Weekly Review #35: The Thriving-Right-Now Edition

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?

Oh, how far I’ve come in just seven months.

Seven months ago, back at the end of April, I had a free 1/2 hour coaching session with the wonderful Sinclair of Self Activator. I remember feeling lost and desperate, wanting a clear direction but having no idea how to find it.

I had only just realized that, instead of busting my butt to build yet another full-time business (copywriting) that, while something I enjoyed and was good at, wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, I really, really wanted to figure out a way to create stuff that excited me and find an audience who would resonate with it (and want to pay me for it).

The problem was, I wasn’t sure what that would look like.

I felt like I was at the bottom of a very deep, dark well, and I didn’t know where the rope or ladder to climb out might be.

On the phone with Sinclair, I was a puddle of tears. I wanted what she had: a business being her creative self, helping other people be their creative selves.

But what did I have to offer? How could I possibly even imagine doing that?

I felt hopeless and pathetic.

Cut to the first week of December. I’ve just launched my very first “online product,” the Thriving Artists Project, sold more memberships than I thought possible, and created the beginnings of a community of artists who are all busting the “starving artist” mentality and learning to thrive.

I’ve seen in the mirror how very much I have to share, and I’m sharing it.

Can I just say, this feels terrific!

I’m in the middle of a creative frenzy, coming up with new ideas night and day (even in my dreams) for what I can add to the Thriving Artists Project, how I can make it better, how I can help my TAP members to really grow their businesses and thrive.

No, I’m not sleeping much – I’m too pumped up on creative juices for that, plus my knee is still doing its crazy “I know I feel pretty good during the day, but I’m going to remind you every night at 2am that just three weeks ago I was sliced open and drilled and all manner of offenses were done to me” thing.

But it’s okay, because I know the insomnia (and knee pain) will not last forever, and in the meantime, I am totally high on life!

The fact is, I’m exactly where I longed to be back in April: creating cool stuff that excites me, and getting paid for it, and helping other people do the same.

It turns out I do have a lot to offer, and people are paying me to share it.

I find this nothing short of amazing!

For seven months (longer, if you count the years of not feeling satisfied with the way I’d set my life up, but not having the gumption to do anything about it), this possibility seemed out of reach, something that might possibly happen far into the future.

Suddenly it’s present time reality.

How about that?

My friend Fawn asked me over the phone a very important question:

Is all the time you’re putting into the Thriving Artists Project going to keep you from making your own art?

I love this question! It shows how smart Fawn is, and how much she cares about me and wants me to be happy.

At the moment, my answer is this:

Right now, the Thriving Artists Project IS my art.

Now, I know my multi-passionate self well enough to know that this is probably not going to be the case forever.

Let me give you a metaphor: I have a gas stove in my kitchen, and the front-right burner is “hi-speed” – whatever that means; presumably that pots over a high flame on that burner will cook faster than those on the others.

As a multi-passionate person, my passions are like pots on a multi-burner stove. Right now, TAP is on the “hi-speed” burner, and my painting, my music, Argentine Tango, etc. are simmering on the other burners.

TAP will always be part of my art, but at some point I will feel the urge to bring one of the other pots to the front. Get back to daily painting. Write new songs. Get more gigs singing and playing ukulele.

I give it three months max before I start to get antsy and want to shift the balance a little. But we’ll see. It could be shorter, or longer.

Until then, I’m just incredibly happy to be doing something I’m so excited about.

In other news…

My knee continues to gradually improve. It’s looking less and less like Frankenstein every day, and the past two weeks I’ve gone from not being able to lift my leg of its own accord at all, to doing leg lifts galore all day long as I work in front of my computer.

When I’m not riding the exercise bike when I work in front of my computer, that is!

Yes, you read that right. When I got to 110° on the Continuous Passive Motion machine I was finally able to ditch it (phew! $20/day adds up fast!), but in exchange I’m now committed to 90 minutes a day on the exercise bike. (Low tension, so it’s not like I’m getting 90 minutes of cardio. This is just for range of motion; I’m not even breaking a sweat, but still…)

Thankfully, Pop brought over my parents’ exercise bike (a vintage model that used to belong to my grandmother, but hey, it works!) Since I couldn’t fathom the idea of doing nothing but biking while biking (hyper-busy multi-tasker that I am), I rigged up a second workstation downstairs.

The bike is set up facing the kitchen counter, with my Gentleman Friend’s mini PC laptop propped on a cutting board that extends out from the counter to be within comfortable arms’ reach. A spare keyboard and mouse (the bar stool is balanced on a dining room chair to provide an impromptu mousing surface) allow for much easier typing than the dinky keyboard and (buggy) track pad built into the PC.

Yes, the 10 1/2″ screen is tooth-gnashingly frustrating to work with, after years of using a 24″ iMac. But hey, it does work!

I can check email, work on web admin, check Twitter, etc, all at 50 revolutions/minute.

(Actually, I have no idea how many revolutions/minute I’m doing. It just sounds better to say that.)

In fact, having access to email/blog/Twitter is probably the only way to get me to do 90 minutes of biking a day. When you want an addict to do something, just link the task to feeding their addiction.

Can I just say I’m very pleased with myself for figuring this out?

My butt, however, is less than pleased with having to spend 90 minutes a day on a very uncomfortable bicycle seat. Ah, well, you can’t have everything I guess.

And this week’s icing (or baked apple, as the case may be)

Just a fun little newslet: while shopping for a late dinner with my Gentleman Friend in the deli section of my local Whole Foods, I struck up a conversation with Yvonne behind the counter about Christmas songs.

Why are there no new ones, she wanted to know? We always hear the same old songs we heard when we were kids – does nobody write any new holiday songs?

“Actually, I wrote a Christmas song,” I admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s about being single over the holidays.”

“No way. Been there. I wanna hear that.”

“Want me to sing it for you?”

“Really? You bet!”

So right there, at the deli counter at Whole Foods, I burst into an a capella rendition of It Sucks Being Single At Christmas (which you can see at the time of this writing in a video in the sidebar at the right, or if not, click on the link and scroll down my Videos page til you find it).

Yvonne was so tickled she gave me my baked apple for free (did you know they even have special stickers to allow them to designate deli items as complimentary? Me either.)

So you could say that, although I wasn’t quite singing for my supper, I did sing for my dessert.

And this coming Saturday I actually will sing for my supper (plus $300), at a private corporate holiday party in San Francisco.

Life is good.

Hope you had a good week!