School of Creative Business - Creative Entrepreneurship

Restore Your Personal Priorities

Running a business is one of the toughest challenges you can choose in life. In fact, sometimes it can place unexpected demands on your time and energy, it can require lots of nurturing and love, it can keep you up at night, it demands structure and discipline, it teaches us valuable lessons about ourselves and although we spend many long hours working our business, it is the most rewarding thing we could have done for ourselves.

I’ve talked to many business owners who sometimes get overwhelmed with the daily demands of owning a business that they lose focus on why they started a business. They want to have it all – a business and a life, but many of them just don’t know how to get there.Here are a few things that many business owners struggle with:

· Time

· Money

· Effort

I too have struggled with balancing business with my personal life. But I had to make a choice personal or professional- what I learned that I had to change my priorities around a little. My personal priorities needed to be in order and this meant that I had to place my family first and business second.  Boundaries had to be established to when I worked and when I played.

So I created a detail list of my personal priorities that I wanted to set for my life. On my list now are:

• Institute a weekly date night to talk with my mom on the phone.
• Have dinner with my extended family every other week.
• Schedule a lunch date with a friend once a week.
• Sign up for a dating service (I found a great guy!)
• Take a real vacation twice a year.
• Go to the movies and take myself out to a nice restaurant once a month.

 These are few of mine, but whatever your personal priorities are, commit to them and develop a plan for bringing them into your daily life. Bring joy back into your life – I did and it has been rewarding to my personal and professional life.

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Note: In the next few days- I will post a 2 part post on "Help! I'm All Over the Place" - Make sure to Subscribe, so you won't miss it!

See You Soon, Alease

Thank You

 

Thank you everyone for participating in the Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life Blog and Video Series. I've received many positive comments on the strategies and videos.

In the next few weeks I am planning on running another blogging series called "I'm All Over the Place". I will keep you updated. But in the meantime I will continue to post helpful business suggestions, resources and self improvement tips at least twice a week.

So thank you all for your support and I am looking forward to providing you with more in the future.

 

PS- if you want to go back through a few of the strategies and video just click here-Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life Blog & Video Series

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #9 - The Wrap Up & Video

Strategy #9 - The Wrap Up

The key point to keep in mind when working through these stategies were that you are engaged in a personal reflections. You were reflecting and testing ideas in your everyday artist life. You were integrating them and building on them, in the light of your actual life expereinces.

For instance - Strategy # 6 - Redefining the Way You See Things, you start to notice the social definitions that rule many situations in your life. You begin to recognize how your behavior is shaped and controlled by the definitions in use:

 "I'm an aritst" - thorefore I should be creating artwork like other artist - We now know this not to be true- An artist is a person who creates beautiful things - not what others have done before.

You start to see how important or unimportant social definitions are, you can start to redefine situations in ways that run contrary to your own life goals. And when you are able to redefine situations, you then are able to Get in Touch with Your Emotions. You can move on to recongnize the way you think generates the emotions you expereince. Redefining situations can empower you to learn from your emotional experiences.

This is the way to intergrate these strategies into your daily life. The more thought provoking you are about your life as an artist the more your begin to become an skilled and insightful thinking artist.

Share

If you did get a chance to share your experiences - please take this time to share them with us.

Wrap Up Video

 

 

Peace and More Love,

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #8 -Analyze Group Influences on Your Life

Strategy #8 - Analyze Group Influences on Your Life

Flickr image by Optikal

I'm a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. and I clearly understand what it means to part of a group. But what I learn in being in a sorority in college is that group memberships can make stronger and weak. Sigma Gamma Rhomade me a stronger person. I learned to ask for help,speak in front of hundreds of people, to give back to needy organizations and how to promote and brand myself. All of these qualities are good ones, but sometimes we can encounter negative influences on our lives. Strategy # 8 is all about analyzing the influences (good & bad) a group may have on you.

Analyze

Closely analyze the behavior that is encouraged, and discouraged, in the groups to which you belong. For any given group, what are you "required" to believe? What are you "forbidden" to do?

 Every group enforces some level of conformity. Most people live much too much within the view of themselves projected by others. Discover what pressures you are bowing to and think explicitly about whether or not to reject that pressure.

Build a Creative Alliance

  Read more on this topic, The Secret is Out- Build a Creative Alliance , here and if you have group you belong to that's supportive and inspirational - Give them a shout out!!!!

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #7 - Get in Touch with Your Emotions

Strategy #7 - Get in Touch with Your Emotions

Flickr image National Media Museum

OMG, I am the most emotional person I know. I cry at a drop of a hat. I cry when I'm sad, happy, angry, and excited. Getting in touch with my emotions, I have no problems with. What I need to work on is understanding why I am having these emotions, what are they connected to and how can I overcome them when they are the most inappropriate.

Emotions are good and we should express them whenever we can, but we also have to understand the why behind them. So when you feel some type of emotions during the day, systematically ask yourself:

• "What, exactly, is the thinking leading to this emotion?" For instance- if you are angry about something- ask yourself, what is the thinking that is making me angry?

• What other ways should I think about this situation? Can I put a humor spin on it, can I just cough it up as just life experience and learn from it?

• If you can, change the direction of the emotion, your emotions will soon shift to match the new thoughts.

Emotional Artists

An extremely emotional artist is not really the most productive and easy person to work with . If you ever get bad reviews on an art show, then suck it up and learn from it. Everyone isn't going to like your work, it 's their lost, not yours. Just leave the crying and emotional threats at the door.

A few of us may even get emotional when we are praised. (This is me.) When someone complements me on my work, I feel this overwhelming emotion come over me. And I know this is because I honestly don't feel like I deserve it, so instead of tearing up, I try to play down the complement, by saying " Oh- it took me no time to make it, or its no big deal."

Because of strategy #7- I am taking the time to observe these emotions and I'm trying use other comments that reflects  pride and confidence in my work.

 

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #6 - Redefine the Way You See

Strategy # 6 - Redefine the Way You See

Flickr image By Tina Manthorpe

 This strategy is my favorite strategy so far. In this strategy, you are to practice redefining the way you see things around you- turning negative situations into positive situations - dead ends into new beginnings - mistakes into opportunities to learn.

To make this strategy more practical to our everyday lives we have to set up a few guidelines.

• Make a list of 5 to 10 recurrent negative contexts in which we feel frustrated, angry, unhappy or worried.
• Then identify what might be the root cause of these negative contexts.
• Allow the next step to be plausible alternative to solve the negative context- plan for a new response as well as new emotions.

"For every problem under the sun, there is a solution or there is none. If there be one, think til you find it. If there be none, then never mind it."

The quote above explains how I live my life now. I don't worry about things I can not fix and for those I can fix, I try to solve them with the simplest solutions. I swear since I've taken this role to living life, my life seems so much better. Learn to take the high road.

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #5 - Dealin with Egocentric Thinking

Strategy # 5 - Egocentric Thinking

Flickr image  by Jubiii

Today's Creative Thought Provoking Strategy deals with our egocentric thinking. Egocentric thinking is thought to be way in which we favor oneself. Well you might say -"What is wrong with thinking highly of yourself?" I too thought the same thing. I was taught to think good of yourself. But like anything we do too much of a good thing, can do us some harm.

Start to observe you egocentric thinking in action by contemplating questions such as these:

• Under what circumstances do I think with bias of myself?
• Do I ever become irritable over small things?
• Did I do or say anything "irrational" to get my way?
• Did I try to impose my will upon others?
• Did I ever fail to speak my mind when I felt strong about something, to later feel resentment?

The key thing to learn from this strategy is to identify your egocentric thinking in action. Once you have identified a few of your patterns you can then replace them with more rational thought through systematic self-reflection. Like: What would a rational person feel in this or that situation?, or What would a person free of major egocentric thinking do?

In the case of egocentric thinking I'm not going to say to remove all egocentric thinking. That would be and feel to odd for an artist. I think we have to tell ourselves that our work is good, or better than others to continue doing what we do. I don't consider this egocentrism, I just call it being confident.

Try it out for yourself. Just be more aware of when the ego might get in the way of your success and learn how to replace this ego with more rational thoughts.

Next ...

 My personal video journal on Egocentric Thinking .

By the way if you like what you've read and heard, please pass it along to others who might enjoy it. And if you have not subscribed to this blog, then do so here.

Thanks - Peace & More Love,  

 

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #4 - Reshape Your Character

Strategy #4 - Reshape Your Character

_{Flickr Image  M. Alfreshaid}

Our parents and other love ones have talked to you and me about how important it is to have good character. And I totally agree that we all should strive to have the best character trait out there, but sometimes as we get older we have to revisit the character we have developed so many years ago. This post today is about reshaping the character we have so long held onto.

Strategy #4 requires you to choose one intellectual trait - intellectual perseverance, autonomy, empathy, courage, humility or any other one you feel you would like to address. You are to focus on how you can develop that trait in yourself.

For this week, I chose - Courage. "The courage to choose love & The courage to live out my dream". Just recently I posted on my Studio 2229 blog - "Good, Better, the Best" my courage to choose love.

The ideal is to focus on your verbal and physical reactions, emotions and thoughts as you introduce a trait into your life today. For example if you choose humility- look for when you admit you are wrong, when you refuse to admit you are wrong, or when you become defensive when another person tries to point our a deficiency within work or thinking.

The point is to pay closer attention to your actions, record them and learn how to better handle such situations. Character development is a good thing, and like when we were younger it made us into better people, by taking the time to reshape your character a little more can only mean that we are to become  better artists and as people.

Take a few moments today and introduce a new character trait into your creative life. Looking forward to hearing your responses.

Don't forget to pass this along to others who you feel would enjoy it.

Subscribe, Subcribe and Subcribe - Hint, Hint:)

Thanks - Peace & More Love,  

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #3 - Intellectual Standards

Strategy # 3 - Intellectual Standards

_{Flickr Image J-Stevens}

For today the purpose of strategy #3 is to develop a heightened awareness of any intellectual standards we might have about what we create. The Critical Thinking Community has noted that there are 8 intellectual standards: clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breath, logicalness, & significance. Each one of these  standards should be analyzed one at a time. And for the purpose of this post, I suggest that you only choose one and incorporate the others later on during the week.

But in any case- the standard you choose for today should be one that reflects your intellectual standard of your art work at this moment. For example if you chose clarity , then pay close attention to when you speak or write, whether you are clear about what you are trying to say.

State what you are saying with explicit and precise words -I have a dictionary with me at all times- but I'm still working on becoming a better writer and speaker everyday.

Elaborate when necessary on topics that may seem unclear to others who may not understand or know your art style- Not everyone is going to know the techniques that you use, so explain a few simple details to allow others to know and appreciate the skills it takes to create such artwork.

Give examples of what you mean form personal experiences- people connect to personal stories. Include them anytime you get a chance.

Use analogies, metaphors, pictures, or diagrams to illustrate what you mean- as a artist, I know that a picture is worth a 1000 words. Use images of your work to illustrate techniques, style and/or expression.

This strategy becomes handy when you are writing your artist statement  Try your best to use Strategy #3 to create better artist statements.

Tomorrow's Post:

Video on my personal take on Strategy #3 - Internalize Intellectual Standards.

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Thanks - Peace & More Love,  

 

Living a Creative Thought Provoking Life: Strategy #2 - A Problem a Day

Strategy #2 - A Problem a Day

If you're alive and breathing then you are along with all the rest of us, you too have problems,  big or small. The key to having problems is learning how to deal with them. Today is about taking on one problem a day.

Sometime during your drive to work or on your way home from the store think about one problem you've  been having in your artist life. Are you in a creative slump? Do you have someone who doesn't support your dreams? Is it as simple as to what color should the walls be in my studio?

Like I said before a problem is a problem big or small- it's all in how you deal with it. So, once you've thought about your problem,  then figure out the logic of the problem by identifying its elements:

• What exactly is the problem?
• How can I put it into a question form?
• How does it relate to my goals, purposes, and needs?
• What is my plan of action to solve this problem?
• Distinguish between problems under your control and problems beyond your control.
• What are some of your limitations: money, time, power, etc.?
• Evaluate your action plan, take into consideration the advantages and disadvantages of the problem.
• When the plan is fully in action, monitor the progress, and be ready to revise the action if necessary.

Every war has a leader with  plan and reason for destroying the enemy.  And since you are the leader on the war for creative freedom, then you too must have a plan. Your plan of war is to defeat whatever is holding you back from your dream of becoming an artist. A war worth fighting for is never easy, but a true winner never surrenders without a good fight. Put your battle suit on and lets get to fighting for our Creative Freedom!!!

Tomorrow's Post:

Creative Thinking: An Artist's Everyday Life. My personal video journal on my take on strategy #2 - A problem a day.

By the way if you like what you've read and heard, please pass it along to others who might enjoy it. And if you have not subscribed to this blog, then do so here.

Thanks - Peace & More Love,