WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Season 4 – epiBLOG 5:

Yep, you guessed it. I’m going to encourage you to do SOMETHING productive instead of sitting back and waiting for SOMETHING to come to you because you feel entitled to receive what your heart desires.

So, here’s the tough love…

Today’s topic is on taking action now in order to advance your career.

Eliminate excuses, or what you might call “acceptable reasons,” why you aren’t actively taking action towards fulfilling the goals and dreams within your artistic career.

Some artists spend a lot of their time daydreaming about the day when they can create their masterpiece instead of simply creating what they can right now. A writer writes right now. A musician plays, sings, and/or writes music right now. A chef is creating new recipes or experimenting with old ones now.

They aren’t waiting for more time in their schedule.

They aren’t waiting for when they make more money.

They aren’t waiting to quit their job.

They aren’t waiting for their boss to give them more time off.

They aren’t waiting until the kids go to school during the day.

They aren’t waiting until older kids go off to college.

They aren’t waiting for something else to happen so that they can simply create.

What person do you know of who has just “waited” their way into a thriving and successful career?

Go ahead. Answer… I’m waiting.

There’s no such thing as an “aspiring artist.” That’s just a nice way to say you aren’t doing what you really want to do, but that you hope to be some day.

Become who you want to be by living into who that person is right now. Take action right now.

I understand that “thoughts are things,” as Napoleon Hill stated in his book Think & Grow Rich. He basically explained that what we think about and focus on is what we will materialize into our lives. That’s true to a certain extent, but there is more to just having good thoughts with a warm and fuzzy heart that will give you the results that you’re looking for.

I also understand that with the “Law of Attraction” that Jack Canfield discusses is what attracts things to you because your mind is vibrating at a certain frequency or energy level that causes these things to be drawn to you.

Again, this is only part of the process of getting what you want.

You still have to take action. Move. Do something. What are you waiting for?

At the end of the day, your career as an artist lives and dies depending on one thing: your ability to take action consistently.

Put my theory to the test.

How successful do you think a writer is going to be if they write once or twice a year, and only when inspired?

What if a sculptor spends once a year in their studio sculpting their next creation? How successful do you see them?

These sound like starving artists, if I ever heard any.

It’s within living into who you want to become that opportunities arise. Creating consistently does not mean creating every day. Find a schedule that works for you and stick to it – you may only be able to create your art two or three times a week.

Reach out to people who can help with your career, and build a sincere relationship with them.

There is some sort of action that you can take in the present moment that can move your career forward. It doesn’t have to be grand. It doesn’t have to be something that everybody knows about. It just has to be an action. Stop waiting on the stars and the moon to line up and shine their light on you.

What are you waiting for? What is holding you back? Fear?

Fear is something that will cause many of us to wait… or more appropriately, to procrastinate.

Fear is something that we all experience when we endeavor to do anything new. Just understand that fear is part of the human condition, but it never stops you from moving forward unless you allow that fear to have the bigger say in whether you will take actions or not. All successful people have experienced fear. They just kept moving forward despite that feeling. Doing this takes courage, and only you can find that within yourself to move forward with.

Obviously, this is all easier said than done. There have been many days when I could just cry myself  to sleep due to career disappointments. I keep moving forward anyway. And that’s what I want for you. To keep moving forward anyway.

Don’t let fear, laziness, the past failures, perceptions of the way you think life should be, or your current situation stop you from taking an action that will ultimately lead you to what is meant to be yours in the first place. I say this to myself as boldly as I say it to you.

What are you waiting for?

Today’s LESSON is to live in the present and take the feasible actions that you can take within that present moment to live into who you are.

FUN ASSIGNMENT: Write down a list of three actions that you can realistically take within the next seven days that will move your career forward. They have to be actions that when taken, have a high probability of yielding you some sort of result or lesson after having completed the action. At the same time, these actions shouldn’t be something so challenging and unrealistic that you’re not able to execute them or so difficult that you find yourself not even motivated to attempt the actions at all. What if these three actions are exactly what you need to take to be exactly where you want to be? Just something to consider. The worst that can happen is that you will learn from the experience.