How To Be A Full-Time Creator (Start Part-Time)

Do you ever wish you had 40 hours per week to work on your creative project? You could probably make some real progress if you did. Well, guess what? If you had 40 hours per week, you would fail. 

Let me explain. 

Many of us wish we had more time to work on our creative projects. Building a business, acting, making art–fill in “creative project” with whatever it means for you. There’s a reason many people start their creative careers by moonlighting, and it’s not just because they’re waiting for more money before they quit their jobs. It’s because being a full-time creator is incredibly hard. 

Being a creator requires you to suspend disbelief and carry on despite the evidence. 

The evidence says that you’ll never make any money doing this. That’s because when most people start out they don’t make any money. The evidence says that you aren’t very good at this. That’s because when most people start out they don’t make very good work yet. The evidence says that no one is going to care about this. That’s because when most people start out, they don’t have a very big audience. 

This is why it’s totally normal for people to moonlight their art until they’re making enough money to support a full-time schedule. It’s not because the money makes it possible, it’s because they’ve built up enough stamina to believe in themselves enough to make it possible. 

Here’s another analogy that will help you understand. Most people–if they absolutely had to–could run a marathon with no training. History tells us the human body can accomplish incredible things when it needs to survive. Physically, they could finish the race. However, mentally, most people would quit. While marathon training is very physical, making it easier and reducing the likelihood of an injury, it’s mostly mental. Through weeks and weeks of running, we train our brains to believe we can finish a 26 mile race. Even though we probably could have on day one, if we absolutely had to. 

It’s the same with your creative project. Hypothetically, yes, if you had 40 hours per week to work on your project, you could probably become successful relatively quickly. In reality, jumping from 0 hours per week to 40 leads to discouragement, doubt, and quitting. 

So, I’ll tell you something you already know. Start now. Start with 1 hour per week on a Saturday. Choose something you like doing. Once you find a groove, add a few more hours on Saturday. Then a few more on Friday. Start working a couple hours in the mornings before your day job. Then a few more hours each night. Pretty soon, you’ll be working on your creative project for 20+ hours per week. 

We must stop lying to ourselves, putting off creating until we have more time. If we had more time we would fail anyway. Find time today to create. Then find time tomorrow. Add little by little. Things will fall into place. 

One day, the jump to a full time schedule won’t feel like a very big jump at all.