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Someone once confided in me that she stashed her finished grant application underneath a statue of the Virgin Mary overnight before submitting it. Whatever you do before finally sending it in, deliver your application on time—or, better yet, early—then forget about it. Go back to your work, your job, your other proposals and income streams. Proceed as if you’ll receive funding and as if you won’t.

For success with grants and just about anything else in life, it’s persistence that makes the difference—not blind ambition but quietly showing up, day after day, to make art and to thoughtfully get your work out into the world. Practice taking small steps consistently in the direction of your goals, despite the inevitable ups and downs and the discomfort of individual moments. When you lose your way and it’s blustery January, envision the warmth of the end of June. Where do you want to be when strawberries are in season? What do you want to have accomplished? What deadlines will you have met by then?

Foster collaboration and partnerships to keep you not only productive but also connected and happy. As a smart artist once told me, success is a social activity.

Do whatever you need to do to foster less chaos and more calm, steady work so that you continue to grow your body of work. If this means a major reorganization of your work and home life, so be it.

An art career requires the skills of the small business owner and the savvy of the entrepreneur. What will sustain you over the hills and ​through the valleys of that journey to a year from today? to five years from today? to fifty years from today?

Write a letter to yourself from your eighty-year-old self. From the perspective of the older you, what advice do you have about what’s most important? What don’t you want to miss? What’s worth fighting for? What’s best abandoned? The older you may have age spots and gray hair but you have wise eyes too. Let your eighty-year-old self tell you what mattered in the long run.

Above all else: Make art. The world needs your song, story, play, photograph, sculpture, painting.

Writing grant proposals will be only one part of your big art life. Use the process to foster your dreams and to carry on that conversation between you and your art, and your art and the world.