When you’re doing something creative, there’s a tendency to want to hold back. You get these great ideas, and there’s this little voice in the back of your head that goes whoa, hold on, wait up a minute. What if we never get an idea this good again? Better save it for later. Better go with something else for now.

Don’t listen to it. If you have a good idea, use it immediately. You will get another one. The next idea might not be as good as the last, but as long as you keep trying and and keep creating, the one after that is liable to be even better than before.

Louis C.K. said it best in the HBO special Talking Funny (which I highly recommend, by the way – him, Ricky Gervais, Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld talking about comedy. What could be better?). There, he said he likes to take his best material, the real good shit you’re supposed to end the show with, and put it at the beginning. He does that to fuck himself over, because he doesn’t want to get complacent, and because it forces him to rise to the occasion.

Yes, Louis C.K. is a very good comedian, but he’s very good because he does things like that. Because he forced himself to rise to the occasion over and over again. Shouldn’t you do the same?

The bottom line is that your creativity is not limited unless you believe it is. It is not a stagnant pool that will run dry, but a river that is constantly being replenished.  Or, in the nerdy terms I prefer, it’s like mana in an RPG – when you run out, it will regenerate in short order.

So spend it. Spend it making great art now, because the only reason the ideas will run dry is if you stop using them.