Create for the work, not for the applause economy

Humans are wired for pecking orders. In small groups, status helps us navigate. But modern platforms scale the village square to millions, so status signals never turn off. If your craft lives on other people’s reactions, your attention gets yanked from the work to the crowd. That’s a fast way to make safe, shallow stuff.

There’s another way to define yourself: by territory. A territory is the space that feeds you when no one is watching. Runners feel it on the track. Coders find it in a quiet repo. In a territory, you don’t ask, “How do I rank?” You ask, “What’s next?” The reward is the work itself.

A ceramicist kept doom‑scrolling other people’s pots. She was trying to reverse‑engineer applause. She deleted the apps for a week and moved her wheel next to the window. Morning light, wet clay, the hum of the motor, no audience. By day five, new shapes surfaced. When she finally posted, the work had weight. The likes were a side effect.

Social comparison theory explains why this helps. Constant comparison raises anxiety and crowds out intrinsic motivation. Territorial focus rebuilds autonomy and mastery, two pillars of deep motivation. Practically, an “audience fast” and scheduled metrics check stop mid‑session context switching. Over time, you’ll produce bolder work because you’re not auditioning for strangers while you create.

Choose your territory and describe it in one sentence, then run the last‑person test to check it’s truly self‑fueling. Commit to a seven‑day audience fast while you do the work and keep vanity metrics out of sight until a weekly review. During sessions, hide dashboards and stay with the craft. After a week, note how you feel and what changed in the work. Protect your territory again next week. Start tomorrow morning.