It’s the economy.
It’s your job.
It’s the boss.
It’s the Internet.
It’s him, her and them. (Especially THEM!)
You may be believing that the only reason you’re not moving forward on your project is because someone or something is in your way.
You’re pretty sure that you’d be just fine if it weren’t for those outside circumstances.
Or that person.
Or that group of people.
But here’s the problem: You can’t control them.
And they are NOT going to change.
Your job is not going to change.
That person is not going to change.
The condition of the world is not going to alter itself to suit you better.
So stop trying to control things you cannot control.
Let me say that again: STOP trying to control the things over which you have no control.
And quit giving those things so much space inside of your mind.
Just bless them, and, inasmuch as is possible, forget them.
Quit having imaginary arguments with them about how they should be treating you better.
Quit complaining. Entirely.
Instead, put as much of your focus as you can on the things you CAN control.
Namely: YOU.
You control how often you take a deep breath. You control the food you eat. You control the number of times you think loving, grateful thoughts.
You control the stories you tell yourself about you, your work and the world.
Shifting your focus from “out there” to “in here” will have an immediate and radical impact on your life. You will have reclaimed your power.
And here’s the wiggly bit — from that new position of power, you actually might be able to have an impact on the outside world.
My friend Jason has made a commitment to himself that every time he travels, he makes an effort to be the kindest person that anyone at that airport deals with that day. He considers it his personal mission to make traveling a gentler experience for himself and for everyone he meets. Pretty great, huh?
Simply by shifting his attention from the things he can’t control (TSA, delayed flights, crowded waiting areas, crying children) and paying strict attention to that which he can control (his attitude, his gratitude, his sense of humor, his breathing, his recognition of the Divine in everyone he meets) Jason manages to turn what can be a grueling experience into a blessing.
When you keep your focus “out there,” you are a victim.
When you keep your focus “in here,” you’re a transformational agent of change.
Little shift; big difference.
This little missive is #3 in a series of 7 that I’m doing to encourage you to Start Right Where You Are.
Start Right Where You Are is a lovely, live, 6-week teleclass that starts next Friday, Oct. 16th. It’s only $197 (payment plan available) and, as usual, “satisfaction guaranteed or your tuition cheerfully refunded.”
Here’s where you can go to find out more about it: www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com.
And here’s where you can watch the straight-from-the-heart preview event:
http://app.webinarjam.net/replay/608/7cfca59ac1/1/0
Which got these responses:
“awesome very helpful answer – so joyfully actionable. I’m on it!” – K.
“totally laughing out loud” – C.
“Yep! I even snorted” – T
“love that reframing – actually brought tears for honoring and being authentic..” – K.
“very emotional…. thank you Sam” – S.
When was the last time a webinar made you laugh AND cry?!!?
Plus there’s a special offer that’s only good for the first 50 people who take advantage of it, so listen SOON, OK?
So just to recap, here are your opportunities:
1) Spend 15 minutes right now working on a project that is dear to your heart.
2) Watch the “Procrastination & Desire” video here:http://app.webinarjam.net/replay/608/7cfca59ac1/1/0
3) Check out Start Right Where You Are at www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com and see if it feels like a good fit for you.
And please write me back and let me know how it goes for you, OK?
Remember: The World Needs Your Art.
“My teacher told me I had no talent.”
“My partner isn’t very supportive.”
“I’ve failed before…”
One of the reasons you aren’t moving forward on your projects is because you got your heart broken.
You’ve gotten bad reviews, lost money, chosen bad partners, been scorned, laughed at, put down, fired, misunderstood, tricked and rejected.
And that old pain still hurts.
But guess what?
We ALL have experienced that pain.
Moving past the pain is what turns you into a great artist, because it forces you to learn about fragility, about limitations, about foolishness, ambition and trust.
Once you release the idea that you (alone) have been victimized, you can start to dive into the infinite subtleties of human dynamics.
You can start to realize that everyone in your life genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. They honestly believed that they were helping you, protecting you, teaching you something important.
No matter how misguided, they were doing the best they could with the information they had at the time.
Just as you were.
And are, still.
Your creative life is not supposed to be an endless hopscotching from one lily pad of success to another, any more than every romance is supposed to end in happily-ever-after.
Being a creative genius is about falling down 8 times and getting up 9.
Or, more accurately, falling down 8000 times and getting up 8001.
Every single person – and certainly every single artist – can tell you toe-curling stories about their agonizing failures and impossible obstacles.
So…it’s not just you.
I know your heartbreak has been painful for you, but it’s no reason to stop working.
In fact, the first thing I would recommend is for you to make some art about that heartbreak.
Make a story/song/dance/picture about that humiliated student, that wounded daughter, that neglected performer, that bad review, that unwise bargain.
And then…perhaps you can spend 15 minutes on your project.
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” – Tom Hanks as Jimmy Duggan in A League of Their Own, screenplay by the great Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel
This little missive is #2 in a series of 7 that I’m doing to encourage you to Start Right Where You Are.
Start Right Where You Are is a lovely, live, 6-week teleclass that starts next Friday, Oct. 16th. It’s only $197 (payment plan available) and, as usual, “satisfaction guaranteed or your tuition cheerfully refunded.”
Here’s where you can go to find out more about it: www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com.
And here’s where you can watch the straight-from-the-heart preview event:
http://app.webinarjam.net/replay/608/7cfca59ac1/1/0
Which got these responses:
“awesome very helpful answer – so joyfully actionable. I’m on it!” – K.
“totally laughing out loud” – C.
“Yep! I even snorted” – T
“love that reframing – actually brought tears for honoring and being authentic..” – K.
“very emotional…. thank you Sam” – S.
When was the last time a webinar made you laugh AND cry?!!?
Plus there’s a special offer that’s only good for the first 50 people who take advantage of it, so listen SOON, OK?
So just to recap, here are your opportunities:
1) Spend 15 minutes right now making some art about one time when you got your creative heart broken.
2) Watch the “Procrastination & Desire” video here:http://app.webinarjam.net/replay/608/7cfca59ac1/1/0
3) Check out Start Right Where You Are at www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com and see if it feels like a good fit for you.
And please write me back and let me know how it goes for you, OK?
Remember: The World Needs Your Art.
“I’m so busy…I just don’t have the time.”
“Now is not the right time…maybe later.”
“I’m not ready yet.”
You know your projects are important to you…but you just can’t seem to find the time to work on them.
Or maybe you feel like there will be some time in the future….once the kids are in school, or once you lose 10 pounds, or maybe after the holidays….
Or you honestly believe that you are not yet ready to begin. You need another certification, or maybe a training, or you just need to feel more ready.
I hear this all the time.
And in all love, I gotta say: BALONEY.
You DO have the time. You’re just spending it on something else.
And I guarantee there is no time in the future when it will be more “convenient” or a “better” time to begin.
And you are ready.
Believe me, the fact that you have had the idea tells me that you’re ready. If you weren’t ready, you never would have thought of it.
Look, we all get the same 24 hours.
Nobody gets more and nobody gets less.
And I know you have real demands on your time…the job, the kids, the spouse, the parents, the community….but I bet you can find 15 minutes, right?
So do that.
Commit to that right now.
Put your hand on your heart and say this pledge:
“I promise that I will spend 15 minutes every single day, 365 days a year, on my project, starting right now.”
And then set your timer or the alarm on your phone and do it.
Even if you just stare at a blank piece of paper for 15 minutes – that’s great!
Or maybe you want to meditate or pray or breathe or stretch or dance or play with polymer clay or embroider a flower on a scrap of fabric or compose a few bars or write just ONE SENTENCE of your memoir….
Whatever the project is that you know would make a difference in your life, spend 15 minutes on it right now.
And then do that again tomorrow.
And the next day.
And then – and this one might be hard because somehow doing more than 3 in row of anything can be a little challenging – you’ll want to do it again. And maybe give your a little reward (like a nice walk around the block or a phone call with an old friend or a nice swim….) just for being so good and brave.
This little missive in one is a series of 7 that I’m doing to encourage you to Start Right Where You Are.
Start Right Where You Are is a lovely, live, 6-week teleclass that starts next Friday, Oct. 16th. It’s only $197 (payment plan available) and “satisfaction guaranteed or your tuition cheerfully refunded.”
Here’s where you can go to find out more about it: www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com.
And here’s where you can watch the straight-from-the-heart preview event:
http://app.webinarjam.net/replay/608/7cfca59ac1/1/0
Which got these responses:
“awesome very helpful answer – so joyfully actionable. I’m on it!” – K.
“totally laughing out loud” – C.
“Yep! I even snorted” – T
“love that reframing – actually brought tears for honoring and being authentic..” – K.
“very emotional…. thank you Sam” – S.
When was the last time a webinar made you laugh AND cry?!!?
Plus there’s a special offer that’s only good for the first 50 people who take advantage of it, so listen SOON, OK?
So just to recap, here are your opportunities:
1) Spend 15 minutes right now on a project that means something to you.
2) Watch the “Procrastination & Desire” video here:
http://app.webinarjam.net/replay/608/7cfca59ac1/1/0
3) Check out Start Right Where You Are at www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com and see if it feels like a good fit for you.
And please write me back and let me know how it goes for you, OK?
Remember: The World Needs Your Art.
Exercise: What’s Kept You From Succeeding?
Sometimes it is simply your own stubbornness and stuck thinking that are holding you back.
This exercise asks you to be completely frank with yourself — asking some tough questions in a kindly voice to help you break through some of those nasty internal barrier success.
So grab a pen and, working swiftly, answer the following 10 questions for yourself with as much blazing honesty as you can muster:
- What has stopped you from succeeding before this?
- What’s your most likely form of self-sabotage?
- If you found yourself engaging in that self-sabotage, how might you handle that?
- What are you afraid might happen if you fail at this project?
- How might you address the situation if that failure actually occurred?
- What are you afraid might happen if you succeed at this project?
- How might you address the situation if that success actually occurred?
- What qualities do you possess that can help you move through this project?
- What question has not been asked that you need
- What is the truth? (Start by writing, “The truth is…”) You may notice that imagining the worst of both failure and success, and then imagining how those eventualities, helps you feel a bit more in the driver’s seat.
Fear paralyzes;curiosity cures.
Writing down the answers to these questions encourages you to give voice to the monsters under the bed, disarming them once and for all.
The symptoms of Getting-Ready-to-Get-Ready syndrome include feeling like you can’t possibly move forward until you lose ten pounds, get a degree, receive permission, know the right people, have enough money, get more experience, pay your dues, or obtain the right equipment.
The trick to defeating Getting-Ready-to-Get-Ready syndrome is doing fifteen minutes of research. (And yes, this can be one of your fifteen-minute daily tasks.)
If you assume that you need to do something before you can do the thing you really want to do, please check that assumption — especially if the source of your information is your own mind. Google it, ask around, and, most important, ask someone who’s already done the thing you really want to do.
Chances are good that you’re over-complicating things.
There was the photographer who was convinced she couldn’t market herself until she had digitally optimized all her photos for her website, which would have meant weeks if not months of painstaking work. I asked her if she had one photo that she thought of as iconic, and when she said yes, I urged her to place just that one on her site. She was up and running twenty minutes later.
Lara was a highly intuitive performer who was feeling a pull toward embarking on a second career as a life coach, but she was feeling discouraged by the two years and several thousand dollars that certification would take.
Now, I admire and respect the people who’ve gone through coach certification, but it is not a prerequisite to being of great service to people.
When I pointed out that she already knew enough to at least get started with a few clients, she brightened right up.
Last I heard, she was running high-end retreats once a month in Beverly Hills — further proof that if you can deliver outstanding results, nobody really cares about your credentials.
And finally, there are the countless men and women who’ve told me that they can’t possibly get started on X, Y, or Z until they lose weight.
Honey, your destiny doesn’t care how much you weigh.
You can find a lover, sell your art, star in your show, and earn your fortune with the body you have right now. And it’s entirely possible that you will become so busy and happy working on your project that your body will self-adjust and become closer to your version of perfect.
After all, there’s nothing like joy to create health.
Exercise:
1. Write down all the activities that you typically do in a day, such as:
drive in the car pool
do laundry
pay bills
make phone calls
write
work out
get the mail
read
work with clients
play with the kids
plan upcoming travel
coordinate volunteers for charity event
go to the grocery store
cook supper
watch TV
2. Now put an asterisk next to the tasks that only you can do.
So the asterisked items might be:
write
work out
read
work with clients
play with the kids
3. Find a way to get the un-starred items off your plate.
You may need to hire someone, or you may need to simply ask some of the other grown-ups in your life for help.
Teach the kids to do the laundry, and get a co-chair to work with the volunteers.
Yes, you will have to get over some of your perfectionism — nobody else is going to do as good a job cooking dinner or sorting the laundry as you do.
But guess what? You have bigger fish to fry.
Your creative life is never going to take precedence over your everyday life unless you make it happen.
