Making things hard can be purposeful as those who make it through show a certain level of perseverance and a type of competence. Depending on the competency and perseverance traits you are looking for, this could be a good decision.

Making things easy tends to generate more participants, more submissions; it casts the net wider and requires you to have a good (and working) filter. This too can be purposeful and not just the way everyone does things.

One question to ask ourselves is, of course, what is the purpose of what we are doing. A second question is ‘who is doing the selecting, the ‘picking’?” Do we want to control the selecting or are we wanting people to pick themselves?

If we are the one submitting, applying, we too have a choice. Are we waiting to be picked to participate or are we going to pick ourselves? Are we waiting to be validated by an other or sharing our work?

Photo by Brandon Lopez