Joshua Aiz

“Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work: Believing you’re not good enough. Feeling you don’t have the energy it takes. Mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths. Not wanting to do the work (laziness). Not taking the work to its highest expression (settling). Having goals so ambitious that you can’t begin. Thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions. Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work. Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult. Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward. Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way. Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start. Never finishing projects. Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process. Romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions. Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work. Prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art. Distractibility and procrastination. Impatience. Thinking anything that’s out of your control is in your way.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

“When pain reaches a certain point, then it has reached the limit and can be no worse.”
― Carl Panzram, The Panzram Papers

“Art is choosing to do something skilfully,
caring about the details,
bringing all of yourself
to make the finest work you can.
It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorfification,
and need for approval.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

“Doubting yourself can lead to a sense of hopelessness, of not being inherently fit to take on the task at hand. All or nothing thinking is a nonstarter.

However, doubting the quality of your work might, at times, help to improve it. You can doubt your way to excellence.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being