Does Your Work Pass the Pleasure Test? 5 Signs You’re Ready to Roll

The other day I wrote a piece about living a Should Free Lifestyle, but now I have the urge to confess something. I wasn’t exactly pleased with it. I liked the concept and the points I made, but I wasn’t too excited by the way in which I wrote it. It was too dry for my tastes. It didn’t pack the punch of some of my earlier posts. It was, eh, nice.

The problem is I wasn’t following my own advice. I rushed to publish it because I felt I should be posting something. If I’d given it a few days, or even a few hours, I’m sure I could have made it better and, even more important, I would have been pleased with it.

You may not realize it, but it’s pretty significant that your work be pleasing to you before you share it with anyone else. I’m only starting to get it myself.

The Paul Masson winery used to have a slogan made famous by its spokes person, Orson Welles. The often repeated (and parodied) line was simply, “We will sell no wine before its time.”

Perhaps we could adopt our own slogan: We’ll call no work our best before it’s passed the pleasure test. Here are five pleasure indicators to help us decide if our work is ready to ship.

Pleasure Indicator #1 – It makes sense to you.

If you don’t understand it, you’re not ready to brand it.

Before I created this blog, I began another, an exploration blog called KenandPaper.com. KenandPaper was an experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I posted something, even if it was only a sentence, every day for a year. I had no idea what to expect. I dabbled in many things on that blog and it’s something I’d recommend everyone try if they’re feeling stuck.

The only thing I would have changed about that experiment was the duration. It didn’t take a full year for something to emerge; it only took about 90 days. I’ll be writing more about that in an upcoming post, but the point I’m trying to make is that this blog woudn’t exist if not for those experiments. I had to do the curious (and fun) work of exploring.

When I started, I only had vague notions of what I wanted. I wanted to do something creative and I wanted to write. That’s all I knew. I didn’t know I would start drawing crude pictures and cartoons. I didn’t know I would start writing poems. I didn’t know people would actually bother to read it and leave comments. But that’s what happened, and one day I saw how it could all fit together. I couldn’t see everything but what I could see really pleased me and that’s a good indicator you’re ready to roll.

You don’t even have to be able to put it into words, but you’ll want it to make sense to you on some level. A friend of mine asked me what the business model for the blog was going to be. “I don’t know yet.” I told her, “Right now, it’s just a work of art.” I’m not sure she understood, but I did and I knew others would and they have. Once you understand something about your work, others will too. As you share with them, you’ll gain even more clarity and clarity can be damned exciting and incredibly pleasing.

Pleasure Indicator #2 – It works for you.

I already mentioned how I published a post before it pleased me, but there’s something else that’s been displeasing me just as much and that’s my drawing.

I know I’m not a skilled artist, but my drawings were actually better when I first began the blog than they are today and I know precisely why. I quit doing what was working for me.

When I first started drawing, I drew things that possessed a strange beauty for me: my guitar, odds and ends of every day life, and my favorite, snapshots I’d taken with our digital camera. I had this idea that I could go out into the world and capture images of anything I found visually interesting and then draw from those images when I returned home. I was really digging the whole thing and feeling pretty pleased with my progress until I ran into the wall of expert opinion.

You see, I’d been reading Danny Gregory’s Creative License,
and loving it. Gregory’s basic instruction is to draw anything and everything, whatever you like. Bagels. The contents of kitchen cabinets. Your thumb. Newspaper photos. His book is inspiring and freeing, but in the back he had a list of recommended books and I purchased one.

I picked up Drawing From Within by Nick Meglin. It’s a very good book, but one of Meglin’s directives is to never draw from photographs. I immediately stopped doing so, but I also stopped drawing for the fun of it. I reached a point where I was only drawing things to illustrate my posts, and I’m not very pleased with the results. Meglin’s directive may be valid if you’re wanting to become a highly skilled artist, but I just wanted to enjoy drawing and I was really happy with my little photograph scheme. I listened to an expert and forgot to listen to myself. I forgot to ask what works for me. All the pleasure drained away and I stopped getting the results I wanted.

Tomorrow I’m going out with my camera. Tomorrow I’m going to do what works for me and I couldn’t be more pleased, and for that reason I know the drawings I post in the future will be better.

When all the experts have had their say, you’ll still need to consult the most important expert of all, yourself, because no one knows more about you than you. You’re the only one who has first hand experience with what works best for you and what you find most pleasing. Don’t send out work that didn’t employ the process you find most productive and rewarding. The quality will be compromised.

Pleasure Indicator #3 – You have a big, dorky grin on your face.

I played around with the look and feel of this blog for several weeks before I was pleased. I paid money for a professional logo that I never used. I tried different Wordpress themes that I eventually discarded. Then I came across the Thesis theme by Chris Pearson. I saw that little media box in the upper right hand corner. I saw how easy it was to change the design. I knew that as I moved forward and better understood what I wanted to do with the site, Thesis would change right along with me. I hit the purchase button. I took the theme home to my web address and started playing with the header and the side bars. I put up my first post. I scanned some drawings and inserted them on the page. And then…

a huge, goofy, silly grin came over my face. I couldn’t wipe that dumb looking grin off my face. It wasn’t just a blog anymore. It was my blog. And in some ways, it was me. Grin, grin, grin. I was ready to add more posts. I was ready to draw more pictures. I was ready to roll.

If you’re not grinning, you’ve decreased your odds of winning. Make sure your work gives you something to smile about before you send it out.

Pleasure Indicator #4 – You have an uncontrollable urge to share.

Once that grin was plastered to my face, I shouted for Carol and Seth. I emailed my biggest supporters. Come look. Come look. I wanted everyone to see.

I started tweeting my posts. I shared them on Facebook. I wanted everyone to see this little thing I’d made. Come look. Come look.

When you just can’t wait to show it, you’re probably ready to grow it.

Pleasure Indicator #5 – It releases something inside you.

Without question, my most popular posts have been the ones that required me to reach down deep inside myself. My most popular post of all is one that left me feeling exhausted after writing it. I’d emptied myself into it. I was tired, but as those familiar with meaningful work are fond of saying, it was a good kind of tired.

You may not be able to repeat the same level of depth with every thing you produce, but the more you can pour yourself into your work, the more it will resonate with your customers, your readers, your patrons, and your fans.

Oh, Please

It doesn’t have to be perfect; that’s unattainable. But before you send out your work in hope that others find it pleasing, make sure it pleases you first.

P. S. I went back and edited that post. I’m pleased with the results.

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Tagged as: Mindfulness, right livelihood