This morning as I was reading the saved highlights I have in Readwise, I came across a highlight that made me stop and think. In his excellent book, The Practice, Seth Godin states, “The practice is its own reward.” This is a key mentality to possess for those of us who create and teach content, such as bloggers, podcasters, writers, etc.
The motivation for our practice starts with our seeing a need, a problem. We seek to solve that problem or need with our personal contribution by teaching, blogging, podcasting, writing. Godin calls this a “generous practice” because at heart its genesis is our desire to help others.
Our practice is grounded in our generosity, our desire to solve a problem or a need we perceive.
It’s nice to have a growing following and receive positive feedback, and money as an indication of how others value our practice. These things externally validate our practice and make us feel good about what we are doing.
But we need to remember these things are not the motivation or even the goal of our practice. The value of our practice is not the outcome, but the practice itself.
If you’re a teacher your joy comes from the act and process of teaching, not how it is received. The joy is in the learning, the thinking, the organizing, the preparation to teach, the act of teaching for the desire to help others learn what may (or may not) be useful to them.
The value of our practice is not the outcome, but the practice itself.
If your audience benefits from your teaching and values it, that’s nice and is icing on the cake, but not the cake itself. That’s their reaction, a reaction you have no control over. All you can control is your practice, not the outcome.
The foundational reward for your generous practice is the practice itself. It’s worth you doing it because it’s worth you doing it.
This mindset is important because it keeps us honest, generous, and on course with our practice. We need it early on to remind us of our motivation when we don’t have the affirmation of followers.
But we need it, even more, when we do have success – a large following, lots of positive affirmation, money flowing in, speaking invitations. While these are all enjoyable, they can easily distract us from our generous practice, why we do what we do.
That’s not to say that affirmation, money, and attention in response to our practice are in themselves a bad thing. But, when we focus on the outcome instead of our generous practice, we’re tempted to shift our motivation and goal to do doing whatever gets us more followers, more accolades, more money.
Focusing on the response and trying to control the outcome ultimately results in us losing sight of what our practice is. We need to stay focused on what matters – our generous practice.