SECRETS SABOTAGING YOUR ARTISTIC CAREER

You know you want to make a living from your art-form.
You know that your creations deserve a world forum, but then time passes and things haven’t flowed the way you thought they would.
Heck! Let's admit it! It's been a struggle, right?
What are your obstacles?
Do you want to break through the obstacles that are holding your career back from huge success?
Then make sure you’re not doing any of the things in this list.
If you're not earning a living from your art-form then it’s likely that you either have:

1. No defined Goals. What are your goals in life? Do you know them clearly?

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”
― Helen Keller
You wouldn’t go on a holiday trip to a specific beach destination with only a vague idea of where the destination is and no map or GPS navigation to guide you, right?
Your vision is your map and your intuition is your GPS system.
So you know that you need to write down your goals and make a clear vision for your future, but you let everything else take priority and subsequently feel that dull sense that you’re not where you really want to be.
Why does something so easy seem to be so hard to just take 15 minutes to sit down and do?

You only need to see your vision of your positive future for 3 minutes before bed and 3 minutes upon waking each day and your life will change miraculously!
Got 6 minutes to spare?
Perhaps you don’t see things so clearly? To get better at visioning, you need to exercise your imagination muscle and the quickest, easiest and most enjoyable way to flex your imagination muscle is to read fiction books.

Write down a list of things you want to be, things you want to do, and things you want to have. Plus start reading fiction every night because fiction exercises the imagination muscle and you need a strong imagination to do visualisation.

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dreaminterpretation.co/dream-meaning-guitar/amp/

1. Vague pitch. You’re unclear about how to describe your mission and passion to create

Picture this scenario: You’re in an elevator and James Hatfield walks in.
It’s just you and him.
You feel awkward.
He doesn’t.
He asks you what you’re passionate about and you self-consciously waffle vaguely about your music “not sounding like anything else” and pull out your phone for a selfie. after he’s gone you berate yourself and spend the next 6 months as an insomniac thinking in the wee hours of the night about what you could’ve said instead.

Shoulda. Coulda. Woulda. Buddha.
Opportunity missed.

You need to know who you are, what you represent, who your specific version of your art form represents and how your art serves them.

Source: https://societyofrock.com/james-hetfield-makes-fans-life-with-incredible-gesture-his-reaction-is-priceless/

1. Doubt. Do you get frozen by doubt?

That incessant inner critic that constantly scolds everything you do can just be a tyrannical bully that paralyzes your momentum, right? It makes you feel somewhat uncertain, which in turn makes your creative output rather inconsistent, which in turn prevents you from releasing your work into the world consistently, if at all.
All that means is that your brain has been brainwashed to perceive yourself (and life) through negative filters. It’s okay, we’ve all been conditioned this way, but we can remove the old filters and recondition it another way. The way we want it to function.

The mind is a fantastic tool, but a terrible master.

The mind must be trained so that it is working with you, not against you.
The cure?
Daily meditation and positive affirmations.
Yeah, I know, you’ve heard it all before and maybe even tried it for a week or so, but didn’t see any changes.

Well, if you were overweight, you wouldn’t expect to have a six-pack of abs from one gym session, right?

It takes time and effort.

Set aside at least 5-10 minutes every morning (or evening) to meditate. The best way to do this is to listen to guided meditation tracks, followed by at least a 3 minute positive visualisation session.

Source: https://m.soundcloud.com/jonbrooks-1/sets/meditation-music-calming-and

1. Desperation. Do you try to hard to get attention?
   Have you ever had an interaction that didn’t go the way you wanted loop over and over in your head?
   Ever think about what you could’ve said, what you should’ve said?

It may be that you’re not completely aware of it, but perhaps you can come across as needy or desperate in social interactions and networking opportunities.
I get it. You think that if they would just listen or see my work they’d love it and they’d help me get my art, music, film, writing, performance out there.
Admiration and attention are like magnetics.
A magnet doesn’t try to attract the other magnet nor does it try to attract plastic or wood.
It just is what it is.
When it’s near metal or another magnet it attracts them to it.You need to just be what you are.
You need to just trust that you exude the qualities that encompass your art.

Do the action from point 3 (meditate and visualise) – But make sure you visualise yourself behaving as you would behave if you already had everything your heart desires and knows it deserves.
Ask yourself, how would I behave if I was famous and financially wealthy doing what I love most?
Yeah, be like that person now, every day.

1. Procrastination. Has procrastination prolonged or distracted you from getting useful things done?
   Have you heard yourself give rational reasons and excuses as to why you haven’t been able to get the necessary work you need to do done?

Things like, “I don’t have time!” “I’m too busy!” And other lies we tell ourselves…
If you’re honest with yourself, you know that there must be many distractions or lower priority things that you could slice away from the minutes in your day.
Study a book or course on time management and you’ll soon see that there are many wasted hours strewn throughout your day that could be better used for productive tasks. Even a time management or time tracking app on your smart phone could show you exactly where you’re wasting precious time.

Source: https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-interpreter-smartphones-tied-human-was-waste-time-to-go-lot-image36438556

Add a time management app to your smart phone or write a list of every single thing you do tomorrow. Really scrutinise every minute as thoroughly as you can. You’ll start getting a clear idea of what you waste time on. Even more so if you monitor each of your days over the course of a week.
Once you’ve done this, be self-disciplined and cut away the extraneous things that are the lowest priority and fill up that time with high-priority productive activities.

1. Lacking Persistence. Do you give up too easily?

It’s easy to go with the flow of success when things flow easily, but there’ll be times when things just don’t go the way you’d prefer them to. If you give up during those times when things become difficult you’ll not create the life you dreamed of living from your passion.
Your biggest obstacle is your over sensitive heart and an unfocused mind.
If a shoot that sprouts forth from the seed under the earth gives up before it reaches the light, it dies. But a seed never gives up. Your talent is the seed.

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/curious-kids-where-did-the-first-seed-come-from-109314

Don’t wait or hope for someone else or better circumstances to rescue you.
Make your dream a reality by being unswervingly persistent.
When the going gets tough, find ways over, around or through your obstacles.

Think of one of the important tasks that you need to get done.
Let’s say, for example, that you need to make a call to a music venue (art gallery, theatrical agent, publishing company, etc) to book a gig. Now think of the obstacles you might experience such as; the booker isn’t there, or the manager is too busy, or what’s the worst case scenario?
The booker says, “No, not interested.”
In reality, that is actually the worst case scenario, right?
But that’s not that bad so why take that personally?
It’s not likely to be your talent that they don’t think they want. It’s more likely that your pitch wasn’t very persuasive or it was just the wrong time of day to contact or they’ve had a crappy day or any number of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with you at all…

1. Lacking Follow Through.

Do you have a tendency to not actually stay true to your word?
Maybe you promised the venue to send posters by a certain date, but they either didn’t get there or were really late.
Perhaps you said you’d get promotions in online zines and street press, but you didn’t get your press release sent on time so you’re not even in the gig guides.
Maybe you promised your crowdfunding supporters their packages by a certain time, but kept them waiting for an excessively long time without any communication from you before you eventually sent their reward, or worse still, you didn't send the reward they paid for at all .

If you don’t stand by your word, or at least make emphatic apologies for not following through, then you will get a reputation of not being trustworthy. You’ll lose fans, supporters, friends, gigs and opportunities will dry up.
Regardless of what justifications you tell yourself, it does really matter because perception is everything in the arts, but, hey, it's never too late to put your pride aside and make apologies, even if what happened (or didn't happen) wasn' t entirely your fault.

Being humble and taking responsibility is a very attractive quality.

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