If you want to know how to modify behavior, read this post first.

And now, these 20 too.

Now then.

I believe that for this exact reason, many struggle with creative output.

Why?

Well, making art is risky. There is opportunity to look like a fool. Some people will love what you do, while others hate it. It can be an incredibly difficult feat of endurance. And still, after overcoming it all, there is no guarantee of success.

For these risky choices, we focus on what is lost.

Understand: Living a creative life was harder to start than WW2.

If you want people to modify their behavior, is it better to highlight the benefits of changing or the costs of not changing? According to Peter Salovey, one of the originators of the concept of emotional intelligence and now the president of Yale, it depends on whether they perceive the new behavior as safe or risky. If they think the behavior is safe, we should emphasize all the good things that will happen if they do it—they’ll want to act immediately to obtain those certain gains. But when people believe a behavior is risky, that approach doesn’t work. They’re already comfortable with the status quo, so the benefits of change aren’t attractive, and the stop system kicks in. Instead, we need to destabilize the status quo and accentuate the bad things that will happen if they don’t change. Taking a risk is more appealing when they’re faced with a guaranteed loss if they don’t.

-Adam Grant, Originals