If someone wants to develop endurance as a runner, it helps to run every day. If someone wants to build creative endurance, it helps to create, and then share that creation every day.

The distinction is that creative endurance requires both the “doing” and sharing, whereas running endurance requires the doing only. It’s the reason there are a lot of runners, but fewer people who consistently, and over an extended period of time, create and share work that may fail, because the prospect of doing nothing seems like a greater risk.

“Creating is a generous act, and robust sharing is a key component to building creative endurance.”

But, what’s so special about creative endurance? I believe it is the thing that allows people to go the distance in creative pursuits that may otherwise be abandoned too soon. It takes a good idea beyond the confines of a persons inner contemplation, and conditions the idea into a force that creates change. And when we are in creative shape, we can deliver on ideas that may have once seemed daunting– adding value to our lives and possibly the lives of others, which may be the very reason we’re here.

Why sharing? Because, when you share, it’s harder to hide. And if you decide that you’re not going to hide, you’re one stop closer to learning that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. And if we can get there, we can show up as ourselves and create work that matters, and hopefully, we have built enough endurance to repeat the cycle again.