Making Your Creative Mark: Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 1608681629
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
* make sense of the challenges of your personality, the challenges inherent in creative work, and the challenges of culture and marketplace
* quiet your overactive mind
* increase motivation and avoid blocks
* engage in practices that create and reinforce meaning
* align self-talk with goals, avoiding negative loops that block creativity
* identify stressors and implement stress-management techniques designed specifically for artists
* maintain emotional intimacy and healthy relationships in the midst of the creative process
* claim your identity as an artist
* rekindle passion for your art and feed that flame during dark days and dry spells
Intended for professional artists and those aspiring toward professional status, this book offers the nuts and bolts of sticking to a successful and fulfilling life in the arts.
And, as always, for Ann. CONTENTS Introduction 1. The Mind Key 2. The Confidence Key 3. The Passion Key 4. The Freedom Key 5. The Stress Key 6. The Empathy Key 7. The Relationship Key 8. The Identity Key 9. The Societal Key Appendix 1. Your Artist Plan Appendix 2. Refresher Course of Ninety-Seven Creativity Tips Index About the Author INTRODUCTION I’ve been working with creative and performing artists and other creative types — businesspeople, scientists, academics, lawyers,
things to do to move our career forward, that we are too much of an outsider to move our career forward, that there are too few opportunities to move our career forward. In fact, you are free not to throw up your hands at marketplace difficulties. And that’s exactly what you need to do: not throw up your hands at these difficulties. The art marketplace is a hard enough place to navigate without your giving away your freedom to do normal, natural, and useful things on your own behalf. You may be
important part of the process. These substitutes can be tailored to the situation, or they can be simple global affirmations that you create once and use over and over again, such as “I’m perfectly fine,” “Back to work,” “Right here, right now,” or “Process.” Because for so many of us the default way of thinking is negative, self-critical, and injurious, we want to create and use thought substitutes that help prevent our brain from conjuring up its usual distortions and distractions. 8. Get in
aware, and try to arrive at some smart decisions about your intentions. 6. Expect people to come with shadows. Everybody you deal with is a human being who comes with all the baggage that human beings come with, including hidden agendas, thin skins, passive-aggressive tendencies, self-interestedness, and so on. These everyday shadows do not disqualify them — if they did, no one would be able to deal with anyone. People come with light and shadows. Try to enjoy the light even as you stay aware
self-promotion, 70–71 self-protection, 28 self-relationship, 135–48, 207–8 self-sabotage, 2–4 self-talk, 53, 140 negative, 4–7 uncontrolled, 21 self-unfriendliness, 2–4 selling, 27, 93, 103, 105–6 setbacks, 212 shadows, 131–32, 139–40, 185, 193–94 shame, 10 shopping addiction, 54–57 shortcuts, 210 showing up, 194, 205, 209, 210, 215 showing work, 26–27 silence, 76, 211 societal freedom, 64–65 society, 171–91 actively fighting, 186 and artists, 190–91 and freedom, 64–65 and