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Posts tagged ‘goals’

May 23

Kelly: The 101010 Project

For the past two weeks, I’ve been participating in a Collaborative project called 101010 Project: 10 Women, 10 Businesses, 10 Questions. Ten women who own creative businesses each tackled 10 questions regarding our businesses, and each of us hosted a specific question. We had to include a headshot to be included with each post, so I stuck with the goofy one you see here. I’ve had a great time participating and getting to know the other women involved in the project. The questions were very thought-provoking, and our fearless leader, Robin Norgren (who is also a part of our Studio Mothers crew), did a great job pulling all this together. I wanted to share my responses with you, and give you the opportunity to hop around to all the other blogs to see other participant responses (yes, long post, but I hope you’ll read it!). And guess what? There will be two more rounds of this project coming up this summer! Check out the video here and hop on over to the Project 101010 website for all the details.

Collaborations: A good idea ?…My experience with collaborations has been fairly limited, and I’m not sure the experience I did have would be considered a true collaboration, but I’ll share it and let you decide! In 2008, I did a large Fat Book Swap. There were ten women involved and ten themes. The idea was to create 10 cards of each theme (basically the same 4 x 4 card 10 times), meaning we each created 100 total 4 x 4 cards. We then sent everything to the person doing the organizing, the wonderful Roni. I was amazed at how quickly Roni gathered each participant’s work and sent us back out a 100-card package of wonderfulness! I had a special box custom crafted to keep my full set in and enjoy looking back through them often. This collaboration was a challenge for me as I’d just gotten started in mixed media, but it really pushed me to try new things and I found that I really enjoyed the 4 x 4 format. The deadlines pushed me a little bit, but only having to come up with one design for each theme (even though I had to create 10 of each design) helped some. Would I do it again? Absolutely. I learned tons of new techniques, made some great blog friends, and have a beautiful box chock full of 100 pieces of original art to show for it! You can see my entries in the collaboration here. {hosted by Stephanie Samos}

Success in business is defined as… I think this is a very interesting topic, and I think it all depends on your goals and your outlook. For me, my art business is not my main source of income. I have a pretty demanding full-time career in higher education on top of my art. So for me, success in my art business is simply finding the time to put a little bit of me out into the world for others to enjoy. Would I love to be able to “quit the day job” and devote more time to my art? Absolutely, but I know that’s simply not a possible reality at this point in my life. So maybe for me, success in business is defined as knowing what my limitations are (time!) and embracing them rather than fighting them. Fighting them takes an awful lot of energy that could be better spent on enjoying the process instead. {hosted by Nolwenn Petitbois}

The hardest part about pursuing a dream is…I think the hardest part about pursuing a dream, first and foremost, is taking that first step and putting it out there! And then the second hardest part about pursuing that dream is remaining realistic about your situation and what’s doable at whatever point you are in your life. Read more

May 21

5 Comments

Monday Post ~ May 21, 2012

“There is a divine blueprint for your week ahead, in which the most creative possibilities unfold out of infinite thoughts of love. Imagine.”
— Marianne Williamson


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

May 14

3 Comments

Monday Post ~ May 14, 2012

“Suspending self-judgement doesn’t just mean blowing off the ‘You suck’ voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations — from what we think our work ‘ought’ to be or ‘should’ look like. Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart.”
— Steven Pressfield


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

May 7

2 Comments

Monday Post ~ May 7, 2012

“Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.”
— Nolan Bushnell


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 30

1 Comment

Monday Post ~ April 30, 2012

“Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/ project/ enterprise is to you — and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.”
~Steven Pressfield


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 27

4 Comments

Tele-Call: Living in the Moment while Working Toward the Future

I’d love for you to join me for Transformational Tuesday, a free tele-call hosted by the Creativity Coaching Association on Tuesday, May 8 at 11:00 am eastern.

This live call is a conversation between Bev Down, CEO of the Creativity Coaching Association, and me, with Q&A from the audience (you, I hope!) on a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: Living in the moment while working toward the future. Here’s the gist:

Goals are an essential part of turning dreams into reality. In order to avoid the pitfall of “Aim at nothing, and you’ll hit it every time,” we’re advised to get clear on what we want and visualize the ideal outcome. SMART goals (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based) help us develop our passions and accomplish what feels important. But we also know that living in the moment — being present and surrendering to right now — is key to reducing stress and finding peace. Sometimes our plans for reaching our goals seem incompatible with what shows up in the present. How do we navigate this apparent conflict?

While I’m preparing my thoughts for this tele-call, I’d love to hear about your experience navigating this issue. Do you feel caught between wanting to be where you are — and wanting to arrive at a future point? As a creative mother, you’re continually faced with putting your own goals on hold in the name of taking care of someone else. Are you able to stay in the moment and go with the flow even when obstacles seem to pile up, and the distance between you and your goal seems to widen? Whether this is something you grapple with or something you don’t, I’d love to work your experience into my program. Please comment on this blog post to share your perspective in advance.

May 8, 2012 @ 11:00 AM, Eastern Time
Dial-in Number: 1-218-936-4141
Participant Access Code: 8673879#

I hope to “see” you there!

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Apr 23

5 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 23, 2012

“The richest source of creation is feeling,
followed by a vision of its meaning.”
~Anaïs Nin


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 16

12 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 16, 2012

“Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is ‘to fit together’ and we all do this every day. Not all of us are painters but we are all artists. Each time we fit things together we are creating — whether it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, a day.” ~Corita Kent


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 12

6 Comments

The Morning Centering Practice

Recently, I’ve been thinking about why some days are focused and productive, and others are just “busy” and unsatisfying. It’s the difference between driving the cart and having the cart push you along from behind. One feels way better than the other.

In working with clients and in examining my own life, I’m gaining new clarity on the importance of a morning centering practice. When I do my morning centering practice, I’m in touch with what’s important, what I want to accomplish that day, and the frame of mind I’d like to maintain. I plan the day, allot durations to each activity, and then work from my list. When I don’t do the morning practice, I jump right into “doing” — and am thereafter shadowed by a nagging feeling of being “off,” regardless of how much I get done. On those days, I tend to work in a state of reactivity, rather than proactivity.

What does a morning centering practice involve?

Here’s what my morning centering practice looks like, in an ideal world. In total, it takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

  • 5:00: out of bed
  • meditate for 20 minutes
  • make tea
  • record last nights dream(s) in my dream journal, if I remember anything
  • choose an Osho Zen Card for the day
  • read the day’s entry in Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening
  • review my list of personal goals and intentions for the year
  • creative visualization (Shakti Gawain exercises)
  • intention journaling
  • plan the day (in planner, assigning a time and a duration for each task, or adding them to the “batch task” block)

This might seem like a cumbersome list, but it flows naturally — each step building on the last, ensuring that the things I put in the day’s to-do list (the last step) are grounded in my larger intentions and values.

To create your own morning centering practice, brainstorm the materials and resources that help restore you to who you are. Whether or not you consider yourself a Buddhist, I strongly recommend a daily meditation practice. Meditation helps you remember that all of those thoughts in your head — the thoughts that stress you out, make you feel bad, or tell you what to do — are just the monkey mind. You can let them come and go without falling for the little snares they leave in their wake. The best (and cheapest) therapy going.

Making it happen

How does a mama get an hour or more to herself in the morning? At my house, she gets up at 5:00. There’s no other way to slice it. Sometimes (usually) at least one of my younger boys is up well before 6:00. But so long as I’ve completed the meditation portion of the morning routine, I can do the other parts with company. It’s not ideal, but better to do the practice than not. Much, much better to do the practice than not.

There are two important things that fuel the morning centering practice. The first is habit. If you get up every day at the same time and do your practice, it becomes routine within weeks. It’s just what you do. The second is going to bed on time. I’m naturally an early riser, but if I go to bed at 11:00 or later, it’s painful to get up at 5:00 — and too easy turn my phone alarm off and go back to sleep. I need to be vigilant about bedtime.

When I look back on the periods in recent years when I’ve been “in the zone” — when doing what I want to do has been less of a struggle — it’s been when I’ve maintained my morning centering practice. I can feel its value, like an inner compass, throughout the day.

Springboard to creativity

Following your morning centering practice with a window of creative work is an excellent strategy. You’ll have clarity and inspiration. If you have to take a break in there to get kids ready and off to school, that’s OK. But get a block of creative work done as soon as possible. If you can get your creative work done before any “day job” tasks on your plate, so much the better. All day long, you’ll feel great about having done your creative work first thing.

How about you? Do you have a morning centering practice of one kind or another? What works best?

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Apr 9

7 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 9, 2012

“The pearl’s beauty is made as a result of insult, just as art is made as a response to something in our environment that fires us up, sparks us, causes us to think differently. The pearl, like art, must be catalyzed.”
~Julia Cameron


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 2

5 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 2, 2012

“Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.”
~Meryl Streep


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Mar 26

4 Comments

Monday Post ~ March 26, 2012

“Nobody whispers it in your ear. It is like something you memorized once and forgot. Now it comes back and rips away your breath. You find and finger a phrase at a time; you lay it down cautiously, as if with tongs, and wait suspended until the next one finds you.” ~Annie Dillard



This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

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