“One day you’ll wake up and there won’t be any time left to do the things you’ve always wanted to do.” – Paulo Coelho.

When people tell me they’re thinking about staring a creative project, I tell them, “Creative projects in your head help no one.”

Have you ever thought of it that way? If you have ideas, stories, skills or talents that would benefit others; it’s almost selfish to keep them to yourself.

Sharing your creative work doesn’t come from arrogance, it comes from service.  It’s an offering, a way of saying “Here’s something I think, feel, believe, see or have experienced. I hope it might be of interest and value to you.”

Yet, many people start with the best of intentions and then life intervenes. They get distracted, busy, overwhelmed, tired.

They put their creative project aside to deal with other priorities – and never get back to it. That’s a path to regrets.

Are you procrastinating, waiting for more time?

Face it. You’ll never have more time than you have right now.  If you want results … carve out ten minutes a day to move your creative project forward.

Select one of these quotes that resonates with you and post it where you’ll see it every morning (your bathroom mirror?)  It will help keep your good intentions IN SIGHT – IN MIND instead of allowing them to be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

1. “If you wait for inspiration to write; you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.” – Dan Poynter
2. “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs
3. “Every creative project needs a spine. What’s yours?” – Twyla Tharp
4. “When asked the secret to finishing his 500-page masterpiece The Power of One, author Bryce Courtenay growled, “Bum glue!”
5. “Creativity is always a leap of faith. You’re faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage … and you need to jump into it.” – Julia Cameron
6.  “At the moment of truth, there are either reasons or results.” – aviation pioneer Chuck Yeager
7. “If my doctor told me I had only 6 months to live, I’d type a little faster.” – Isaac Asimov
8. “Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.” – Sue Grafton
9. “Inspiration usually comes during work, not before it.” – Madeleine L’Engle
10. “I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at 9 a.m. every morning.” – Peter DeVriesqu
11. “If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we’re thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don’t show up. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin’, no matter what.” – Steven Pressfield
12. “I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.” – Steve Martin
13. “I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing.” – Ann Pachett
14. “Ever tried and failed? No matter. Try again and fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
15. “Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill.” Christopher Parker
16.  “It’s never too late – in fiction or in life – to revise.” – Nancy Thayer
17. “If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me? You are a human being with a unique story to tell. You have every right.” – Richard Rhodes
18. “The way to resume is to resume. It is the only way. To resume.” – Gertrude Stein
19. “Best advice on writing I’ve ever received. Finish.” – Peter Mayle
20. “If you want to be certain, you should never get married, change jobs or attempt anything creative. In fact, you might as well just stay home. Because I don’t know anybody who is certain. That need to be certain is just procrastination.” – Mark Burnett
21. “When I am writing, I am doing the thing I was meant to do.” – Anne Sexton
22. “You can sit there, tense and worried, freezing the creative energies, or you can start writing something. It doesn’t matter what. In five or ten minutes, the imagination will heat, the tightness will fade, and a certain spirit and rhythm will take over.” – Leonard Bernstein
23. “I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged. I had pieces that were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.” – Erica Jong
24. “Once you’ve done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into action and put your heart on the line.” – Lakers basketball coach Phil Jackson
25. “The faster I write, the better my output. If I’m going slow, I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.” – Raymond Chandler
26. “When you speak, your words echo across the room. When you write, your words echo across the ages.” – Chicken Soup for the Writers Soul author Bud Gardner
27.  “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” – Pablo Picasso
28.  “I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind has to know it has to get down to work.” – Pearl S. Buck
29.  “Planning to write is not writing.  Writing is writing.” – E. L. Doctorow
30. “Time is the only coin of your life.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” – Carl Sandberg
31. “I think the worst, most insidious procrastination for me is research. I will be looking for some bit of fact to include in the novel, and before I know, I’ve wasted an entire morning delving into that subject matter without a word written.” – James Rollins
32. “There’s a trick I’m going to share with you.  I learned it almost twenty years ago and I’ve never forgotten it … so pay attention.  Don’t begin at the beginning.” – Lawrence Block
33.  “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.  You wait and watch and work and write; you don’t give up.” -Anne Lamott
34. “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison
35. “If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.” – Rollo May

Author John Kotter said, “Do you know the #1 precursor to change?  A sense of urgency.”  It’s time to feel a sense of urgency about getting your ideas out in the world. What’s the story you’re born to tell? The knowledge you’d like to pass along?  The legacy message that could inspire others?  The time to share it is NOW.  Promise yourself you’ll sit down somewhere, sometime each day and take ten minutes to move your project forward. You will never regret getting your creative projects into the world. You will only regret not getting them out there … sooner.  As my mom used to tell me, “A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today.”        –   –   –   –   –   –

SAM HORN, CEO of the INTRIGUE AGENCY, TEDx speaker and 17-time Emcee of the world-renowned Maui Writers Conference, helps people create one-of-a-kind projects – businesses, books, presentations, funding pitches –  that scale their influence for good.  Her work – including IDEApreneur, POP!, Tongue Fu!  andWashington Post bestseller Got Your Attention? – has been endorsed by Stephen Covey, Dan Pink, Tony Robbins, Marshall Goldsmith and featured in Fast Company, New York Times, Forbes, INC.  Her inspiring keynotes receive rave reviews from NASA, Intel, Cisco, Accenture, National Geographic, EO, Four Seasons Resorts and Capital One.