June 2010

Ok

Here come the first images of the stationery range I spoke about in my last post. ...But before I get to them, I must answer a couple of questions.

Oh! What to DO!? Various friends are showing signs of strain and stress. It seems the lack of financial progress is causing the difficulty, making some question their choice of career and making business decisions confusing.

I get into regular conversations with friends and family about how to actualize one's true purpose and how to use one's real talent as a means of earning a living.

What I have to share here, is what I am working out as I go along my own path, about how to make that decision to focus and commit to that focus, and how important that is to success.

The Turning Point

I discovered that I regularly get distracted. I noticed that the distractions are worse when I seem to have made up my mind to work hard. Then, all of a sudden. I seem to have too many things on my TO DO list.

So, what do I do? I head for the kitchen instead of the studio. Or, I get onto the internet and see how fantastically well everyone else is doing at everything else but art!

Enter the BIG DEPRESSION. This will probably lead to some or other DRAMA. Yet another distraction. I noticed that when I got totally distracted by various enticing and exciting possibilities for a career, it would only take one awe inspiring, beautiful and exquisitely executed piece of art to get my head whipping right back round to my true focus.

My thoughts would be: But,that's ME. That's what I do. I do that so well. I want to be doing THAT as my work/job/career. Question answered. Focus back on track. Sigh.

Why did I waste so much time?

Making The Decision

For some lucky people, like my 19 yr old son, that focus came early in life (around 4 yrs old) and never wavered. For those like me, we have to keep refocusing and redefining our purpose. I venture to say, that it may be because we have an ability to be good at a number of different things-so choosing becomes the focus, instead of doing.

I definitely could have focused on a career in dance, acting, coaching, writing, yoga teaching, interior design, fashion design or jazz singing!

But, I am producing art. And I LOVE it. I am not making wads of cash ..yet. But, I now know that this is because I have only just recently woken up to the fact that I am an artist. I have now committed to following this path as my career!! So watch this space....

Coaching has it's place

I had one month of Jack Canfield coaching (all I could afford at the time) and the following was a pivotal lesson from his coaching: 'Look within your sphere of expertise and find the money-making opportunities within that.' The area I feel most confident in and is in front of me to do right now-is ART. It may not seem at first, second or third glance like the best way to make money - 'struggling artist' being just one of many well known sayings that come to mind.

However, once I had committed to art as my path and applied my business brain to it the way I would with other projects...Voila! Suddenly, I saw a multitude of avenues, options and opportunities.

From the Martha Beck book Steering by Starligh,t I grasped the fact that I never took my art skills seriously. I never seriously regarded art as a means to wealth. For me, the paradigm-shifting truth in her book, which she explains so well and with so much humour is : 'Start from the end and work backwards.' I now visualise and FEEL myself BE-ing where I want to be, as if I am there. From that point, look back and see the steps I need to take.

Mind is An Artful Dodger

My husband and I were having an argument about the fact that I was spending more money on art than making it-when I said something that was basically ME talking to MYSELF. I cringe to recall this, but Truth must be Told.

I said: Maybe if you treated what I do like it was a business, I would make money from it. Gasp! Horror! Did I just say that? I had one of those split second realisations, that what I had just uttered unconsciously, was THE TRUTH! And THE ANSWER! But it was aimed at the wrong person. I realised that I was the one who needed to start treating what I do like it is a business-then I could absolutely guarantee that I would make money doing it.

That was a HUGE lesson for me in a nutshell.

Hope you get something from that.

Till next time Lots of love

BTW Comments are welcome-I'm curious to know if I'm speaking to anyone at all...