If you don’t work when you don’t want to work, you won’t be able to work when you do want to work. This ensures you maintain the capacity for effort even when inspiration is lacking.
Define the central focus or concentration (the ‘spine’) of your work before starting. This prevents wandering and ensures you remain grounded and confident in your creative direction.
Take care of your body and health first, preserving, protecting, and honoring it daily. This is fundamental for overall well-being, allowing your brain to function optimally and preventing detrimental schemata.
Adopt a mindset of continuous hard work and practice, maximizing time and avoiding waste. This approach, learned from a farm upbringing, ensures you get the job done and achieve results.
Create a fixed schedule for your work, even for short periods like an hour and a half daily. This habit of showing up consistently is essential ‘bricklaying’ that allows ideas to develop and potentially become a reality.
Do not label outcomes as ‘failure’ or ‘bad’; instead, assess if they are ‘useful,’ ’exciting,’ or ‘generate a next question.’ This perspective helps maintain progress by focusing on learning and forward momentum.
As an artist, continuously alter your perception to stay relevant and engaging. This prevents complacency and ensures you are always evolving and gaining attention through change, rather than reinforcing comfort zones.
Following a major success, actively seek new directions and challenges rather than resting on past achievements. This requires finding a way to reroute without abandoning your core identity, as success is often harder to follow than failure.
Develop an internal standard of excellence that is very high, even unattainable, rather than relying on external validation. This self-driven pursuit of ‘I can do more’ fosters continuous improvement and deep satisfaction.
Engage in work for the love of the process itself, rather than for external rewards or recognition. This ensures you are doing something for the ‘right reasons’ and fosters sustained dedication.
Walk through life and observe without immediately translating experiences into verbal dialogue, like an animal. This practice enhances perception and provides a deeper, less limited experience of the world.
Keep tangible items that evoke the initial sensory experience or instinct of an idea in a ‘box.’ These physical anchors can remind you of the original excitement and simplicity of your concept when the creative journey becomes opaque.
Approach all information and experiences with a non-judgmental, ’transactional’ mindset, asking ‘What can I learn from this? What can I use?’ This fosters continuous learning and application across different domains.
Actively seek and accept friction and pushback as opportunities, rather than viewing them as fights. This mindset helps maintain pressure and fearlessness, allowing you to address boundaries and grow.
Recognize that big jobs require utilizing forces outside yourself and that you ‘owe’ and ‘share’ with others. This fosters a sense of communal effort and mutual support, creating a society as it ‘ought to be.’
Study classical forms like ballet to build a fundamental understanding of how the human body moves in space. This provides a strong base for developing strength, control, and a deeper awareness of movement.
Embrace a sense of isolation to operate from a truthful place in your creative work. This allows for authentic expression, free from external influences, and helps in determining what is truly productive.
Recognize that movement is the most fundamental action, preceding sound, feeding, and language. This foundational understanding highlights the importance of physical activity in all aspects of human function.
When lost or unsure how to proceed, ‘scratch’ or essay by trying something, being patient, and having faith to continue. This open approach, being willing to be caught off guard, helps generate new ideas and directions.
Confront the declining body and its restrictions not as demoralizing, but as an opportunity for an ’exchange rate.’ This means giving up physical independence for goodwill and finding new ways to contribute value through shared processes.
Be aware that audiences tend to ‘cubbyhole’ creators, wanting them to stay where they were first found. As a creator, understand that evolving and changing is necessary to gain continued attention, rather than reinforcing comfort zones.
Step outside your creative work and view it unemotionally, as an ‘outsider’ or your own ’translator.’ This allows you to assess if the work ‘reads’ effectively, rather than being swayed by personal feelings.
Clearly differentiate between ritual (to accomplish a goal), practice (consistent, reoccurring activity), and habit (doing something the same way). This allows for more intentional and adaptable approaches to daily actions.
Consciously manipulate the physical distance between performers to create specific visual impacts and sensations for the audience. This can range from angling for full reach in crowded spaces to condensing performers for anxiety-inducing intimacy.
Incorporate boxing training into your regimen for extreme physical conditioning, including rope coordination, stamina, power, and grounding. This builds a unique kind of resilience and unwillingness to ‘go down.’
Participate in rigorous and continuous weightlifting, aiming for challenging feats like bench pressing body weight for repetitions. This develops unique physical strength and sends a ‘rush to the body.’
Recognize that ballet bar work is a brilliantly designed regimen of exercises (plie, tendu, rond de jambe, battement) to strengthen the body’s structure. It develops the strength needed for jumps and point work by evolving movements from bending to lifting.
Encourage young people to engage in group social dances like ballroom or square dance. These activities establish rules, regulations, and respect for traffic patterns, which transfer to broader social behaviors.
Be aware of and respect nonverbal forms of communication, such as ‘in the air’ sensing, which can convey powerful messages without words or physical signs. This broadens understanding of human interaction beyond explicit language.