you keep up with it, you’ll be ready for people to find it when the time comes.
Kleon attributes most of his success to his blog on his website. For years he posted pictures of his illustrations, poems, thoughts, and ideas there. These were the bits of content that got him found. For him, a website allows people to learn about you regardless of social media trends, which are always changing.
(Shortform note: Other experts agree with Kleon on the importance of having a personal website, especially if you’re looking to advance your career or generate more opportunities for yourself. However you build your website—whether you do it yourself or have someone else build it—you must have a few main elements on the site: “About” pages are a good way for people to get a high-level understanding of who you are. “Contact” pages are essential for giving people a way to get in touch with you. Blog or portfolio pages are useful for showcasing your work and thought process. Be sure to include these elements on your personal website.)
Sharing your work online brings all kinds of attention, some of which may distract you, discourage you, or even completely derail your progress, writes Kleon. He has some specific advice about avoiding the wrong kinds of connections and handling criticism, so you can focus on what matters and continue doing the work you want to do. We’ll explore this advice here.
Making meaningful connections is what sharing your work is about, so it’s important that you cultivate constructive interactions, contends Kleon. A prime way to do this is to simply focus on the things you love—the work, the ideas, the artists, and so on. You’ll attract real people who love these same things and you’ll create fewer opportunities for negative attention to come your way.
(Shortform note: Happiness experts note that doing things you enjoy brings more pleasure than talking about things you enjoy. So, as you share your work with others online, focus on the act of creating—making the thing you like to make, or practicing the skill you hope to learn. If you instead get caught up in merely talking about what you’d like to do, you’re likely to feel unhappier than if you actually did it.)
Worthwhile connections are mutually encouraging—focus on these, and ignore the others, says Kleon. Don’t concentrate on the number of followers you have, and instead concentrate on the quality of those connections. If they’re distracting, hurtful, or otherwise drain your energy, don’t give them any time. Online trolls exemplify this kind of attention—Kleon suggests you block them.
Dealing With Online Trolls
Online harassment and trolling have grown only more common in the time since Show Your Work! was published. A recent survey found that the percentage of Americans who experienced severe online harassment (including physical threats, stalking, and the like) rose from 15% in 2014 to 25% in 2021. In fact, over two-fifths of US adults have been harassed online.
In addition to Kleon’s advice to block online trolls from your social media accounts, experts have suggested three other techniques to deal with this kind of negative attention:
Ignore negative, taunting comments.
Don’t respond to people who behave this way.
Make sure your social media followers aren’t anonymous.
Regarding this last point, a way to ensure your followers aren’t anonymous is to periodically check on the accounts of all your followers and block anyone who doesn’t use their real name. This may require some sleuthing, but the effort can help keep your online interactions constructive.
When you share your work, you open yourself up to criticism, claims Kleon. He suggests five ways to prepare for this:
Carnegie’s Advice on Dealing With Criticism
In his book How To Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie offers a few other tips for dealing with criticism. Two, in particular, stand out in comparison to Kleon’s suggestions:
Absorb well-intentioned criticism. This kind of criticism can be beneficial. Often, other people see things in us and our work that we can’t. Take the opportunity to improve if the criticism is justified.
Frame unfair criticism as praise. Often, this kind of criticism is motivated by jealousy or some other weakness in your critic. This should be a sign to you that you’ve accomplished something worthy of envy.
As you create things, you’ll invariably reach a point where you consider making money from your work. Many creatives balk at the idea, believing it might corrupt the process. Kleon wants you to get over this inhibition. Everyone needs money to survive, and there’s nothing wrong with making money off your work—it doesn’t inherently corrupt creativity. Kleon has ideas to earn an income as a creative person.
(Shortform note: Kleon isn’t suggesting that you shouldn’t have another income besides your creative work. In his previous book, Steal Like an Artist, he encourages keeping a day job to foster your creativity. The reason for this is that having a reliable income will alleviate money worries. Also, the routine of a day job will help build a rhythm to your schedule that frees you up to focus on your creative interests when you’re off the clock.)
A common way to make money off your work is to simply ask for a donation. For instance, it’s generally expected that a performer will have a jar out to take tips when they perform in public. Kleon suggests that you include a virtual tip jar or donation button on your website. As he sees it, such simple tools let you share a bit of your story and invite people to voluntarily support your work.
(Shortform note: Research shows that people donate more when they feel an emotional connection to the person or organization they’re donating to. This supports Kleon’s idea of sharing a bit of your story when you invite people to donate. If you put a donate button on your website, include a small paragraph near it about who you are and how a donation can help you. If you can explain how it will directly impact your life, you’ll likely elicit a better response.)
According to Kleon, crowdfunding is a popular way to fund projects such as publishing a book, recording an album, or constructing a studio. It usually involves offering tiers of support that correspond to different benefits you give supporters. There are many platforms that can make crowdfunding smooth and efficient, and it can be a relatively easy way to collect money. Kleon warns, though, that people who contribute to crowdfunding campaigns may end up wanting a greater say in how their money is put to use. This isn’t necessarily bad, but for him, it limits what you can do with your work.
(Shortform note: Other artists have a different view of crowdfunding than Kleon. For instance, musician Amanda Palmer believes that it’s the ideal way to fund artists. She argues that people like to support artists they respect. If they’re willing to give you support, it’s because they already see value in your work. Just be transparent, and do what you do. For Palmer, it’s not a matter of relinquishing control, as it seems to be for Kleon, because she sees her art as a form of dialogue: The ideas she expresses in her work are part of a conversation she’s having with her fans. When fans give her money via crowdfunding, it’s like they’re saying, “Keep it up.”)
If you’d rather retain control, Kleon advises you to consider a more traditional transaction: Make something, put a price on it, and let people buy it.
(Shortform note: It can be difficult to figure out how to price your work. Experts suggest, however, that you don’t let your emotional attachment to your work affect the price. Instead, base the price on something objective about the product, such as its physical attributes (for example, the materials it's made of) or the time it took you to make it.)
If you’re having trouble creating enough stuff to sell, Kleon suggests that you collect your daily shares into larger, more durable works that become part of your corpus. In his case, much of Share Your Work started out as tweets. Over time he fleshed them out into blog posts and eventually into chapters of a published book.
Whatever your creative work is, consider mining your daily posts for ideas to flesh out in this way, advises Kleon. If you examine them, you may find posts that have common themes that you can build into larger, more permanent works.
(Shortform note: Some musicians have found success by using social media to compose a larger work. Recently, the musical duo Barlow & Bear won a Grammy for a musical they wrote live on Tik-Tok. One benefit they found of writing the musical this way is that their social media followers could give real-time feedback as they composed the songs. This helped them gauge the audience’s reception and also encouraged the audience to invest more in the work.)
Email is a powerful tool for connecting with people, writes Kleon. Collecting email addresses enables you to keep people in the loop and sell things when you have something to sell. Just remember—never put an email on your list if the owner hasn’t given you permission. And if someone has given you their email address, don’t take advantage of it by spamming them.
(Shortform note: Marketing experts encourage businesses to use email marketing because it has been shown to have the highest return on investment compared to other forms of marketing. If you’re interested in selling your work, then, consider how you can incorporate email into your online strategy.)
As Kleon sees it, creativity comes from progress, so to stay creative, you must keep moving forward. This will expand your abilities and give you new ideas for things to make and sell. Keep trying things you want to try. Don’t stagnate by passing up new opportunities or avoiding change—otherwise, your work will become stale.
(Shortform note: A recent study shows that trying new things is an important part of finding creative success. Researchers have found that some of the most successful creative people only made a breakthrough after exploring many different styles, techniques, and ideas, and then focusing on whatever piqued their interest. When they focused on one thing, they developed a “hot streak” where they honed that style or idea to make the most of it. One example of a hot streak is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which he developed only after trying many different genres of films. So, try something new—you may find your best idea.)
As you make progress and begin to experience success, use it to help others, advises Kleon. Promote them, encourage them, and share your insights. This kind of promotion usually becomes mutual. As you support other people, they support you—this has a way of bringing more work your way in the future.
However, don’t let this process keep you from doing your creative work now, warns Kleon. If you get inundated with questions and emails, consider ways to make engaging more manageable. For example, Kleon holds office hours during which he answers questions from the public. This practice ensures that he reserves a finite amount of time to communicate with people. Otherwise he might easily spend all his energy answering emails.
(Shortform note: Kleon doesn’t mention one particularly effective way to take questions and talk with supporters: live streaming. This involves sharing a live video feed with people online; typically, viewers can comment and converse with you during the video. During the Covid-19 lockdown period, live streaming became a key way for artists, writers, and musicians to connect with their audiences. The benefit of live streaming is that it enables you to interact directly with people and communicate without significant delays or other barriers to conversation. Popular live streaming platforms include Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.)
Kleon warns that there will be both good times and hard times as an artist. Sometimes the only thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is sticking to it. If you quit prematurely, you’ve already failed. Just keep at it and leave the door open to success whenever it may come. He offers three strategies that can help you persevere.
(Shortform note: According to some experts, perseverance is a critical part of success—it’s less about innate talent than it is about sticking with it and working hard. In her bestselling book, Grit, psychologist Angela Duckworth argues that your level of achievement is determined by how much skill you have and how much effort you put forth. As you increase your skill, your effort, or both, you increase your chances of success, no matter what your creative interest.)
Kleon observes that many artists make it a habit to never stop at the end of a project. Instead, they always springboard into another project. Doing this ensures that they keep up momentum.
(Shortform note: In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert offers several suggestions for maintaining your creative momentum. One particularly relevant practice is to be disciplined. Always try hard, she says, but maintain the joy of the creative process, too.)
As important as it is to keep up your momentum, sometimes you need to take a short break to refresh and renew your creative energy, contends Kleon. This will vary depending on your personality, but consider taking a short vacation, enjoying a cup of tea, or riding a bike. These and other similar activities can calm your mind and help spark creative ideas.
(Shortform note: Experts have found that a critical phase of the creative process is allowing yourself to recharge by entering an “absorb'' state of mind. In this state, you uncritically take in environmental stimuli—the sound of the birds, the patterns on the wall, and so on. Your creative mind can store up these stimuli to then transform them into something new at another time.)
As you share your work, you may find yourself becoming embarrassed of the work you’ve done in the past, warns Kleon. This can feel discouraging and make you consider quitting altogether. He suggests you reframe these feelings. Rather than taking them as a sign of your mediocrity, take them as a sign that you’re learning and growing. This should be encouraging because, as he sees it, you’re never starting from scratch: You’re always building on what came before.
(Shortform note: Creativity experts note that cultivating a growth mindset is crucial for progressing as a creative individual. You have to view failures and mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve. Be willing to fail, be willing to embarrass yourself—this willingness will help you stick it out for the long haul.)
Sharing your work the way Kleon describes takes dedication and effort. In this exercise, let’s take a look at the creative work you love the most, how often you do that work, and what you hope to achieve with it. Then, we’ll set some goals and schedule sharing into your routine in an effort to achieve those goals.
Take a moment to precisely describe the creative work you’re most passionate about. For example, if you’re interested in music, describe what kind of music you feel most passionate about creating: playing guitar and writing original songs or perhaps remixing digital samples to make beats, for instance. After you’ve described it, write a few sentences exploring why you feel so passionate about it. This is the work you should focus on sharing.
Now, set some goals for yourself. What do you hope to achieve by doing this creative work? Do you want to get a gallery showing, or record an album, for example? Maybe you hope to find some people to collaborate with. Write down your top three goals in the space below.
Consider how you might use the habit of sharing your work to achieve those goals. For instance, choose some times of day or days during the week when you can set aside 30 minutes to make a post on social media, live stream, or write a blog post, and block out those times in your schedule. Make it a point to follow through on this schedule for at least one month. Plan to re-evaluate the schedule at the end of that month to ensure that it’s fitting into your routine.