“Lower your standards for what counts as progress,” writes Adam Grant, “and you will be less paralyzed by perfectionism.”

To get good, you first have to be willing to be bad. Don’t practice to get good, practice to suck less.

To celebrate the New Year, I made a new 30-day challenge, free for y’all to download and print:

Someone once asked me to distill all of my books into one piece of advice, and, off the top of my head, I said: “Try sitting down in the same place at the same time for the same amount of time every day and see what happens.” (This challenge is modified from The Steal Like An Artist Journal.)

Something small, every day, adds up to something big over time.

What should you practice? Whatever you want to suck less at. You can practice drawing, you can practice kindness, you can practice praying.

Me? I’m gonna practice the piano:

My resolution is to practice more ?

(“Auld Lang Syne” w/ Schumann intro) pic.twitter.com/N21NZys8uT

— Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) January 1, 2021

Happy New Year! Please feel free to share this challenge with anyone you think could use it.

If you liked this challenge, you’ll love my books.