A lot of people want to be professional creators. But they don’t have a clear path to follow.

If you want to be a creator and keep it simple, focus on these five things.

1. Create. Without creating, nothing else will work. Creation also includes idea curation, brainstorming, edits, etc. Spend at least an hour or two every day doing your main creative work, whether recording audio, video, writing, drawing, or something else. My friend Derek Sivers writes for four hours every day these days.

2. Distribute what you create. If you don’t show your work and others don’t see what you make, it is as if you didn’t create it. So spend 4x effort and time on distributing what you make.

3. Connect with other creators. Other creators who have a similar audience as yours and who don’t compete with you directly can help you reach a broad audience. You can reach a new audience through usual distribution channels, email marketing, and paid ads. Still, when a credible person in your space recommends you, you get an instant credibility boost. Do that for others too, and later, it helps with building partnerships on new projects, etc

4. Share what you learn in the process of creating. This way, your learning becomes deep, and you also build your brand, which is essential for one’s evolution as a creator.

5. Teaching / guiding others who are behind you. This is an extension of sharing, but you can get more structured and launch courses, host masterclasses and go on podcasts. Do this for money, win your audience’s trust, and get them to take action that will help you and them both.

If you don’t do anything else and just focus on these five, you will see a lot of wins as a creator in a year.