Learning how to swim by listening to someone talk about swimming

There’s no online class or workshop that’s going to make you more creative.

Taking a course is just another form of hiding. It’s an avoidance technique. It’s procrastination in disguise. A distraction from doing the real work.

You may feel productive, inspired and proactive while attending lectures, taking furious notes and learning how all the award winning creators have become successful.

But the reality is, nobody else in this world can help you do the one thing that’s going to make you more successful, which is the discipline of creating regularly. Every single minute you’re taking a class, you’re not working. You’re wasting time circling around your work, rather than creating new value in the world with your work. You’re trying to learn how to swim by listening to someone talk about swimming.

In fact, it’s been clinically proven that taking courses is a losing personal improvement strategy. Penn’s study on one million users of top online course provider showed that massive open online courses have relatively few active users, user engagement falls off dramatically after the first two weeks, and only four to fourteen percent of the users complete the course.

How many successful artists have you read about who attribute their prolific output to having taken a six week painting course? Which of your favorite musicians who sell millions of albums wouldn’t be where they are had they not signed up for that weekend songwriting workshop?

None of them. Because it’s only through the discipline of creating regularly that creators can become successful.

Online courses are the most current and compelling silver bullet, but it’s just procrastination in disguise. Creative people are confusing activity with progress.

The bottom line is, if you want to become more prolific, you don’t need a six week course. You need an arsenal of tools that you can use every day to overcome creative resistance and execute your ideas.

If you makes things for a living, you don’t need to get better at handling creative emergencies, you need a personalized system for preventing them.

Are you trying to learn how to swim by listening to someone talk about swimming?