One of my favourite chapters in Keep Going by Austin Kleon is “Forget the noun, do the verb.”

Let go of the thing that you’re trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb). Doing the verb will take you someplace further and far more interesting.

If you want to be a writer, first of all, you need to be writing something. It doesn’t matter what title you give yourself if you’re not actually spending your time with words.

A “verb”, in this context, is an action. Creating. Crafting. Writing. Editing. Those are the steps that take you places. The “noun” is a title that you give yourself or that someone else assigns you.

If you wait for someone to give you a job title before you do the work, you might never get to do the work at all. You can’t wait around for someone to call you an artist before you make art.

So choose the action over a random title. Your actions define your results at the end of the day.

What are your thoughts?