Do you have something creative in your backlog?

Throughout my life, I have spoken to people who have a list of creative ambitions they want to do parked on Someday Isle that they don’t take seriously enough to put in their Master Backlog. Someday they’ll take up painting, someday they will write a memoir, someday they will start a business, and on and on. The reason these goals don’t appear on their Master Backlogs is because they think they either don’t have the time or the talent. While time is almost never a valid reason, a lack of talent or knowledge can cause an immediate fear of failure. “Why would I ever take up playing the piano? I can’t even read music.” And with that, many dreams will go their graves with their dreamers.

I have never thought I had the ability to draw. Any time I sketched something, I compared it to work of a fifth grader and found mine inferior. Then I took a course and in just a few hours, I had picked up enough skills to create a decent representation of something I was looking at. Then I bought a DVD course and improved my skills more. Then a book, and saw more improvement. I am not a master and it is not my ambition to be one, but the satisfaction that comes with developing that skill is immense. And you can do this with anything that is on, or not on your backlog. The key is to start.

Chase Jarvis in his book Creative Calling outlines a recipe for success in any creative endeavor. Chase became a professional photographer after dropping out of medical school. If I can’t motivate you to get started working on that latent dream of yours, Chase certainly can. I highly recommend the book and hope you can give life to that which lives within you.