Book SummaryThe Practice, by Seth Godin

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Practice

The Practice is Seth Godin’s New York Times best-selling book about how to produce any type of creative work. Godin argues that, contrary to popular belief, creativity does not require that you be touched by the “muse.” It doesn’t require genius or suffering or even confidence. Instead, creativity is a skill that can be learned. To be a successful creative professional, you need to maintain a consistent practice that includes: making work that will effect change for the better, sharing that work with others, getting feedback, and making improvements.

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of 20 best-selling books, including Tribes, All Marketers Are Liars, and Purple Cow. The Practice is based on Godin’s online class, “The Creative’s Workshop,” which is offered through Akimbo, the education company he founded.

The Practice consists of 219 short lessons on creativity, loosely organized by theme. In this guide, we’ve condensed many of Godin’s lessons to avoid repetition and reorganized them into four main principles:

• Principle 1: Learn to Trust Yourself
• Principle 2: Establish Your Intent
• Principle 3: Work Consistently Despite the Apparent Obstacles
• Principle 4: Share Your Work and Make Improvements

Our guide contrasts Godin’s advice with other popular approaches to creativity, such as those found in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist. In addition, we take a look at some creative habits of working artists to determine how they line up with the practices advocated by Godin.

**How Do They Do It? The Daily Routines...

The Practice Summary What Is the Practice?

In The Practice, Godin dismantles the myth that successful artists, writers, musicians, and other creatives were born with special talents and have access to a constant flow of inspiration from the “muses” of creativity. Godin argues that in fact, creativity is a skill that can be learned. How? By adopting “the practice”: the habit of consistently making and sharing creative work.

According to Godin, creativity is an action, not a feeling. If you want to create art of any kind, you don’t sit around waiting until you feel creative: You put in the work, day after day, and creativity follows. Committing to action can change how you feel, as well as change your beliefs about yourself. Identities like “writer” and...

The Practice Summary Principle 1: Learn to Trust Yourself

Godin’s lessons on creativity can be divided into four main principles, the first of which is: To do creative work, you have to trust yourself. Like creativity itself, this is a skill that can be learned.

Godin points out that you develop trust in others over time. The same is true for learning to trust yourself. If you engage in a practice of making creative work every day, while keeping the following considerations in mind, you’ll learn to trust that you can do the work.

Don’t Focus on the Outcome

Godin claims that our modern, capitalist society is geared toward predictable outcomes. Many jobs make you feel like a cog in the wheel, producing the same product or providing the same service over and over, with a boss watching over you and telling you what to do.

Doing creative work is different because when it comes to art, the outcome is always unpredictable. Even if, for example, you’ve choreographed many dances before, you never know if the one you’re working on right now will work until all the pieces finally come together. **Creative work is about the process. You have to trust yourself throughout the process because there is no boss, there are no rules, and the...

The Practice Summary Principle 2: Establish Your Intent

In addition to learning to trust yourself, creative work requires that you establish your intent. If art seeks to make change, then to make art you need to be clear on what change you’re trying to make. Godin argues that to be creative, you need to establish your intent by asking yourself what and who your work is for.

What Is Your Work For?

The first question you need to ask yourself is what your work is for. What purpose do you want it to serve? What change are you trying to make? For example, perhaps you’re trying to challenge a popular misconception, inspire people to be more compassionate, or bring a needed service to an underserved community. Setting an intent helps you focus on what the work needs in order to serve its purpose, rather than on what you need to assuage your ego (for example, personal gratification or success). It also prevents you from hiding. If you’ve identified where you want to go, it’s easier to ask for directions and listen to people when they tell you how to get there.

Godin advises that you ask the intent question not only about the whole project but also about each element of the project. Ask yourself, “What is this part...

The Practice Summary Principle 3: Work Consistently Despite Obstacles

While trusting yourself and establishing your intent are important to creative work, perhaps the most critical aspect of being a creative professional is working consistently despite the challenges that come your way. Godin advises that you spend at least an hour every day on your creative work. He takes the position that many of the apparent obstacles to producing good work—lack of inspiration, failure, and creative “blocks,” to name a few—are actually integral to your practice (or at the very least, they’re not the threat they’re often made out to be).

Inspiration Follows Work

Creatives often speak of being “touched by the muse” or working in a state of flow. Indeed, there are times when it feels like magic infiltrates your work and genius flows through you. When you aren’t inspired in this way, it can be hard to make progress, and everything you create feels flat and boring. It might seem like you only have two choices: Produce low-quality work, or give up for the day until inspiration returns.

But Godin says that letting yourself feel this way is a form of giving up your own agency. The truth is that inspiration shows up when you put in the work. **You don’t...

The Practice Summary Principle 4: Share Your Work and Make Improvements

Godin believes it’s important to share your creative work regularly, on a schedule. Promising to deliver your work can help you be creative, and sharing your work allows you to receive feedback from your audience. Engaging with your audience is important because it will either give them something they want, or it will teach you what's not working with what you created.

(Shortform note: Austin Kleon espouses a different view in Steal Like an Artist. He cautions against sharing your work when you’re just starting out. He says anonymity is an asset for a beginning artist because it gives you the freedom to experiment as much as you want. Once you become well-known, your audience will expect a certain type of art from you, which can have the effect of backing you into a creative corner.)

Feedback

When you share your work, some of it might work for some people, but not others; some of it might not work at all. The goal is not to get reassurance from your audience; it’s to incorporate useful feedback to make your work better.

Godin points out that a lot of criticism isn’t worth paying attention to. This includes...

Shortform Exercise: Overcome Obstacles to Find Your Personal Practice

The Practice includes a variety of approaches not only to making creative work but also to dealing with inevitable obstacles to the creative process. Identify the challenges you encounter when making art, and consider the ideas and habits that will help you overcome them.

What specific challenges do you struggle with when it comes to creativity? (For example: creative blocks, fear of criticism, and so on.)