Steal this advice
A young artist and writer named Austin Kleon has good advice for others, young and old.
He recently posted a list of ten things he wished he'd learned while he was in school. Sounds like uncommonly good advice to me.
Here are a few of my favorites, things that I'm going to share with my students (if I haven't already).
#6 is especially powerful when combined with the next suggestion (fake it 'til you make it).
One of the paralyzing things about being a student is that it's easy to feel that you're not really an artist/writer/designer, that you have nothing to say because you're still in training.
Putting your work out there—on a blog, in the student art show, on your own website— makes you a creator, an artist, a writer.
I used to be terribly shy about using a telephone. I'd rarely call anyone because I felt so uncomfortable telling them who I was. I learned to pretend to be confident, to stand up and smile and put energy into my voice even though I was terrified.
Oddly enough, after a while I wasn't faking it. Now I have no problem picking up the phone and calling someone whose name I've only read in a book or seen online.
