Creating YOUR New CREATIVE Decade

WELCOME TO YOUR NEW CREATIVE DECADE!!! YOURS? YES!!! Does everyone else get to have one too??? You bet! But make no mistake about it: YOU are the ONLY ONE who gets to CREATE YOURS! YOUR DECADE will go HOW YOU SAY it will!

YOU are actually FREE to create whatever you want! YOU have the FREEDOM of CHOICE! Now, your non-stop brain patterns may be already going nuts on you … spewing out enormous evidence for everything you created and wanted in the past that never came to fruition. PLEASE … Tell those voices to shut up and stick with me here. This isn’t an empty resolution setting post … This is about a Decade of CREATIVITY, FREEDOM and POWER to stand there at 2030 & say, “I DID IT!”

I will give you, in this blog post, a step-by-step way to set yourself up to bring whatever you want into reality by (or even before) 2030. I have seen hundreds of my clients, from all different kinds of backgrounds, education levels, ages, strengths and limitations, produce the results they wanted with these steps. I want that for YOU! That IS Freedom!

As a beginning point, I want to encourage and empower you to CREATE … FROM YOUR SOUL … A BIG INSPIRING VISION!!! Not what you should create, not what others want you to create. This is YOUR personal Vision. CREATE a VISION that really turns you on … makes YOU wanna’ get out of bed in the morning. Why would you create anything else? You are a CREATIVE … You know how to CREATE from Your SOUL! This is YOUR Life, YOUR Vision, YOUR Purpose, YOUR Mission, YOUR Why-I-Am-Here!

Your own personal Big inspiring Vision, that you create from your Soul, will be your BIG WHY that you will do everything you need to do between now and 2030 and will pull you passionately FORWARD. When we create anything less than BIG Visions from our SOUL, we know it and we wimp out fast because it isn’t Juicy enough to pull us forward and we know it.

With a BIG WHY at the center of the next DECADE you can more easily stay inspired (even if the going gets tough) and frankly, it is THE WHY you are doing all of this in the first place. Stretch beyond the mundane problems of today, they aren’t BIG enough. Skip the “I just wanna’ pay my bills and debts” stuff. IF you create a BIG VISION I promise you that the mundane problems of today will get resolved along the way (You’ll see as we move along here).

Without a BIG WHY there is no need to try to go any further to do the work it will take along the way! Let YOUR next DECADE be the fullest expression of YOU!!! Let the results serve who you REALLY are by fulfilling your BIG WHY!!

Once you have your BIG VISION then allow yourself to make a list of the things you really want to accomplish and/or have and/or feel by 2030 that will demonstrate that Vision fulfilled.

Please let yourself swing out. What are the things, places and people that are part of that Vision? How does your IDEAL Artist Life look? How do you want to think, feel and be in that Vision? What difference do you want to make? What is the Legacy-Leaving stuff? List it out … this list will help you as we move forward!

Now that you have your list … let’s move onto fulfilling your CREATIVE VISION for the next DECADE!

As far as I can tell there are several key elements to creating anything and having it really happen:

Creating a full, vivid picture of what you want.
Believing in what you created.
Making a plan to get it.
Following the plan and taking the actions to get there

Let’s take it a piece at a time and look at each piece.

CREATING A FULL, VIVID PICTURE

“You cannot accomplish anything you cannot see yourself accomplishing.”
~ Florence Stovall Shinn

Starting with your BIG VISION and a list of what you want to accomplish by 2030, first we need to Create it Fully! By fully I mean acting AS IF it has already happened. Imagine yourself with it looking exactly as you want it to. Envision it DONE. How do you do this? Take the time to imagine yourself there in the future having accomplished whatever you wanted to accomplish. Imagine what your life looks like… don’t hold back. How do you really want it? YOU, as an Artist or Creative, are gifted with Imagination and Vision. Now is your opportunity to use it for YourSELF.

Now write it all down. Yes, all of it. Stand there in the future and describe it ALL in as much detail as you can so you can fully experience it. This is your IDEAL, FULFILLED Future. All those mundane things we talked about above have already been handled by then so leave them behind.

Pretend you are there in the IDEAL future, just as you want it, and tell the story of just one possible day in that future life so you can get it really alive. Imagine you wake up in and move around through the day in your new life and write it like a story of the day.

Plug in what you see and hear, your emotions, your thoughts, plug in the other people around you and how they interact with you in that New Life. Write it in 1^st person and in presence tense … this is key … it is AS IF you are right here right now.

Here are some questions to answer and things to envision as you describe it all:

Where are you?
What does it look like around you inside, outside and at different points in the day?
What are you doing throughout the day?
Who is, or what kind of people are with you during different points in the day?
How do you feel knowing this is the life that you created 10 years ago?
What thoughts and emotions do you have as you move through your day?

Get it all in your story. Pack it all in. Write it all out. Make it alive and vivid. Make sure you can see, hear and feel it all. THIS is your New Future in 2030.

“Create the highest grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

BONUS: Take the story you have written and read it into a recorder (on your phone, perhaps, so you always have it with you). Now, play that recording to yourself at the beginning and end of the day (and anytime you may need to remind yourself or you have a few spare minutes … like standing in line at a store, driving in traffic, etc.). This begins to get the story alive for you, in your own voice, and does a little subliminal brain programming.

BELIEVING IN WHAT YOU CREATED

“The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.” ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

I know this may seem like a REAL stretch (after all the voices in your head had all that proof that this is BS). But think about it … our whole life is an act of blind faith … we don’t even know if we will wake up tomorrow BUT … we believe we will, and we, day after day act AS IF we will. Belief/Faith/Trust …it takes something. AND this is the glue that holds things together. It requires that you let go of your resignation (a key experience for us humans LOL) and BELIEVE in Your VISION that you created and wrote down.

So just try it on. Stand there in the future AS IF. BELIEVE IT HAS REALLY HAPPENED. How does THAT have YOU think and feel? Imagine it and try it on. THAT YOU would take different actions and make things happen differently. THAT YOU is very different from the you who doesn’t believe it and just tries to through some of the motions, hopes it all turns out and ends up giving up.

BELIEF gives you FREEDOM to FOCUS!

MAKING A PLAN

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” ~ Pablo Picasso

For those of you that can’t quite believe that you can REALLY have what you want… this part will, at least, make sense to you … we are going to plot it in 3D reality. There are tons of studies and lots of people who have proven that the chances of accomplishing things increase exponentially if we make and work a plan.

For those of you who think that you will just toss it all up to the Universe … I am not saying that handing it over is not powerful … I hand many things to the Universe. I also do my part. I believe that it is a partnership … we need to do our part. What is our part? It starts with what we have already done (creating it and believing in it) and then it moves into creating a plan and taking actions.

Notice that above I already talked about Believing it. Making a plan does not negate believing it. Making a plan is the structure behind the belief. As a matter-of-a-fact I believe it so much that I am going to plot out my path. If I didn’t believe it then there would be no point in a plan.

Planning is the difference between wandering all over the woods, trying to figure out where to go next, each step along the way vs. having a map or GPS and following it to get you from point A to point Z effectively and quickly. It is also the difference between “Good Luck” and “Congratulations”.

The good news is YOU get to make the plan (so you aren’t being dominated by anything) and along the way you can even modify the plan as you learn more. You will not know everything there is to know at the beginning and as you start following along there may be detours and new things that pop up (The Universe has a real sense of humor I have discovered). No problem, we can adjust. But even with the adjustments we know where we are headed and our chances of getting there increases.

So, about planning … Planning can sound very left brained and limiting but it doesn’t have to be. The foundation of planning is actually very creative and can even be exciting and fun. (OK, now if the voices in your head have you rolling your eyes right now just quieten down the sabotage committee down.). This is like making a preliminary sketch or starting to story-board your film. Let’s pull it apart some!

There are only 4 basic questions that form the steps to work with and everything else is built off of that … much like a GPS:

Where do I want to go (what do I want to accomplish)?
Where am I now? (what does life look like right now)?
How am I going to get there (what path do I need to follow and what do I need to do between now and then)?
How will I know I am getting there (what does it look like along the way … landmarks, milestones … to have accomplished what you wanted)?

For Question/Step # 1 – Start with your vision of where you want to be in 2030 that you created above. That IS where you are headed … and if you do this work … then it becomes vivid and clear for you … like a big sign that says, “YOU HAVE ARRIVED”.

For Question/Step # 2 – This is the current reality piece. What does life, business, money, relationships, etc. (everything) look like right now? Do the truth telling. If we can see it, we can move it. If we won’t acknowledge where we currently are then we will get off to a false start. We won’t linger here long but in any basic GPS we gotta’ know where we are starting from in order to plot the path to where we are going.

For Question/Step # 3 – This is where you build your path. These are the milestones or landmarks along the way that have you know you are getting to your end destination. Most of us are used to building from here outward. We are going to do this differently … we are going to build backwards … working back in time from the vision you created out in time (2030) back to where you are now. Remember, you want to approach it AS IF it has already happened. You want to let THAT YOU who has already accomplished what you want build the plan.

Just keep envisioning it. This is a reverse-engineering job. This is also a bit of a guessing game. It can’t be completely accurate because things may change some along the way … You are simply capturing what you THINK happened each step backwards along the way to get you from where you are not to the end result.

Why build backwards? The human brain is an interesting thing complete with brain patterns. If you try to build from today forward there is a really great chance that those brain patterns will limit you, have you get WAY too “practical”, convince you that you can ONLY do so much and that your dream out in the future is too big and ultimately prove to you that you can’t accomplish it. So, we build backwards. Like your future self is telling you how it got there.

Here you think to yourself: If it looks a certain way in 10 years (coz it does) then how would it look in 8 years, 6 years, 4 years, 2 years, 1 year … 6 months, 3 months, 1 month? Remember you are creating here … you don’t know exactly but you are working backwards in time. This is just swinging out and asking at each step back in time: How would it look at this point in time if I already accomplished what I wanted in 10 years? Since I accomplished that then what would I have accomplished prior to that?

NOTE: This is where you see yourself accomplishing the “mundane problems” that you may have now that will need to be resolved to get to your BIG VISION in 2030. As you back down in time put their resolution points in when you want them. Don’t worry, right now, about HOW it is going to happen. Put them in where you want them. You will figure out how later. By-when are those debts paid off? Year 2? Put it in. By what percentage does your profits from your Art increase? 20% in year 1? 100% in year 2? Put it in.

Then describe it … it doesn’t need to be as full blown as the 10-year vision … but please put in some details. Both Tangible (i.e. How much money will you be making? Where is your work being exhibited or produced? How many patrons will you have? How many paintings will you have sold? How much time do you want to spend on the different areas of your life so that you are balancing your life? etc.) and Intangible (How do you feel about each accomplishment?, How do you feel about you having accomplished that?, What difference may have been made for others along the way?, etc.) details.

This is just so you can measure your progress and make sure you keep on the path. It is also to inspire you along the path. It will pull you along. Remember, you are creating and to some degree guessing. We will find out more along the way as we go and be able to modify it.

Do not let the naysaying, self-sabotaging voices in your head … the ones that are telling you it isn’t possible … take over. Just keep creating as you step backwards in time. If I have X in 10 years and it looks like X in 10 years, then I probably have X minus 2 and it looks like this in 8 years – it is like subsets of the final result.

A PLAN give you the FREEDOM to simply TAKE ACTIONS!

FOLLOWING THE PLAN AND TAKING THE ACTIONS

“An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.” ~ Arnold Glasow

Here is the on-the-ground part of having your creations become a reality. This is where you plot it out and build the details of your path, that you just laid out a step at a time. BREATHE … You don’t need to build out the actions for the whole 10 years. You simply need to get the first few colors on the canvas or the first few notes of the music to get it moving.

You simply want to start out by listing the actions you can see you need to take to accomplish the first month of your plan. These are the actions you need to take from right now to get to the results you identified yourself as accomplishing at the end of the first month. That is all.

You will just go a month at a time at the beginning. Then you will get busy and TAKE THE ACTIONS for the first month. Nothing happens without ACTION. You learn through ACTION. When you get some traction and things are moving in that first month, then you can lay out the actions for the second month.

Action after action, week after week and month after month celebrate each victory. Each victory will build your confidence to go for the next victory. You are NOW on the path. It is a step at a time, action after action from there on out. The plan guides you. You follow. You accomplish the task at hand. You celebrate. You repeat.

As you get strong and accomplishments are happening you can fine turn the milestones ahead of you and begin to see more or different actions you will need to take further out. Along your path you may even uncover side paths that get you to your end results faster and more effectively. You get to inquire what is over there or maybe over there on the path. Just like a GPS that sometimes needs to route you around an obstacle. You always have an end result you are headed to.

The point is that the plan is not etched in stone and can be modified along the way if new things show up or your inspiration changes … plans are a work in progress. Many times, when we get in action along our path, amazing surprising things will show up that we never calculated on in the beginning. Feel free to grow your planning and action lists as you can see more and more of it.

A key point in continuing to take actions is to Celebrate your Accomplishments. Do not skip this. Acknowledging your accomplishments is like fertilizer to grow your muscle of moving forward. Mixed with your BIG VISION, that you hold in front of you, it is your other INSPIRATION!

We tend to either only see what we haven’t done and/or haven’t done right or just accomplish something and immediately move on and say, “Next” without acknowledgement that we just completed something. Do not judge the “size” of the accomplishment … acknowledge them all. Pat yourself on the back. Give yourself rewards for the tough ones … they doesn’t have to be big (and they can be) … it about pausing to give yourself a moment of credit for doing tasks and reaching milestones.

ACTIONS give you the FREEDOM to CELEBRATE YOU!

WHAT NOW?

Now, IF you have just been reading but haven’t stopped to walk through the steps… this is the time to begin! The sooner you create your vision of you at the end of the decade and begin believing, making plans and taking actions towards the vision, the sooner you get on the path.

I am often delighted at how my clients, once they start, begin to live with a whole new purpose, commitment and excitement. FREEDOM shows up as RESULTS show up! Surprisingly, they often accomplish what they thought would take X amount of time in ½ or even ¼ of the time. Imagine that happening. What else could be created in the upcoming decade if you accomplished your 2030 visions in much less than 10 years?????

If you have read all the way through and you can see the importance of this step by step game but the tasks still have you stopped, then find a solution like reaching out and getting someone to help you. Who in your life can be a resource to brainstorm with or to help you through doing any of this work you may not be accustomed to or know how to do? Can’t think of anyone? Then find a resource outside of your current circle. If you really want this enough you will seek out the resources to help you. Don’t let not knowing “how” stop you!

So now … TIME TO CREATE … what is your BIG VISION and where do YOU want to be and what do YOU want to have accomplished by 2030? It is YOUR DECADE to FREE YOU to have what matters to YOU for your ART and YOUR LIFE! Starting sooner rather than later (like NOW) will give you the best chance to have it turn out EXACTLY the way you want it to and to ENJOY the journey.

Ending on a personal note: I am Grateful for each of YOU out there in the world! Thank YOU for bringing ART and CREATIVITY to our planet! Please know that YOU deserve to accomplish what you really want by 2030! I wish you an AMAZING beginning to YOUR NEW DECADE! IT IS ALL ABOUT CREATIVITY and FREEDOM!! FREEDOM is POWER!! Feel free to message me with any feedback or questions you may have. I always love the opportunity to connect with YOU!