Have Courage. Begin it now.

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.
      - Joseph Campbell  

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.
- Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

Whatever you give your heart to will challenge the depths of your being, will transform your life, will enrich and deepen your experience of life. To give your heart to your creativity is to pick up a shovel and begin digging inside yourself for what you have to offer the world. You dig to find the beauty inside you. That beauty is shy and buried under layers of fear. It is a journey that is hard to stay with. But out of these things comes meaning, and meaning is all-transcendent.

The prerequisites for the creative life; sacrifice, discipline, hard work. In the end, those things are more important than talent. If you give your life to it, or a substantial portion of your life, it will give itself to you. If you do it half-hearted, it will turn its back on you.

That is a little like saying loving yourself is difficult. First you have to believe that you are worthy of your love. You have to believe that there is a beauty inside yourself. You have to have the courage to offer that to the world. In the beginning at least, the world is likely to be indifferent.

I think that there are powerful people who can sense things earlier. More subtle cues. You get your power from the first step. It’s exhilarating. Pushing away from the bank and going down a whitewater river that you have never been down before. After that, everything falls into place. Your power comes from that first step. What a lot of people can't accept is that there is no control. You can't see the entire journey.
      - Ed Gillet. Gillet is perhaps best known for paddling solo in a kayak from Monterey, California to Maui. It took him 64 days – he blew off course, ran out of food.

Each of us has an Up North. It’s a time and a place far from the here and now. It’s a map on the wall, a dream in the making, a tugging at one’s soul. For those who feel the tug, who make the dream happen, who put the map in the packsack and go, the world is never quite the same.
            - Sam Cook, Up North

In our age, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
      - Dag Hammarskjöld

 

A man with outward courage dares to die
A man with inward courage dares to live.
- Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

Everything that is worthwhile has a price, and for an artist part of the price is dealing with indifference and rejection, including the indifference inside oneself. I’ve given up on my art more than once in my life. But ultimately, I made the commitment. I put hours a day into it for a couple of years. And for a couple of years, I did nothing that was worthwhile. Nothing.

Talent. Ahhhhh, everyone talks about talent. Talent helps. Listen, get all the talent you can. But writing is guts and its courage. You cannot have a failure of courage. Everybody in the world is telling you you’re no good, and you can’t do it, and it’s not going to work. You’ve got to keep talking to yourself, saying, ‘Come on, son. Come on . . .”

-        Erik Bledsoe, Getting Naked with Harry Crews (Interviews)

Yes, courage. Courage to you, I tell myself. Courage. Come out, you god of flowers, you bird of courage. Lift your wings.

After you do your art for a couple of hours, you don’t want to stop. But that first two hours takes courage, takes grit.

An artist's insecurities are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can inhibit work, and discourage work. On the other, they can spur an artist into efforts of constant improvement, and constant experimentation.

Like all paths that involve a deep experience of life, living a creative life on your own terms involves  contradictions. Yes, have courage and start now, particularly if you are offering something new and important to your chosen market. But polish. Strive for mastery. Care about quality. Do work you are proud of. If you do exceptional work, unique work, and don’t give up when the initial results are disappointing, the money will take care of itself.

Be receptive. Listen to what your market is telling you. Not many people listen carefully, and then think about what they’ve heard. Listen to what your customers are telling you. Study what others are doing and emerging technologies that have the potential to dramatically change your business. Always look for new ways within your area of expertise to serve others.

Invite the gods, welcome them, with hard work, commitment. The gods will, at random times and at times when you most need it, join you, support your journey. Gradually you’ll build momentum.

Good luck. The world lacks for people who care about their work, and that have the courage to manifest their beauty. We need that from you.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.  Concerning all acts of initiative (or creation) there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way.  Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. 

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world. . . Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius; power and magic in it. Begin it now.
      - Goethe

Life constricts or expands in relation to one's courage.
- Anaïs Nin