success

Social Media, Other Mothers: Q&A With Sally Kuhlman

Nov 172013

Sally Kuhlman is a blogger, writer, and social media sage. The more I read stuff on her websites, the bigger a fan I become.

I recently met Sally at a deep writing workshop in San Francisco as we’re both working on book projects. She’s a smart and friendly person who has a lot of wisdom to share with writers, musicians, and other artistic people looking for a boost on the business and online side of things.

Q: What kinds of services do you offer for businesses and entrepreneurs?

I provide consulting services to businesses and nonprofits in marketing and social media. When necessary, I start with getting organizations set up on social media, I then teach them how and why to use it. I work with them to build awareness, create and manage online communities around their businesses, organizations and causes. I also offer project management services for newsletters, blog updates, and social media management. In addition, I offer business brainstorming services where I meet with business owners and brainstorm ideas to build more awareness around their business and to help them determine and stay focused on their goals. I also wrote an ebooklet for stressed out, busy people called The ABCs and 123s of Getting Stuff Done.

Q: How did you get started in this work?

Years ago I was working as a virtual assistant providing project management and marketing support to small businesses and nonprofits. As social media emerged I jumped on the bandwagon and brought my clients with me. Over time my business evolved in to a full time social media consulting business.

Q: Do you work much with creative and artistic people?

Yes, I have worked with many creative and artistic types. I’ve worked with jewelry designers, artists, coaches and authors.

Q: What are some common struggles you see with the business side of the artistic life?

The main struggle I see for artists is their lack of desire to focus on the business side of things. Artists love to make art and be creative, they often don’t love bookkeeping and marketing so much. I recommend creative types in business to either schedule in a few hours a week to focus on their business or if they can afford it to outsource the administrative and marketing side of their business so they can focus on what they do best. There are some wonderful virtual assistants out there that can be incredibly helpful and affordable.

Here are some VA sites:

Q: What tips do you have for artistic people to make the most of their online presence?

I say go for it! Create a public Facebook page and a Twitter page, put your stuff out there and get to know people. An artist who does an excellent job at this is Tamara Holland, author of How To Start Making Your Art Your Business.

Tamara is the owner of Bean Up The Nose Art and is very active online:
Facebook and Twitter

q: What do you write about in your blog, “Sally Around The Bay?”

I originally started the Sally Around The Bay job to get myself out of the house and on adventures. Sally is a play on words. The definition of sally is to go out on an excursion or adventure, it also happens to be my name. My blog was my own personal Yelp! in the early days, now it has become more of Sally’s rambles. I often blog about tips and tricks for social media but I also use the blog to ponder my thoughts on life about things such as marriage equality, homelessness, commuting by bus, etc.

q: You’re writing a book on the topic of “other mothers.” What is the book about? What has been the most exciting part for you writing this book?

The book is about a common thread of feelings found among women who feel they don’t fit in the “traditional mom” box and often feel like outsiders in the world of motherhood. Whether stepmothers, adoptive moms, lesbian moms or other, these moms have unique feelings when it comes to raising children, which very few people talk about. The most exciting part of writing the book has been connecting with other women and hearing their stories. I have been blown away by some of the amazing women I have interviewed.

Where to find Sally:

The Habit Of Self-Scrutiny

Aug 302013

How often do you find yourself talking to yourself about yourself?

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I’m so much better than he is.”

“She’s so much better than I am.”

“Why did she say that about me? I don’t think she likes me very much.”

If self-scrutiny is a frequent activity in your brain, you might find it helpful to change that habit. It’s useful once in a while to reflect on ways to do well and be better. But endless evaluating will quickly drain your enthusiasm.

You may not think specific thoughts like these, but you may have vague emotions of worry, gloom, and fear around your creative work. Visceral self-doubts are tougher to deal with, because you are not simply arguing with habits of thought. You are dealing with deeper emotional connections. Wy not spend some time thinking of ways to break the routine of endless evaluating?

Get started.

One of the toughest things for a person with an artistic inspiration is to begin work on it. If you’re a writer, a wonderful idea for a new novel can feel like a new romance or adventure, bringing waves of elation and anticipation. But that novel inspiration comes with no guarantees, and there is no automatic process that will get the book written. That novel idea might lead to many months of writing and rewriting only to realize that you have twelve and a half chapters that simply won’t turn into anything. Why risk such failure? Why do something that could be a huge waste of time and energy?

One response to the doubting is, “Well why not?” If you’re going to write, you have to just write and write. Even the most skilled novelist must throw away lots of chapters and even entire novels that just won’t fly. You have to do lots of writing–including lots of disappointing writing–before you can learn to do some good writing. You can ask lots of questions about your ability and inexperience and what the big world thinks should be in a novel. You can spend a lot of time wondering if you have the right set of qualities and talents that make up “the successful writer.” Or, you can put the questions aside and start writing to see where it will lead.

Get finished.

Any kind of creative work has a huge element of plain old “work” in it, including things that are mundane, tedious, and difficult. When life demands that you dig in and get some work done, resist the boredom and discouragement. Keep practicing that music, keep revising and editing that poem, keep working stroke after stroke on that painting. It may be boring, it may be discouraging, but the path demands that you put in many long hours of sweat and stubborn focus. During those dull, hard steps in your work, you will be tempted to doubt yourself. “Am I good? Is this worth anything? Why is it so easy for others?” Trust the path, and get the work finished. You won’t know what the finished project will look like until you actually have it done. Why not throw yourself into the work till it takes you to its completion? Why not try to find fulfillment by losing yourself in the task for long stretches?

Be kind to your artistic self. Treat yourself the way a loving parent treats a child who is learning something new. Be supportive, objective, calm, and friendly toward yourself. Take yourself for a walk when that kid is having a bad day. Maybe treat that kid to some ice cream or play a game together. A child shouldn’t have to face endless scrutiny, worrying if her parent will disapprove yet again. Your artistic self needs that same kind of encouragement and guidance. That positive energy often does not come without some intention and effort. Wy not spend some time thinking of ways to replace habits of endless evaluating with habits of kindness toward yourself ?

Creativity Coaching – Some Questions Answered

Aug 042013

Creativity coaching is a new kind of work, and many people aren’t sure exactly what it’s all about. Here are a few common questions answered.

What exactly is creativity coaching?

it’s me helping you get your work done. We’ll sort out what you want in an artistic life and how to get there.
It’s having someone there on your side, which is often hard to find.
It’s having two minds working through things rather than you sorting things out by yourself.
It’s helping you build up your circle of people who will support and encourage your creativity.

How does it work?

We will talk twice a month on the phone or on Skype, each call lasting forty-five to sixty minutes. In each call we will catch up on current happenings and make a plan for your creative work over the coming days.

Sometimes I will ask clients to send me daily status emails as a concrete log of daily progress. These emails serve as simple status reports, stating “I spent an hour writing this morning,” or, “Got bogged down at work–no painting today.”

Why would I want coaching?

Because deep down you love your creativity and want to live a more fulfilling life.

Who are your clients?

I work with people who are professionals, emerging artists, and hobbyists. I work with musicians, writers, and anyone involved in any kind of artistic pursuit. People at all levels of skill and career can benefit from coaching.

How did you get started in coaching?

In my late teens and early twenties, I attended Bible college and seminary to train for pastoral ministry. I eventually left religion behind, but I still have the training and desire to do caring work.

Several conferences and courses on living a fulfilling artistic life helped me grow as a musician. At one conference I heard a presentation by Eric Maisel, the person who started the area of work known as creativity coaching. I eventually took several training courses with Eric and decided that creativity coaching would be a super way for me to get back into caring work.

At various times in the past I struggled to make music and writing an important part of my life, finding zero support and often feeling rather stupid. Today my aim is to boost the energy, confidence, and resolve of others in similar situations to help them build a fulfilling artistic life.

If you have any questions about coaching or about making a new artistic trail for yourself, don’t hesitate to send me an email. I’m always glad to chat a bit about creativity.

Making Your Creative Mark – Fabulous new book from Eric Maisel

May 132013

Every few days I end up in a conversation with some musicians where the topic is, “Why we all hate marketing and business stuff surrounding our music.” Musicians hate marketing, hate cold-calling DJs, hate negotiating gigs, and hate asking to get paid to play.

In his new book, Making Your Creative Mark, Eric Maisel gives some great reframing or thought-substitution techniques to get through the discouraging stuff. The basic idea is to be attentive to your inner conversations, and eliminate thoughts that do not serve your interests.

Here’s an example:

“I have to call three or four people today to start setting up gigs for this winter.” OK, that’s a good, sensible, useful thing to have in your head.

Then along comes the next thought. “I hate calling people. I wish I didn’t have to do that stupid stuff.” OK, this is where you need some substituting. You hate making business calls, but it’s not useful to think too much about that. What could you substitute?

“I don’t like making biz calls, but it only takes about twenty minutes. Then I can get on with something more interesting. Besides, I haven’t talked to Carol in Colorado for a while, and she’s always great to talk to.”

That substitution will give you a much better chance of actually getting those calls done. Kind of obvious? Yes. But discouragement and procrastination are built on gloomy moods, not following what is obvious and logical. And as Maisel points out, it is often very useful to let go of a thought even though it may be true. You hate doing something, fine if that’s true. But let go of that thought if it doesn’t serve your creativity.

Of course artistic passion means more than simply finding ways to get tedious tasks done. Obsessed, devoted, impetuous, falling madly, lustily, foolishly, hopelessly in love with your creativity. Forget discipline–this isn’t military training. It’s your romance with that instrument, that moment of writing, that dance, applying tools to wood and stone, speaking to the canvas with your brushes.

In the same book, Maisel writes that passion is what separates artists from dabblers. Some people can create casually, occasionally working at something, but usually one must stay passionate and be in the work day after day to create well. The concept of “getting into flow” is often spoken of in terms of immersing into something for several hours. But flow can also be a way of life, where artistic passion is a driving and directing force behind everything you do day upon day.

A runner must have strong mental and emotional focus during a race. But she also trains day after day with that same competitive drive and intensity. The passion to succeed is not a switch she can turn on right before a race and then forget it afterward. Success comes from wanting it and living like she means it. That’s the same kind of passion needed to live a fulfilling artistic life.

This new book from Eric Maisel is one of the best things I’ve seen in a while for the creative personality. He covers the most common difficulties and struggles facing artistic people–your thoughts, confidence, passion, identity, freedom, and relationships. If you’re not on the bandwagon reading every new book that coms along for artists, writers, or musicians, that’s cool. But this is one book I’d recommend to everyone with the desire to create.

Inspired Mind Vs. Industrious Mind

Apr 152013

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison
(source)

From a young age Thomas Edison had a significant hearing loss. Legend says he took advantage of the impairment to isolate himself from social and educational experiences in pursuit of his experiments and speculations. Perhaps he came across as arrogant or unpleasant if he didn’t socialize much, but it’s obvious that his contributions to technology, science, and commerce have been immeasurable in the past few generations. The light bulb and the gramophone have changed our world’s history, and those are just two examples of Edison’s inventions.

I think of the creative person as having two minds–the inspired mind and the industrious mind.

When time is on your hands and you’re looking for the next project to start, turn on the inspired mind. Take in lots of inputs, take long walks, read, listen to music, wonder and speculate. Cast a wide net, open up, and let your right-brain imagination make unexpected connections. One definition of inspiration is when your brain makes odd connections between things that you and other people wouldn’t usually think to connect. Love is like a playground, a politician is a cat sleeping in the sun, and a hopeless heart needs a box of tools and a trip to the grocery store.

The industrious mind is very different. You’re deep in a project, so you need to put your head down and work. You don’t want your mind wandering around in many meandering trails. The industrious mind needs you to create a little world in your work, and to live deeply in that world. You close the door behind you and work. Emotions about your work are very distracting. Thinking about the whys of yourself, your work, and your little created world will disrupt your progress. The industrious mind relies on steady effort and immersion, closing yourself off from the world to get work done.

Sometimes all you need is inspiration. If you’re writing limericks or cute little poems like Ogden Nash wrote, the sixty-second intuitive burst is more likely your approach. I actually don’t know how much time or effort were required for Nash to complete one of his poems, but he wrote hundreds and hundreds of them so basic math says he must have cranked them out pretty quick.

On the other hand, writing a novel requires the industrious, meticulous approach stacking inspiration upon inspiration. As Walter Mosley points out in his book This Year You Write Your Novel, the complexities and innumerable connections in a good novel require hundreds of days to build. A writer cannot hope to hold an entire novel in her head at one time, let alone create the whole thing in a single, spontaneous bang of creativity.

In The Music Lover’s Handbook by Elie Sigmeister, the work of Schubert and Beethoven are contrasted along these lines. Schubert wrote songs, small pieces of fine music. His work operated on spontaneity and inspiration. Beethoven, on the other hand, created vast stretches of sound in longer forms such as the symphony and the concerto. Beethoven worked over his manuscripts and notebooks time and again. Scholars today study his notebooks to analyze the progress of his works from raw inspiration stepwise to the finished work.

What if Edison had spent more time asking if his work was worthwhile? What if he succumbed to feelings of boredom and discouragement? Part of creative work is being a little selfish, a little aloof, a little arrogant. You’d have to be playing deity to even intend on creating characters, scenes, and plots, let alone entire worlds.

Some people can turn off the speculative thoughts and turn on the industrious mind quite easily, while many others struggle to tame their unruly minds. This is where breath, thought, and meditation exercises can help strengthen your ability to intentionally focus on some things while pushing aside others.

Maybe you are in a place where you need to open up, play, expand, and imagine in order to fuel your inspired mind. If so, then turn off your industrious mind, don’t be too logical and serious. Don’t confine yourself to a little world, whether that rigid compartment is your artistic work, your family, your job, your sense of self, or your discouraged gloominess.

On the other hand, turn off the inspired mind and turn on the industrious when you have a piece of work underway. Enter the little world of that creation, and limit your mind’s wanderings. Less time thinking and feeling, more time creating. Don’t predict or expect, just work and sweat and see what the work brings you.

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” – Thomas Edison
(source)

What A Dozen Hours Can Do (Plus Wacky Songs About Mesopotamia)

Mar 142013

A dozen is quite the popular number. Donuts, eggs, cans of beer and bottles of wine all come in dozens. When we want to show an impressive number, we use dozens. “She has dozens of friends in Chicago.” “He has published dozens of articles on the subject.”

If you’re feeling really enthusiastic, you can join The Dozenal Society of America, which advocates a worldwide switch from base ten to base twelve. I am skeptical that base ten will be replaced any time soon., but who knows? Base twelve was in use back in ancient Mesopotamia, so it’s not just a new-fangled fad. Check out the song links at the end of this post, and you may be persuaded to join the ways of ancient arithmetic.

Now, to the real point of all this number talk.

The most common cause of unhappiness and frustration among creative personalities is resistance–the inner resistance that keeps a person doubting, worrying, fearing the vulnerability, and dismissing artistic endeavors as less than meaningful. It may clothe itself in procrastination, laziness, lack of focus, low confidence, or squandered talent. Whatever form it takes, but resistance lies behind anything inside a person that keeps him from doing the work.

Dedicate yourself to a dozen hours of creative work each week. It will change your life.

One musician plans her dozen hours a week this way. She practices for an hour every day. That’s seven. Then she spends five hours on emails, searching for gigs, keeping her website and press kit spiffy. Several months later she is performing more, growing her following, and pushing her music to a higher standard.

Another musician feels he is lacking in some foundation skills. He decides to practice ninety minutes a day. That’s ten and a half hours a week. Plus he puts a weekly lesson on top of that, and his dozen hours are set. He’s going to be a much better musician in just a few months.

Walter Mosley states that ninety minutes a day for a year is the minimum for finishing your first novel draft. Imagine a writer starting on this daunting adventure for the first time. Ninety-some minutes a day, a dozen hours a week. In about twelve months she’ll have six hundred hours poured into her draft, and that might make for a pretty solid piece of reading. Dabbling for a few hours every once in a while on a bored Saturday afternoon isn’t the way to good writing. Putting in the sweat and time is the only way she will get her best writing done.

If you have a job, kids, school activities, yard work, and your volleyball league, finding twelve hours might be tough. You’ll need to scale back on some things. The two-hour volleyball session could be replaced with an hour of running. Some of the school activities you volunteer for could go to other parents this year. Maybe TV isn’t always worth the time.

No one can guarantee that your work will find financial success or critical acclaim if you give more time to it. But it is guaranteed that a second-rate effort will never lead to excellence. Think of it this way: No one could promise that an hour a day in the gym will make you an Olympic athlete. But if you want to feel great and be in the best physical condition possible, that hour in the gym seems like an obvious plan. Work hard and you’re more likely to do very good things.

I’ll wrap up here with those promised songs of historical importance. I do have a soft spot for Mesopotamia from my days in ancient Near East studies. I spent the summer of 1992 translating the entire code of Hammurabi for an Akkadian independent study. So of course I have to point out some great music about the land between the rivers:

Every Time They Say “No”

Feb 182013

Every time a musician says “no” to a gig, he is making his circle of opportunities a little smaller. When he’s feeling tired and wanting some chill time at home on the couch, someone else with more motor will take his spot and keep it.

Every time a pianist says “no” to practice, she’s saying that music is not as important to her as it is for some others. On the days she doesn’t practice, someone else is racing ahead to push the music a little further.

Every time a singer says “no” to fixing a mistake in practice, he’s telling himself the mistakes are OK. He’s made that mistake twenty times in the past, and he’s sung it correctly maybe once or twice. He may need to sing it right fifty or a hundred more times to patiently untrain the mistake.

Every time a novelist says “no” to writing, she is missing the opportunity to make her draft a little better. Other writers out there aren’t skipping as many days, and some of them will make it mainly on their drive and dedication.

Every time an artist says “no” to his most important project in order to dabble in something else, he is robbing the left pocket to fill the right one. Spending energy on a frivolous diversion with no intention to complete it diminishes the soul of his main pieces.

Every time a poet says “no” to working because she is worrying and doubting, she acts unkindly toward herself. Doubting herself means she doesn’t consider herself equal. Worrying denies that working very, very hard is what makes brilliant art. She does well to hold onto the truth: She is equal, and the best thing she can do for her creative heart is to work like she loves it and means it.

When you feel discouraged, lazy, distracted, or worried about your artistic work, bravely say “yes” to your creativity.

Jason Blume Gets Inside A Songwriter’s Creativity

May 242012

Jason Blume is a successful songwriter with huge hits in pop and country in the 1990s and 2000s. I recently picked up his book, Inside Songwriting: Getting To The Heart Of Creativity, and I found it a quality read. Whether you’re into songwriting from the “artistic” perspective or trying to make it in the music business, Blume shares some great ideas and anecdotes here. He emphasizes creativity, craft, and professional poise, explaining that being a successful songwriter is more than finding the secret shortcut or learning the magic formulas. The book gets a bit repetitive with the anecdotes, but overall it offers some great practical advice.

Homework

Blume gives some good homework exercises to break down your assumptions and dogmas. One exercise is to listen to CHR (contemporary hits radio), current country hits, or other formats of new hits on the radio. Most songwriters I know don’t listen to this stuff because a) you’re working in a non-commercial style, or b) you’re old enough to have “retro” or “classic” tastes. blume instructs you to listen to see how the current hits are constructed. Is there a key change from verse to chorus, or into the bridge? What is the range and contour of the melody? What interesting rhythms, rhymes, and phrasings can you find? How do the lyrics connect the writer with the audience? As Blume points out, the radio is a huge, free course in new songwriting ideas.

I tried this out on a new country station for an hour, and I noticed some real interesting stuff. I was surprised that there was almost no fiddle present. I expected fiddle to be there because it was pretty big in the Garth Brooks ’90s country, which is the most recent country period that I’m familiar with. I also heard , a lot of lyrics that were more sensitive and reflective, but not in a whiny or crying-at-the-bar kind. And I heard a lot of fun ’70s rock influence. Yeah, I also heard a lot of disposable stuff that made me shake my head and say, “Ugh!”

Here’s another exercise from this book: Take one of your recent “finished” compositions and rewrite it with five new melodies. I decided to try this on a song that I have finished and felt was totally solid work by me. I thought, “It’s just an exercise, but this song has already been through a dozen melodic revisions and doesn’t need to change.” I picked up my guitar and started singing the first new melody that came to mind, something a little more driving and contemporary-sounding. And poof, that melody was actually an improvement over the “finished” one. All in a few seconds.

That instant new melody–just add water–was a surprise, and usually you won’t get that quick of a result when you try five new melodies. But blume teaches us something important here. When you think you’re done, try putting out another 500% on that song. It might not change at all, but you need to have a ridiculous level of diligence and effort if you want to finish songs at a higher quality.

Excuses

Blume tells us songwriters to get rid of our excuses, you’re not too talented or not talented enough or too old or too young. He spends a little time breaking down the biggest excuse of them all: “The odds are a million to one. Why should I think that I’m so special?”

His answer is this: Each person is special and unique. No one can write the way you can. You just have to do the ridiculous huge amount of hard work to be the best you that you can be. Maybe it’s all been done before, but no one can do it the way you can.

Communication

You ever find yourself saying to someone, “I know in my head what I want to say, but I’m having trouble putting it into words”? I do this a lot sometimes, which means that my brain, my mouth, the other person’s ear, and the other person’s brain are all working at different speeds. I have to slow down my brain or my mouth to get all these parts understanding each other clearly.

Blume’s book talks about how communication works in songwriting. You write a great song, something that feels so urgent, intense, fun, or deep for you. But when you play it for others, they seem to say, “What does the broken clock mean? And why was there a dog barking on the mountain?” Time to think about synchronizing your feelings, your song, and your audience’s feelings.

Blume points out the big difference between what you feel from your song and what others feel when they hear it. That’s why your upbeat love song might need to be done as a slow heartbreaking ballad. Subjective versus objective. Try getting into other people’s heads a bit to get that communication flowing a little more clearly.

Blume writes that there is no magic shortcut or secret to successful songwriting–just hard work and always trying to get better. You can’t get enough feedback. You can’t rewrite enough and improve enough.

You’ll have friends and peers who scoff at the idea of honing your skills. My deal is this – Learning techniques doesn’t mean you follow formulas slavishly. A technique is just another tool in your toolbox, so use it when it is needed.

Most of us have very specific, well-developed daydreams about what our success would look like. So what would successful songwriting work look like? Lunch with awesome musicians, glamorous parties with glamorous people or what? This book focuses on the songs themselves as career success. A successful songwriter would be a busy person, working hard at music, having frequent collab sessions with other writers, working out details with singers, getting feedback from publishers. Late nights, rushing to meet deadlines. And of course taking lots of verbal and written rejection.

To wrap it up, here’s one of my own exercises: How would you explain to someone the work of writing a great melody? If you’re like me, you stumble and stall at that question. Give your mind a try at that, and leave a comment to let folks know what you come up with.

Getting Art Done: The Project Approach

Mar 142012

As an artistic person, how do you decide what to work on? Do you focus on one piece of work for a long time, getting deep into it until it is finished? Or do you do a little here and a little there? Maybe you are good at thinking up interesting ideas, but you struggle with turning those ideas into tangible, finished pieces. Or you might be someone who is great at creating little pieces and building blocks, but finishing your work is really tough.

I like to think of all the possible artistic things I could be doing as projects. Perhaps that comes from many years working as a software engineer. The word “project” feels like a well-defined goal and the time and work it will take to get there.

For some artistic personalities, thinking in terms of projects will be helpful by making the work seem attainable. A project is just a bit of work that you want to get done. You might find it helpful to focus only on a bit of work. Thinking about your entire career, about all the possibilities over decades, can bring a feeling of inadequacy or overwhelming despair. If you need to focus and calm your brain down, try focusing on one small project at a time, letting go of some of those bigger concerns for a while.

For others, thinking about a “project” may sound like a soulless, rigid, left-brain approach to things. What are we going to do–plan to have an inspiration at 9:00 am on Tuesday, to keep the project on schedule? I certainly do not use the word “project” to mean anything but a piece of work, no matter how you define that work and how you get it accomplished. For a songwriter, a project can be a song, a gig, or a recording session. For a playwright, a project might be a scene, an act, a finished script, and eventually a stage production. The mystery and soul and inspiration are all still part of the work, but it helps to clearly define what that work is.

So a project can be whatever size feels good to you. If you feel overwhelmed, then a small project can help you focus more on the moment. A small project might be something that you can accomplish in an hour, a day, or a week.

For folks who feel bored, unmotivated, uninspired, or discouraged, a larger project might be the ticket. A larger project could be a novel, a play, or a series of paintings. Dreaming up some big plans and ambitious ideas might help you get out of the doldrums. When was the last time you sat back and dreamed some big dreams about your artistic work?

Try writing down your thoughts on one of these questions.

Do you think that the idea of artistic projects is helpful for you? Why or why not?
What is one small project you can finish today?
What are three things you can accomplish to make this week feel successful?
Describe one of your big dreams. Write it down in as much concrete detail as possible. For example, I recently had a coaching client who told me, “If I could make $30,000 a year from my music, I would have all the success I could hope for.” That number is very specific, and it will help that person know the goal and the steps to reach it.

Take fifteen quiet minutes and write out your answers. Putting your thoughts into actual words on paper or computer screen will help you think more clearly.

The Attitude Of Abandon

Feb 202012

Imagine a bunch of kids in a backyard football game. They play for the pure fun of the game. The game is not a means to an end–just a pleasure in itself. None of them think about the status and wealth that comes to the most gifted athletes. They play because it’s fun to play. The kids abandon all thoughts except the game itself, losing themselves in the moment of the action.

Lose Yourself

How can an artistic personality bring an attitude of abandon to his work?

Lose track of time. Set up your schedule so you have some blocks of time to just hang out with your work. Find an afternoon or evening where you don’t have to think about the next thing coming up in an hour. Even better, set up a regular time. “Every Saturday night I stay up late with my sculpture work.”
Lose yourself in space. Find a comfortable place where you feel good doing your work. That place might be a typical work area, such as a library or home studio. It might be an unusual place, such as sitting in your car in the park, or on the steps leading up to the attic. Find a place where you can get lost in your work without interruption, even if that means negotiating some spatial boundaries with others in your home.
Lose yourself in the work. Produce without worrying about marketability. You can decide which finished pieces you will send out into the public later. First things first–just work and forget everything else. Your imagination has enough material most of the time. It only needs you to struggle through the hard work of choosing, creating, revising, and finishing.

Play games

Give your imagination some freedom, let it run off its leash for a while.

A poet who is stuck might try to write the worst poem possible, or she might try writing a love poem to an earthworm.
A musician struggling with an intense piece of music could try playing a few lines backward or in a silly rhythm, just for some comic relief.
An actor might parody himself, or imitate his cat performing Shakespeare.
A novelist could imagine a plot where a large rock is elected prime minister of Canada, and how that would bring about world peace. Or perhaps a story where scientists discover that the number eighty-two doesn’t really exist.
An artist could draw cartoons of giant forks and spoons having a dance in the kitchen.

Though these are silly suggestions, there is a serious side to the attitude of abandon. Sometimes the intensity of artistic work makes a soul miserable. Sometimes a creative person holds to tightly to her project. She tries to hard, worries too much about outcomes, and suddenly the joy of the work turns into resentment and harsh self-criticism.

For the artistic personality that feels discouraged or stuck, letting go with the attitude of abandon can help break up the ice around the imagination. What are some things you can do to grow the attitude of abandon in your creative endeavors?

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