How-To
C’mere. I want to tell you a secret. Something that might change how you see our profession, how you go about learning and how you perceive your position in it. Come closer. Closer, still. OK. Ready for this? OK. Here we go.
“There are no recipes.”
I say it quietly, but I want to shout it. Scream it. “There are no recipes.”
Stop looking for a recipe for success. You want it? So far as I can tell, it is to relentlessly do what you’re best at, keep at it, and to keep moving and take advantage of opportunities.
Stop looking for recipes about how to find work. You want it? Do what you’re best at, tell people about it, make incredible work and every once in a while remind people you exist in a way that best represents you. There’s no one true way to promote.
Stop looking for recipes about how to optimize your workflow. You want it? Get rid of stupid fluff, and do things that matter. Do one thing at a time. Work like your grandpa did. Yeah, the world is different now, but humans have always had to make decisions about where to put their attention. We’ve just lost our spine.
Stop looking for recipes about how to finish a project, treat a client, manage your email, optimize your sleep, get over a creative block, get your first job, maintain focus or stay “fresh.” They don’t exist. Or they’re common sense. Eventually you’ll grow out of wondering How-To. Hopefully, you’ll progress into Why-To.
Why do we look for recipes? Because we’re risk averse. If we fail, it’s because someone else gave us the wrong recipe. We get to skip on the blame, but can claim the success.
But, there’s money in recipes. If there’s a recipe, that means there’s a secret. And you can sell a silver bullet. The thing is, most people that are giving you a recipe are pandering to your fear. “What if things go wrong?”
Let me let you in on another little secret: failing isn’t as risky as it used to be. You’re probably not running a factory that employs thousands of people. You’re more than likely mostly anonymous. If nobody knows who you are, no one notices if you screw up. If people do know who you are and you screw up, there will be something new in 5 minutes to steal their attention. Sometimes an audience’s fickle attention can be an asset. The world will move on. If you work digitally, and you make something awful, you can delete it. Liberating.
Thinking and learning are bound up with action. Recipes fail because to really know self-promotion (or anything else), you have to do self-promotion. Recipes are pseudo-action, a visage of a person doing the movement you yourself want. Looking for a recipe is no better than hang-wringing or navel gazing.
Recipes don’t work because it means that things need to be able to be boiled down to a set of hard rules. But, most things are different than a series of if-then logic games. This is why cooking recipes work. But, most of the things we search for recipes on are dependent on the situation, and practical know-how is always tied to the experience of a particular person.
You can’t download experience. You can only live it. Stop waiting around for someone to save you with a recipe. Stop being helpless. Go do something and save yourself.
