Blog - Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™ | Innovation Keynote Speaker & Consultant

August 29, 2010

Weekly Review #22: Car crashes and the ever-elusive quest for balance

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

First, a story:

Back when I was 19, I collided with a car while riding my bike to my summer job teaching nursery school.

I was zipping down the sidewalk on the left side of the street (a no-no), and came up to an intersection where a car on the cross street was about to turn right. The driver was looking to his left, watching for oncoming cars, so he never saw me, bearing down from his right.

I thought he would stop. But he didn’t stop.

And by the time I realized he wasn’t stopping, it was too late for me to stop.

(Note to self: when in doubt, stop. This is true for many things in life, not just moving vehicles.)

Suddenly my front wheel slammed into his right front wheel, and I was airborne.

Thankfully, neither of us was going highway speeds, or I might not be writing this post right now. Later I would discover the my front wheel was totaled, but at that second I knew only that I was flying. Then, wham — I found myself perched on the hood of the car, impossibly balanced on my left hip.

In the rush of adrenaline, a zillion thoughts spun through my mind:

You f*cking moron! You didn’t stop! And you didn’t even look to see if the coast was clear!

Geez, I’d better make sure I stop and look right when driving…

Am I okay? Did I break anything? (Yes, and no, in that order.)

Dang, I should have slowed down and stopped when I saw that car in the intersection…

Now I’m going to be late for work!

What sticks with me most from that experience, though, is the memory of being perched on the hood of the car. For a second or two, my body was so perfectly balanced on the pivot point of my hip that I literally couldn’t move. The world seemed to stop for a moment. It felt like I might be frozen there forever.

At this time in my life I was heavily, passionately into dance (my first serious Bliss-following endeavor), about to head off to Juilliard in the fall, and I remember marveling at how balanced I was in that moment.

Dang (I thought), if only I could find that kind of balance doing pirouettes in my dance classes!

Of course, I did eventually manage to tip off of my hip and slide off the car, the world started spinning on its axis again, and life proceeded to lurch along at its normal pace.

The ever-elusive quest for balance

That instant after the crash has been something of a metaphor for my life ever since: I’m always seeking a state of balance, rarely achieving it, and when I do, it’s for a fleeting moment (and ironically, now that I think of it, frequently after some kind of radically imbalancing crisis.)

This week was a great example. After months of craziness before and in between music camps, things are settling down again, I’m finding a groove. And this week, art, music, life, business — all seemed to converge and harmonize in the most beautiful way.

To wit:

:: The Universe is sending me cool validation for my writing

I’m guest posting!

The Abundant Artist published the first in a series of guest posts, which was then picked up on Brazen Careerist. Plus I was invited to guest post on Scoutie Girl.

And most exciting of all, a sweet opportunity landed in my lap to be the top mover and shaker for another website.

But until it’s official, I’ll just leave it at that. Stay tuned… (Yeah, I’m a tease. I know.)

:: I’m making art! And okay with being a beginner… mostly

The huge revelation this week was that my goal to make art every day is not about adding inventory to my business, but about allowing myself space to be in kindergarten. This finally got me painting again, playing and experimenting in a brand new medium.

Result: I made five paintings in five days.

Canvas #5:

I’m even managing (mostly) the inevitable anxiety that pops up around whether I like my work or not. I posted painting #5 above precisely because I didn’t particularly like it when I painted on it (though it’s been growing in me). But as I wrote in my guest blog post, art is in the eye (and pocketbook) of the beholder. Even if you don’t think your work is art, or of value, somebody else might!

Although I wrote this (and thanks to everyone who retweeted it), I still have to remind myself of it on a regular basis… Going back to kindergarten as an adult is never easy. I want to be facile, now. But the fact is, with every canvas I paint, I’m learning what it’s like to work in this medium. And baby step by baby step, I’m finding my voice.

Patience, patience.

It’s all herky-jerky newborn limb-flailing at the moment, which is frustrating, but exactly as it should be.

:: The Thriving Artists Project is moving forward

Yes! I had two fantastic interviews, with Chris Guillebeau and Will Edwards, with two more scheduled for next week. Forward movement is good!

:: Music gig opportunities are springing up all around me

The Universe has sent me some clear validation for my music lately:

• I got to debut my ukulele playing (and my new ukulele song) at today’s gig at the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts. Sold some CDs, gained some new fans on my mailing list. Took a step forward in my goal to master the art of performing solo. (And discovered I need to triple my repertoire of uke songs before I can carry an hour all by myself! Ah, well. More herky-jerky newborn limb-flailing. Or perhaps toddling.)

• A friend invited me to sit in on his gig at the Unity Day fair on September 19, offering me a portion of his brief, 45-minute set, simply because he likes my music and wants to support me and see me getting more exposure. (How awesome is that?)

• Another friend with the same intention invited me to sing on her radio show, the Sisters of Sizzle, on September 29. (Ditto.)

• The day after that, September 30, I have a lunchtime gig at the SF Arts Market. (Gotta find an accompanist, since I’ve got an hour to fill, and tripling my repertoire in a month is a tall order…)

:: And among it all, work got done

Amazing how that happens. Somehow, I’m managing to follow my various Blisses while at the same time completing client deadlines.

And going to two potluck music jam parties.

And spending time with important people in my life.

If I’d managed to get a night of Argentine tango dancing in, life would pretty much be complete.

Ah, well. Perhaps next week.

The ever-elusive quest for balance is, after all, ever-elusive.

That’s it for this update.

August 24, 2010

Four Tips For Achieving Your Goals

If you haven’t guessed by now, your intrepid correspondent can be a bit… obsessive sometimes.

To wit: just as soon as I make a public announcement that I’m not yet ready to commit to making a new painting every day, I go ahead and form the private intention to do just that.

Sometimes I drive even myself crazy.

But the truth is, way back in May I had my first (and so far only) life coaching session with Susan, in exchange for designing and installing for her a new WordPress website (not yet live at the time of this writing; if you click through that link, that is not the site I designed — check back in a few weeks). In that life coaching session I got very clear that I really, really want to be making art every day.

Did you catch that? Every day.

Because the thing is, when I’m actively creating, when I actually make art, the whole rest of the day goes better. I feel like I’m living in alignment with my life’s purpose, and I’m just plain happier.

My Irresistible Yogini line of artwork sprang from that life coaching session, which was awesome. And for a number of weeks I was making art every day. It was great. I was happier, and the whole rest of my day did (for the most part) go better.

But gradually my discipline dwindled, and I stopped making art every day.

Why? What would make me stop making art, when that was the exact goal I was going for?

Honestly, I was kind of stumped, and felt pretty badly about not following through.

Recently, though, I figured something out. I realized that although I love my Irresistible Yogini and I do want to fill out the line, after the first few days, working on that line didn’t actually satisfy the need that I was hoping to fill.

I wanted to play. To experiment. To mess around with color, get my hands dirty, and not worry about rules.

Think adult finger-painting.

Making Irresistible Yogini is a lot more about designing than experimenting. It’s fun figuring out how to turn simple brush strokes into a female form in a yoga posture, but after the first few minutes it doesn’t feel like playing anymore.

Instead, it’s redoing the same brush strokes 57 times until I get a version I’m reasonably happy with.

Then it’s calligraphing the words over and over until I get a version of that that I’m reasonably happy with.

Then it’s scanning and color correcting and messing around in Photoshop, which, while it can be fun, is 180 degrees from my original goal of messing around and “finger-painting.”

Which brings me to my four tips:

Tip 1: When you set a goal for yourself, make sure you’re very clear on the underlying reasons why you want this thing

My initial goal, to make art every day, was not really clear enough. I didn’t really just want to add a new line of art to my website (though of course that’s always nice). I didn’t want a new work assignment. What I really wanted was to use my hands to be in the creative zone.

As a result, my real goal would maybe have been better stated as:

To mess around with paint every day

To make a tiny painting every day in one hour or less, even if I don’t like it

To spend 20 minutes every day making marks on canvas or paper

Thankfully, I did finally get clear, and guess what — today is the third day in a row that I’ve made a painting! Knowing the real aim of my goal (to play, experiment, not feel bogged down by rules or expectations) helps keep me on track.

Getting clear on your goals is really important, but it’s just as important to do some processing to figure out why you want this particular goal, what you want to get out of it. If your goal isn’t in alignment with what you really want to get from it, you’ll run out of steam.

But if you’re clear that performing the tasks to get your goal will feed and nourish you, I’ll bet you that very little will be able to stop you.

Tip 2: Make your goals achievable

and a related tip:

Tip 3: Make your goals right for you

I am most definitely not making a public commitment to make a completed painting every day. I’ve already made enough big public commitments recently, thank you very much. But I did go out and buy 15 tiny canvases and 3 tiny boards, and I do have a goal of painting every one of them by the time I put up my booth at the To Life! festival in Palo Alto, California on October 10.

That is achievable. And if I do end up making art every day, fantastic! That would make me phenomenally happy. But feeling like I have to because I’ve made a public commitment, while a great idea in theory, for me right now would feel too much like yet another client deadline I have to meet.

For me, the whole purpose of this make art more often goal is to provide an antidote to all the client deadlines that fill up so much of my life. Besides, it’s always better to under-promise and over-perform than vice-versa — to yourself just as much as to other people.

Now you may decide that making a public commitment is exactly what you need to light your creative fire. Great! Fantastic! The point is to do some thinking about what is really going to work for you.

Tip 4: Set things up so that your achievable goals are as easy as possible to achieve

For example, if you want to make a painting every day (even if you’re not publicly committing that you’re going to [ahem]), it’s probably a lot easier to make that happen if you canvasses are, say, 4 inches square, rather than, say, 12 feet by 18 feet.

Just sayin’.

It’s also a lot easier to scan a smaller piece to reproduce it as a print and/or post it online. A few months back I bought some canvasses with the intention of playing in a new medium, and I used those for my first two paintings. They happened to be 10″ square, which is not a large canvas in the scheme of things, but it is an inch and a half too wide to scan in one pass on my desktop scanner.

Doh!

But no matter. I learned a wonderful lesson, and when I stocked up on more canvasses I kept them on the really small side. Clever monkey, aren’t I?

(It also doesn’t hurt that smaller canvasses cost a whole lot less, and use up a lot less paint, which costs money too. :))

To conclude…

It took me a few months, but I finally figured out what I really want from my make art every day goal. I figured out how to make my goal achievable and right for me, and I set things up so that my goal is as easy as possible to achieve.

In case you haven’t guessed, the image at the top of this post is today’s effort (see a side view below). I’ve got 17 more little canvasses and boards sitting on my drafting table. Watch for more little paintings to appear here (though not necessarily every day…)

And you? What’s one of your goals, and how can you tweak it to make it achievable, right for you, and as easy as possible to achieve?

August 23, 2010

Weekly Review #21: Course adjustment, and painting again!

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

The week started with a podcast interview, ramped up to a singing gig on Thursday (my first with my ukulele!), and wrapped up with art-making, a party filled with music-making, and finally girls’ night out to see Eat, Pray, Love.

Considering that the life I really, really want is one in which I’m regularly creating, making art and music, and spending time with friends (among other things), I’d say I’m doing pretty well this week!

Add to this the discovery of an excellent new auto shop just around the corner (and much less expensive than the dealer), and hot dang, life is good!

Still, I got hit this week by a couple of days of blues and blahs, and a post by Dave Navarro on Why You Need to Abandon Your Rescue Fantasy was just what the doctor ordered.

The curse of the rescue fantasy

You know that fantasy that a sudden windfall will magically disappear your debt? Or that your art/music/writing will be magically “discovered” and catapult you to fame and fortune? Or that you’ll win the lottery (even though you never buy a ticket) and all your money woes will be forever gone?

I confess, I’m as tempted as the next person by the lure of such rescue fantasies. Face it, life is hard, and sometimes you just want it to be magically made easy.

The problem is, dwelling on rescue fantasies keeps you immobile, and that stuckness provides very fertile soil for blues and blahs to settle in.

The solution: accepting responsibility

Awhile back I made a piece of art to address this victim trap, and to remind myself that I am:

However, I’m also as susceptible as the next person to drifting off track, and this week I had to face the fact that for several weeks I hadn’t been making art (except for clients, which is a different animal entirely).

Not making new art has been making me feel loser-ish and downright cranky. It was high time for a course adjustment.

Inspiration from corners both concrete and virtual

Thankfully, right at the height of my loser-ish cranky feeling this week, I stopped for tea at my friend Amy & Joe’s house, the walls of which are graced by Joe’s fabulous, fun and whimsical paintings. “Oh yeah,” I thought, “now I remember: I want to do that!”

Just a day or two later I discovered two cool websites, Scoutie Girl, an outside-the-box manual for creative living & mindful spending, and Creative Thursday, home of artist/illustrator Marisa Haedike, who (among other things) has a line of totally adorable daily paintings she’s been creating since 2006.

Wham! That was all the inspiration I needed to pull out one of the canvases I bought months ago and finally crack open some languishing tubes of paint.

And you know what? Even though I’m not utterly delighted with what emerged, I am utterly delighted with the experience I had creating it. And that’s what really matters.

I’ve been wanting to paint on canvas for ages, and can’t wait to play some more! (I’m this close to committing to making a daily painting, like Marisa of Creative Thursday… but not quite. Stay tuned…)

Juices are flowing again, and my Blisses back in sight.

For now.

August 21, 2010

The Number One Problem Most Artists Have, Plus the Unveiling of My Debt Elimination Project

Last week I had the pleasure of lunching with Ann Rea, successful painter, artist business coach and owner of ArtistsWhoTHRIVE.

Ann went from zero to profitable in one year of painting full time, and has been profiled by none other than Fortune Magazine. I interviewed her awhile back for my Thriving Artists Project, and I already knew she was one sharp cookie, but in person she’s even more impressive.

Ann takes no prisoners. She’s as creative about business and marketing as she is with her art. She thinks outside the box. She coaches other artists on how to make their own art careers financially successful, and of all the things we talked about over lunch, one thing really stood out:

The number one problem most artists have is not setting their goals high enough.

Think about it.

How do you achieve something remarkable? First, you pretty much have to imagine that it’s possible, and set a goal to achieve it.

If you don’t allow yourself to believe that something is even possible, how can you expect to make it happen?

Reality check: guilty as charged

Um, yeah. Confession time.

Case in point: I realized maybe a year or so ago that, without any conscious thought on my part, I had installed a glass ceiling over my earning power for my entire adult life.

In other words, I realized that somehow I was operating under the belief system that I was incapable of earning a lot of money.

I never actually articulated this thought to myself, but that didn’t make it any less powerful. The belief was still there: other people made a lot of money, not me. Making a lot of money just seemed … beyond me.

From a purely logical standpoint this belief is patently ridiculous. I’m intelligent, capable, multi-talented, good with people, driven — surely at least as much if not more than a good chunk of the global population. If other people could make a lot of money, there was no logical reason why I couldn’t, too.

But for whatever reason, the belief was there (no doubt installed very early in life [yay, something else to work on…]) As a result, I set my money-earning goals way, way too low.

How low? “All I want,” I remember thinking during my divorce, “is to make enough money to get by, and to have time to do the things I love to do.”

That’s right, just enough money to get by.

And guess what? I built a business around my art that made just enough money to get by.

In Silicon Valley, granted, which is nothing to sneeze at in the scheme of things, but just enough is not a high enough goal for me anymore — I want to pay off my debt. I want more security. I want the option of taking time off to travel more. I want to be able to buy things I want without agonizing over every purchase.

Call me un-zen, but I want more!

(As for time to do the things I love to do? Well, yes and no. It depends what day you catch me on. I’m still working on that one.)

Time for a reset: the Debt Elimination Project

Building a business around my art was no small accomplishment, and it’s something I’m still proud of. But now it’s time to change the picture, and allow myself to believe that I can make a lot of money. From my art, and other things I love to do.

It’s time to set my goals even higher.

Which brings me back to lunch the other day. Ann suggested that it’s always a good idea to tie a project to a concrete goal. When I mentioned that I have a big goal of paying off my enormous mountain of debt and being debt free again, Ann didn’t skip a beat.

“Then why don’t you make your Thriving Artists Project your Debt Elimination Project?”

[Shocked pause.]

But… but… but… my enormous mountain of debt is… well… enormous. Making enough money to pay off my personal debt from one project? — my first big information product? — surely that cannot be done.

My overactive brain went into overdrive, thinking of reasons why eliminating my personal debt with the Thriving Artists Project is impossible.

Enough with the excuses, already

Now, I’m too embarrassed to state an actual number, but when I stopped panicking long enough to think about it a little, I realized that the truth is, if I were to create something really successful, if I put into practice the marketing lessons I’ve been studying hard to learn, it’s not inconceivable that I could make enough money from a single project to pay off my debt.

But my list is tiny, and the idea that my first big project could be that successful is, well, hard to imagine. So I said, sure, great idea — maybe the second or third or fourth information product could be my Debt Elimination Project…

“Hell no!” retorted Ann. “I don’t want to wait around for the next project! It’s this one, or none at all!”

Clearly I could benefit from some regular coaching, because Ann made me realize I was doing it again: not setting my goals high enough.

And so I thought, why not?

Why not make the Thriving Artists’ Project my personal Debt Elimination Project?

Why not set a really big goal, and go for it?

What’s the worst that could happen? Sure, I could fail. (Indeed, I still need to work on allowing myself to believe it’s even possible!)

But here’s the thing: if I seriously make the effort to make the Thriving Artists Project earn enough to eliminate my personal debt, I’ll sure as hell be working hard on it! A helluva lot harder than if I didn’t tie the Thriving Artists Project to the Debt Elimination Project. I’ve got a concrete goal to reach, after all, and a big one at that.

Brilliant.

The official unveiling

So it is with a fair amount of trepidation that I unveil for you my Debt Elimination Project.

Bold indeed, especially since I’m still in the process of creating the Thriving Artists Project, and don’t even have a launch date yet.

What I do have, though, is interviews completed, scheduled with, or agreed to by a whole slew of fascinating, creative people, including:

Aimee Golant, metal artist
Anna Kuperberg, photographer
Chris Guillebeau, writer/traveler/fighter of the status quo (and owner of The Art of Non-Conformity)
Cosy Sheridan, singer/songwriter
Derick Sebastian, ukulele virtuoso
Kristin Korb, jazz musician/singer
Michael Nobbs, artist/blogger
Phil Johnson, comedian/musician
Verity Price, singer/songwriter
Will Edwards, singer/songwriter/web designer

… and the list is growing.

Plus more ammunition in my arsenal (or whatever)

Not that I’m big on military metaphors, but what I also have is some excellent mentorship, inspiration and motivation along the way, including:

– The Third Tribe, an online resource (regular audio seminars and a rockin’ user forum) for internet marketing strategies that work (without being obnoxious)

– Guest Blogging, Jon Morrow’s brand new apprenticeship course in, you guessed it, guest blogging!

– Dave Navarro (The Launch Coach)’s More Buyers Every Month Group Mentorship

– The Empire Building Kit, Chris Guillebeau’s course and longest-autoresponder-in-history, which delivers an email in my box every single day with inspiration and tools to grow my business. (Plus more courses from Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guides line: The Unconventional Guide to Art + Money, The Unconventional Guide to Freelancing.)

– Question the Rules, Johnny B. Truant and Lee Stranahan‘s audio course, which I return to again and again for inspiration and reminders that there are lots of ways to be a successful entrepreneur (or in my case, ARTrepreneur).

[Note: many of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you click through and then buy something, I’ll make a commission. I’m always grateful to the anonymous purchasers who buy through my affiliate links, but if you don’t want your purchase to earn me money, just do a Google search on the thing and click through that way.]

Yup. I’m basically in self-paced grad school for using the internet to reach my Debt Elimination Project goal. Watch and learn.

And the wrap-up

So there you have it: the number one problem most artists (including me) have is not setting their goals high enough. Solution? Set higher goals, and work to achieve them.

Here we go!

And as Ann said at lunch the other day, once I’ve eliminated my debt, I can make the next goal my Mortgage Elimination Project.

Um, yeah. One thing at a time…

August 16, 2010

Live Podcast Interview with Dennis Charles of Build Your Career With Passion

Newsflash: Well, sorry for the after-the-fact notice, but I was just interviewed by Dennis Charles on his show Build Your Career With Passion on BlogTalkRadio.

Dennis is a wonderful interviewer, and he’s created a very interesting and inspiring show, which he podcasts weekly at 11AM ET/8AM PT.

Check out Dennis’ show at the link above, and you can listen to my interview here.

Listen to internet radio with Build Your Career With Passion on Blog Talk Radio