Let Your Work Speak For Itself

I love watching the initial auditions for the shows America’s Got Talent, The Voice, and American Idol.

I love the people with raw, un-polished talent.
I love the talented people who met with misfortune and are working hard to get ahead in the industry.
I love the people who have talent and have received some coaching.
I also love the people that come in believing they have talent and will tell you they have talent because their friends and family have said so. They are irritated that the professional entertainers see no talent or ability in them what-so-ever. And sometimes, they are the people that inform the judges that they are the clueless ones.

I get it. You want to tell everyone what you are working on and how it’s going. Some experts even suggest announcing your intentions because, according to them, it drives you to your goal because you want to live up to your word.

BALDERDASH! (I love that word.)

At least for me, that concept has proven ill-advised. I seem to do better when I practice my violin/fiddle when no one can hear me make mistakes or begin a passage again. I seem to write better (and more often) when I keep my writing schedule to myself and hunker down in my writing studio.

WHY?

Why not share my dreams, goals, and aspirations with the world?

Because unlike in my childhood, I let the nay-sayers win. I let their “I bet you can’t” drill into my creative soul and become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

However, I’ve begun to function like a duck over the past few years: I look calm and under control on the surface, but underneath I am paddling like mad. Some days, I paddle just to keep afloat; other days, I paddle to get ahead.

In addition, think about the people who constantly tell you what they are working on, where they are in a specific project, and how easy it’s going. For many, other people’s success becomes the self-fulfilling prophesy of why “you” can’t.

I was taught a long time ago that actions speak louder than words.

If you want people to know what you are doing, be the example. Instead of saying what you will be doing, do it; then, when someone asks you what you accomplished yesterday or last week, you can tell them what you did and how it affected you.

For example – – –

Don’t tell someone you joined a gym and you are planning to exercise every day after work. Instead, join the gym and stop there after work so that when someone notices that you have more energy or that you look like you are losing weight, you can tell them your secret.

Instead,

be like the toddler who has successfully managed to escape the crib during naptime. You have no idea how many failures it has taken before the one success that you see. And that toddler is joyous about that success.

Paddle like a duck –

work hard without broadcasting –