I'm struggling to find the words to start this email.

My mental space is cluttered, my to-do list is flooded, and my time is running out — I have a deadline to meet and a flight to catch.

The Deadline

I've published a newsletter every week for the last six months.

Committing to a publishing schedule is one of the best things I've done for my creative development perfectionism. This commitment forces me to create and ship work weekly for you and thousands of others to see.

The creative in me loves it, but the perfectionist in me hates it.

For the last 6 months, I’ve kept my promise and shown up in your inbox every Tuesday. For the last 6 months, my Monday nights have been consumed with the adrenaline and stress only a good procrastination session can provide.

In case you didn’t know, it’s Monday, and I have less than 12 hours to finish this letter, get my first manicure, shop, and pack for my trip.

The Trip

I’ll be in Costa Rica for the next week and some change.

A good friend is getting married, and I need time to unplug from a year that's taken quite a bit out of me.

I don't mean to sound dramatic. It hasn't been a bad year. Quite the opposite:

• I officially launched this newsletter

• I started building an online presence and community

• I made my first wifi money

• I got promoted at work

• I became a dad to two cats

• I moved in with my girlfriend into a lovely apartment

• Most importantly, I found my way back to my creative self

2024 has been very good to me. It’s given me what I’ve put in.

Deepening my creative practice and building a creative business while balancing other personal and professional responsibilities is hard work built on years of hard work.

Creative living is sustained hard work.

So here I am, cooking up another last-minute newsletter, waiting for my appointment with the nail lady.

There is a lesson here — or five.

But more on that later …

BTW, if you love THE WORK, share it with a friend. If you hate it, share it with an enemy.

TODAY’S MENU

• 💡 5 Lessons That Took Me Years To Learn

• 🧠 Repair and Remain

• 📺 Chernobyl

• 🤗 Van Gogh’s Insecurities

— Santi

5 Creative Lessons That Took Me Years To Learn

Note: The following section is a snippet from The Creative’s Guide To Overcoming Self-Doubt. You can access the complete guide by sharing the newsletter with a friend.

Every life lesson comes with a cost. For most, the price is time. For others, time and pain.

Naturally, some lessons cost more than others, but a high price doesn’t always equal high value.

Here are five of my most expensive and valuable lessons on the creative process:

1. Your Job Is To Create

If you look at other creatives' work and processes to improve yours, you’re doing great. Picasso said, “Great artists steal.”

But, if you’re putting yourself in a box, judging your work, and comparing yourself to other creatives, remember this:

Your job as a creative isn’t to judge your work. Your job is to create.

If you’re struggling to create, you need less judgment and more mess.

2. Make A Mess.

On my computer, there is a rant titled, “I want to write as shitty as I can.”

They’re a bunch of words that will never see the eyes of strangers. Words I needed to free myself from the opinions of strangers.

The gist of the rant is that perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

Anne Lammot’s “Bird by Bird” is one of the best books on writing. It contains a powerful idea: the shitty first draft, which is precisely what it sounds like, a brain dump, pun intended.

Lammot and other literary legends credit the shitty first draft as the key to their writing.

Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages — a practice from her book “The Artist’s Way” — is another powerful practice to put your inner critic in the passenger seat and start doing some donuts.

I know I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to my creative work. You are probably yours. Creativity is curiosity at play, and when curiosity plays, shit is supposed to get messy — you, clean freak.

3. Explore Different Perspectives

For most people, the creative process stops before it begins with phrases like “it won’t work” or “that idea is not good enough.”

You need to let yourself explore. Be curious. Try something new.

This is where having a basic understanding of mental models helps quite a bit. Something might seem uninspiring simply because of your current perspective. Change your angle, and you might find your idea quite compelling.

But you don’t need mental models to explore ideas. Just ask yourself, “How would a monkey approach this?” or “What would it look like if God wasn’t watching? And boom! You have another idea, a new continuation point, a new brick.

4. Brick By Brick

You generally know when you’re avoiding work out of fear or simply because you need to give it time to breathe.

The challenge is being able to tell a good idea from a shit idea.

A good idea in the wrong hands is dog shit.

Here is what you need to know:

If an idea doesn’t blow you away right away, do not throw it away. Most ideas aren’t born genius. Genius is crafted, not mass-produced.

I’ve never seen a beautiful brick, but I’m obsessed with skylines.

5. Create For Yourself.

You want to make things others will appreciate — a noble desire — but this nobility is one of the root causes of your creative self-doubt.

Creating for others is great. But you need to create for yourself first and foremost.

Falling in love with the process means loving doing the thing that wakes you up in the morning and keeps you up at night.

Trust your creative vision, and don’t create for algorithms or to please others. Compromising your art for validation is a heinous crime.

What ideas are you chewing on nowadays? What lesson would you share with your younger self? I’d love to hear from you!