Persist
My husband recently brought an exquisite blog to my attention: Letters of Note - “Correspondence deserving of a wider audience”. (Damn near impossible not to appreciate the eloquence of the mission, isn’t it?) The day I’m writing this, the letter of note is one from Fellini to Kubrick… sigh.
The letter that brought him to Shaun’s site was one written by Pixar animator Austin Madison to encourage aspiring animators to persist in the face of creative dips. It was written as part of the Animator Letter Projects, a collection letters of advice for hopeful animators, collated by Willie Downs. (Damn near impossible not to appreciate the delightful intention of Willie’s project, isn’t it?)
Read on.
(Damn near impossible to not appreciate the heart in this letter, isn’t it?)
Do you feel the resonance of Austin’s words in your bones? They hearken back to Steve Pressfield’s “Do the Work“.
Writers write. Animators animate. Coaches coach. Runners run.
Yes, persistence can FEEL hard. That’s it and that’s all. Like dieting, or working through it, or training for that marathon…no one promised this would be fun.
And the pay-off? Potentially huge.
Persist. It takes courage…and you have that in great abundance.
Oh yes you do.
************************
PS – I was invited to say more about courage over here at my friend Kate Swoboda’s blog.
PPS – Dyana and I talked about the Dastardly Dip a long while back. How do YOU get through the Dip? Would LOVE to hear your words of wisdom in the comments, please and thank you. They will serve to inspire others.
(Image courtesy of Willie Downs’ Animator Letters Project.)
I.LOVE.THIS. Persistence is one of my biggest strengths – I quit a lot but I never give up! That’s what saw me through university and grad school inspite of having to repeat TWO years. That’s what saw me climb a 17,353 mountain in the Himalayas when 50% of our team didn’t make it. That’s what keeps me going through 3 rebrands of my online business and the dastardly dips. Well, that and a kickass support network
Mwah!
You embody persistence to me,T. Grateful to have you as a model for that in my life.
Great site, inspiring messages. Iggy Pop’s “hang on my love and grow big and strong” is a favourite: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/01/hang-on-my-love-and-grow-big-and-strong.html
Oh….YES.
I love this because it can relate to anyone or anything. Creatives especially, but people going through therapy, a spiritual awakening, a divorce, labor, anything.
Just give me a whiff of the big picture, a smidgen of the light and I can persist.
Are you effin kinding me? This is too fierce for words. What a great share. The piece that resonate’s to this gal’s ear: “You’re never far from that next burst of divine creativity.” You know what? You’re right. I’m not. Thanks so much, T. You rock! (Super creative too!)
mad love, sister.
Haha. I wrote “kinding” instead of “kidding”. Must have been my devine creativity!
For the last 10 years, the ending of my teens into early twenties into married in and coming on 30′s stage, I’ve had to persist through transition. Keep walking through each part of the journey keep going despite the ebbs and flows – exciting but exhausting.
Now I find myself having to persist but in a different way. Persisting through the constants – the daily routines – the monotony. It reminds me in a way of what my childhood was like – school, dance class, homework. Rinse & Repeat.
This time though its different, because I get to fully determine what my constants are, and since I’ve had a lot of practice making decisions over these latter years by constants are: social media, designing, my website, yoga and pilates, starbucks time, creative work, dinner with my hubby, finances, homekeeping, galavanting around Hoboken and NYC. Rinse & Repeat.
Its a lot more fun this way – why do would I ever want to go back to being younger?
(ps – I’m going to fit those dance classes in – that’s where the real persistence will come in
Mmm hmm. It’s exciting to behold from over here. Cheering you on, Jessica.
I like the quotable quote in Tia’s response:
“I quit a lot but I never give up.”
Persistence is mandatory, but so is knowing when to ‘quit’ and/or course-correct. Usually that makes sense when you realize what you’ve been persisting with is not a true path of the heart…when you’re doing something you think you ‘should’ do.
Persisting with something you love is a lot less painful than persisting with something you think you should be doing, but don’t truly resonate with. The former can be fraught with all kinds of emotional charges (to be expected), but the latter is dastardly energy/soul draining.
I speak from very real experience (big, long ouch!) when I say: the key is to go deep, check in and really, truly connect with whether you are in love with the direction this is taking you. If no, if it’s something you’ve been told, or you assumed, you should do to get where you want to go, stop. Drop it. If yes, step onto it, and persist with all your heart and soul.
It’s worth every drop of tumult and doubt.
Super cool post Tanya.
Beautifully articulated, Dianna. Thank you. And YES to knowing when to course correct. Reminds me of Seth Godin’s “fail fast”. And move on…by God please move only towards the resonance. Run the hell away from the dissonance.
Tanya,
Thanks for the link to that website! I have just waisted a good hour pouring over numerous letters of note. Amazing. Thank you husband, as well!
Diane
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