No matter how hard you try, your work is never going to be perfect. You can spend dozens of hours trying to squeeze the final few percent of value out of something, but you’re unlikely to ever get there. This sometimes happens when you get too close to a project and begin to see problems …

Two of my children are competitive runners. They typically run in rela- tively flat environments, and even when running cross-country races, the courses are typically relatively nontreacherous. Regardless, their coach requires them to do what are called “hill repeats” during training. Hill repeats are exactly how they sound—running up and down a hill over and …

At some point, you reach a place in your career where work that once felt difficult is now fairly simple and projects that would have kept you up all night several years ago are now quite manageable. You feel in total control of your process and mastery of your domain. Sounds great, right? However, it’s …

Morning Pages There are brilliant insights lurking just beneath the surface of your conscious thought. You may not realize they are there because you are so busy handling your responsibilities that you gloss over them. One excellent method for mining these invaluable gems is called morning pages. This is a technique introduced by Julia Cameron …

Backward Rationalizing I love the story about the farmer’s cousin who went to visit his family in the country. Upon arrival, the farmer took the city cousin on a tour of the property, and the city cousin was shocked to see an archery target on the side of the barn with an arrow embedded perfectly …

Sound Familiar? You’re stuck and you can’t see a path forward. You’ve tried everything you know to do, but that brilliant breakthrough still eludes you. What do you do now? One effective method that I’ve used with teams is to simply ask “Where have we seen something like this before?” It doesn’t have to be …

Your Personal Dashboard If you wish to be prolific, brilliant, and healthy over the long term in your career, it’s important to monitor the gauges on your personal dashboard. If you fail to pay attention to the dashboard of your car, it’s very likely that you’ll eventually run out of gas, overheat, speed, or end …

Creative work requires vulnerability, because you are putting your thoughts, perspectives, and skills on display for others to critique. It can feel very much like a judgment of your work is a judgment of your worth. Because of this, many creative pros become guarded over time in an attempt to protect their sense of self. …

Listen for the Patterns I grew up in a home situated right next to heavily trafficked railroad tracks. At night, as I would lie in bed trying desperately to go to sleep, I would feel a faint rumble in my mattress. It was almost unnoticeable at first, but then it would send vibrations up and …

Phone a Friend One pervasive—and damaging—myth is that creativity is a solo sport. We love to envision the lone creative pro, probably alone in a cabin in the middle of upstate New York, working feverishly at their craft, generating breakthrough after breakthrough in total isolation. Of course, that’s not reality. Yes, much of the work …