Goals and Planning Archives

Taking Perfectly Imperfect Action

You know that I’m all about action.

My book, I’d Rather Be in the Studio, is broken up into actions rather than chapters.

While I’m a champion of moving forward, I also slow down to read, research, and learn, which is crucial because my superpower is teaching.

While I could easily bliss out on months of research, the fact is, at some point (not too late in the process), the learning phase must make room for the action phase. No matter how much you research, it doesn’t do you any good until you put that knowledge to work.

I think we stay in information-gathering mode rather than taking action for one of two reasons:

1. We’re afraid to make a mistake (failing), or …

2. We don’t have enough fire in the belly to get moving. We aren’t hungry enough.

Let’s look at these separately and try to move past them.

Embrace Mistakes

You can’t learn simply by reading books and taking classes. The ultimate test of your knowledge comes when you implement.

The only way to grow is to take what you’ve read/heard/seen and put it into action. When you do this, you find out how it applies to your specific situation.

Yes, you’re going to make mistakes. A lot of them. Mistake-making is part of the process.

But you won’t fail. You’ll only fail if

Taking Perfectly Imperfect Action Read

How To Plan Your Year

What’s on your calendar for the New Year?

I’m not talking about your appointment calendar. I’m talking big picture. What are you doing that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning and get to work?

If there’s not much there, it’s time to get busy. You can’t earn more money or increase recognition without exhibitions and events on your schedule.

You can use a desk or desktop calendar for appointments, but for this job you want to get a clear overview of your year’s rhythm.

You’re looking for periods that you know will be particularly busy and others when you might be able to sneak away for a well-deserved vacation.

You also want to be aware of potential for too much overlap on your calendar. There might events you’d like to schedule, but might bump up against others that are already in place.

It’s confusing to schedule events that occur too close to one another.

It’s confusing to your fans and followers because everything looks to have the same level of importance. They don’t know which message to pay more attention to.

It’s also confusing to you because you’re promoting more than one thing at a time. You don’t know how and where to spend your energy.

There are numerous ways to plan your year so that you can envision its rhythm. Here are the two most important ones that I use.

The Wall Calendar

The framework for all of my planning is a wall calendar so that I can see the entire year at once.

I’ve shared previously that I love the Seize The Year calendar by Neu Year. Its biggest asset is that it can be displayed either vertically or horizontally.

How To Plan Your Year Read

The Art Biz ep. 12: The Bumpy Road to Success: Stories from Our Clients

I believe in the power of being part of a dynamic group of ambitious people.

You can’t possibly get everything you need from a single person, and I can’t possibly know everything there is to know about artists’ businesses and careers. That’s why I created the Art Biz Inner Circle and why it has grown over the years.

Our members represent a wide range of media, personal goals, and geographical regions – including quite a few who are overseas. Yet they rely on one another for inspiration, motivation, strategies, and accountability.

Throughout the year, we have watched many of our members create and attain their stretch goals – several of them doubling (and more) their income from last year.

We supported members as they struggled and reorganized their plans. Yes, even the ones who attained their big goals encountered bumps along the road to success.

Our team of coaches is top-notch (I don’t trust just anyone with my clients).

In this podcast, I talk with Debby Williams and Cynthia Morris, who serve as coaches for our members in the Art Biz Inner Circle. We discuss the celebrations we witnessed as well as the many struggles our artists faced and we provide numerous tips to help with your artist journey.

The Art Biz ep. 12: The Bumpy Road to Success: Stories from Our Clients Read

Committing To Your Art Career Journey

Last week I dragged my busy butt down to a mineral springs resort and spa for a getaway with my dear friend, Kelly.

Road trip!

Conveniently, the getaway coincided with a discussion I had with one of my coaches about the need to create more “space” in my life.

Since that time, which hasn’t even been two weeks, I have found space not only in soaking in the springs, but also in embracing silence; seeking questions rather than answers; and saying No.

Kelly and I also found space on the road. The trip down to the springs should be just over 5 hours. We somehow turned that into 7+ hours.

There are people who see the dot on the map and race toward it without stopping for a restroom break. And then there are those who, like me, look for any diversion to learn or to be entertained along the route.

I tend to explore on my road trips. I have been caught:

Coming across a newspaper from a nearby town and rerouting the return trip because it might be an ideal place to retire. (It wasn’t.)
Visiting the local cemetery.
Driving out of the way because I heard on NPR about the “green” rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas ten years after a devastating tornado and I wanted to see it. (It’s pretty cool. I’d go back! And I’d eat again at this Mexican restaurant where they were lovely and one of the few places open on Memorial Day.)
Veering an hour off the interstate to see a visionary artist’s creation.

Yeah, I could get there faster if I focused on the dot on the map, but where’s the adventure in that? I prefer the stories I can gather along the way – stories that will become part of the fabric of my life forever.

What stories are you gathering?

Your Career Journey

Your career path is marked by exhilarating highs and devastating lows. I wish I had learned earlier the wisdom in riding the waves rather than fighting against them.

When you seek shortcuts, you miss out on opportunities that might lead to bigger rewards.

When you have your eye only on the end goal (the dot on the map), you become blind to all that can enrich your art and life.

I contend that if you aren’t committed to the journey of your career, you surely won’t be satisfied with the destination.

Of course, the journey isn’t all roses and fairy dust. It’s

Committing To Your Art Career Journey Read

What’s Your #1 Goal for the New Year? (Curious Monday)

The New Year brings a time for reflection, but also renewal. There’s a blank slate – a sense that we can accomplish whatever we set our minds to.

These open-ended possibilities are often debilitating.

If it’s possible for us to do anything, why can’t we do everything?

Well, because you can’t. You just can’t.

You don’t have the time, the resources, or the energy to tackle everything you want to accomplish.

That’s why it’s important to prioritize, and this is where goal-setting comes in.

Some people may pooh-pooh goals, but I find that they’re a necessary step to not only getting things done, but also for feeling complete.

When we don’t have a goal and projects to mark off our list, we wander aimlessly and are never quite satisfied.

As you’re planning your year, what do you think is the most important goal you can accomplish in your art business in 2017?

What’s Your #1 Goal for the New Year? (Curious Monday) Read

The Art Biz ep. 5: Which Ideas are Worth Your Time?

Recently I was talking with Cynthia Morris, when, in response to who-knows-what, she said with a scowl, “Ideas! I’m so tired of hearing about ideas.” Or something like that.

Right then, I knew we had to talk about it. I knew she was on to something.

Listen in to the podcast as Cynthia and I talk about why too many ideas can be a bad thing for artists. Cynthia also gives practical tips on how to choose among your many ideas for your next big project.

Show Notes – Authored by Cynthia Morris

Creative people are blessed with an abundance of ideas. New ideas arrive daily, pulsing through our awareness and lighting up our sense of possibility like a scintillating fireworks display.

How fun! We love inhabiting the land of possibility, where our ideas inspire us, energize us and make us feel like omnipotent creators. We could do anything!

The problem is, we can’t do everything.

This abundance of ideas can become painful when we arrive at the crossroads of what to make next. The fireworks we loved so dearly becomes a dissatisfying decision swirl, making us second-guess everything, including our desire to make anything at all.

So, how can we know which projects to work on, and when?

Which of the seductive ideas do we devote ourselves to?

The Art Biz ep. 5: Which Ideas are Worth Your Time? Read

Planners and Bullet Journals (Curious Monday)

It’s getting to be the time of year when we start looking for new calendars and planners for the New Year.

I am highly reliant on my electronic calendar and task lists, but I’ve never given up paper for the daily to-dos. And I’m constantly refining how I use each piece in the planning process.

What Do You Use?

How do you keep track of your schedule, projects and tasks?

What do you have on paper? What’s your preferred method for using paper? Notebooks? Journals? Daytimers? Bullet journals?

What is kept electronically? What programs do you rely on to keep you focused?

Please share in a comment below.

When you’re finished commenting here, please hop over to my Facebook page and share a pic of your planner with the top post.

Read about and subscribe to Curious Monday posts.

Planners and Bullet Journals (Curious Monday) Read

The Art Biz ep. 2: Getting The Difficult Things Done

This month I asked artist/author/coach Cynthia Morris back to the podcast to discuss a topic that comes up often with my artist-clients. See if this sounds familiar.

You have things you don’t want to do. It’s painful to even think about tackling them, but you know that you need to work through them in order to move forward.

How do you do it?

In this episode, Cynthia and I talk about how to accomplish things in your art career and business that you don’t enjoy doing.

I was particularly interested in the discussion we had about happiness v. satisfaction.

Listen in and then please leave a comment to let us know you’re listening.

The Art Biz ep. 2: Getting The Difficult Things Done Read

Someone Else Could – What To Delegate in Your Art Business

There’s a certain point in your business when you can’t grow without hiring someone.

Your work is in demand, and you sell the work as fast as you make it. This is a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem because you can’t keep up by yourself.

You’re creator, packer, shipper, marketer, janitor, and warrior rolled into one. You spend as much time in the studio as you can and perform ninja maneuvers to get all of the business stuff taken care of.

You don’t watch television, your family barely sees you, and you’re not getting enough sleep.

You’re maxed out! But you don’t feel like you can afford to hire help.

Here’s the thing: You can’t afford not to hire someone.

Your art business will never grow if you continue doing everything yourself.

It’s not just you who hesitates to get help. Very rarely does an entrepreneur feel like it’s the right time to hire new people because there’s never “extra” cash lying around. It’s a catch 22: you don’t have surplus funds, but you’ve reached your limit on what you can accomplish alone.

If you believe in your work, it’s time to take risks.

When my clients reach this point of frustration, I encourage them to start keeping a list of everything they do in their businesses that someone else could do.

It’s even better if you start this list before you reach this point. You don’t have to go out and find someone right away. Just start the list. I’ll help.

Someone Else Could – What To Delegate in Your Art Business Read

©Diane Varner, The Prayer. Photograph. Used with permission.

Artists’ Career Moves from Beginner to Established

There are no set steps that can take you from the beginning of your art career to the pinnacle of success.

I know you would feel much more at ease if I could advise you to first do this, and then do that, and then do this other thing, and if you follow each step precisely, you’ll be assured a spot in the history books. But I can’t do that.

What I can do is give you some sort of idea of the phases artists work through over the course of their careers: a timeline of artists’ career moves from just starting out to the highest levels of establishing and cementing a reputation.

First, a word of caution: Because an article is linear, you might read this and think that you have to implement one step before you can move on to the next step. This isn’t the case.

I can’t come up with a single artist who has hit on each one of these points.

Artists who are full of confidence and forging their own paths can jump past entire sections!

Hopefully this list will plant the seeds for your next move.

Beginning Your Art Career

Start your mailing list immediately. You will have no idea what to do with this, but trust me. Just

Artists’ Career Moves from Beginner to Established Read

Goals and Planning