Goal Setting

This artist's 'take aways' from the movie "Julie & Julia"

Yesterday I took the afternoon off. The beauty of being your own boss is that when the creativity isn’t flowing and no deadline looms large for the day, you can go to the movies in the middle of the afternoon. Granted, don’t exercise this option often or you may not get anything done, but every now and then is completely legal.

Angela and I went to see “Julie & Julia” – she expected the movie to inspire her to cook. She does have a strange habit of watching cooking shows – a past time as interesting to me as watching Ultimate Fighting, which I really, really, really don’t like. What can I say? I was brought up by a woman who considers cooking a nuisance and if she can’t be started, cleaned up and eating within 20 minutes, she’s not happy. (I don’t mean to offend mom, if you are reading this, just giving the root of my aversion to cooking.)

Anyway, I said that if I was inspired to cook it would be one heck of a movie! I left thinking well, maybe I could cook, but expecting I’d have more of the melt-down kitchen scenes than perfect looking dishes. I left with the desire to make and design aprons.

I also wanted to blog… I hope I remember all the ‘blogable’ thoughts that crossed my mind but I’ll just assume that the best ones will come to me as I type.

Here is what I learned from Julia Child’s story…

Julia Child wasn’t always Julia Child. She, like every other successful person, started with a dream and a determination to make it come true. She faced obstacles, rejection, partners that didn’t pull their weight, and more. Just like I have and you may have too. But she kept working towards her goals and eventually got there.
Try many things until you find the thing that you can do all day and dream about all night… for years… in spite of the above named obstacles. She took hat making classes, bridge lessons… who knows what else. THEN she went to cooking school… find your passion.
Surround yourself with a great support system. Julia Child’s husband was a great supporter of her dream. When she was ready to throw in the towel, he picked her up, dusted her off and encouraged her to keep on trying. She got rid of the not so supportive people in exchange for her partners and champions who helped her make things happen. Who are you hanging out with? People who think they can do anything they put their mind to or those who offer up all kinds of reasons why only “connected” or “rich” or “fill-in-the-blank” kinds of people make it big?
I SO, SO, SO want to go back to Paris!

Now what about Julie? What did I learn from her?

Set deadlines. If you know you aren’t the best at following through on your own, set deadlines and announce them to the world. It is harder to give up if people know your plan.
Ignore your mother if she tries to squash your dream. She is probably just afraid her baby bird won’t learn to fly and will get hurt – she’ll come around! (Note to my mom: this actually has nothing to do with you so don’t worry that you tried to squash my dreams.)
Even if things seem big, if you break them down into pieces you can achieve a lot more than you think. 365 days – 524 recipes – jinkies that stresses me out just typing it. But I think at some point she broke it down to how many recipes she needed to do a month to be on track. Much easier to wrap your head around.
Set backs and tears are ok. Just keep cooking. Nothing good ever comes without some stress and disappointment… and even less comes if you give up at the first sign of stress and disappointment.

So my “un-plugging” has turned into quite a blog but that’s ok. You never know what will start the creative flow within you. Yesterday morning I was doing busy work and getting little done so I stepped away from the studio. When I came back, I’m all pumped up again.

“Julie & Julia” is another great movie about people following their passion, sticking with it no matter what, and creating wonderful lives for themselves. I wish this for all of us as well. Here’s the trailer so you can see some clips in case you aren’t inspired to see the whole movie, although I highly recommend it!

Here’s to your creative success!

– Tara

P.S. Don’t forget I have a great goal setting program for artists if figuring out where you want to go, staying on track, and tracking your progress are of interest. Get all the details at www.TheGoalWheelForArtists.com

P.P.S. My friend Barabara Rozgonyi at blogged about the movie from a PR / social media person’s point of view. CLICK HERE to see what she had to say…

My One-Year Art Licensing Info Business Review

What is it about 12 month blocks of time that makes a person introspective? New Year’s Eve sends people into looking at the past year and setting resolutions for the coming year… Birthdays often have the same affect. “What have I done this year? How can I be getting this old?”

And if you’ve ever had a “real job” – you may have had yearly performance reviews where your employer did a formal, written assessment of how you are doing at work – often tying your performance to salary increases. These reviews are often combined with goals, targets and benchmarks to shoot for in the next 12 months.

Owning or building or running your own business is a little different. YOU have to decide to take the time to see where you are, where you’ve been and where you are going. Have you goals changed? Are you making progress? What is going well? What could be handled better?

artistme This weekend marks the anniversary of my venture into internet / information marketing. (Although I’ve been licensing my art for 6 years.) A year ago I boarded a plane to San Antonio to learn all about this new way of doing business. (I had no intention, by the way, of teaching about Art Licensing – that was thanks to the teachers first laughing and then re-directing me. Thank you Pat O’Bryan & Craig Perrine – you changed my life!)

I had never heard of Twitter, wasn’t on Facebook and was very “blog resistant”. WOW how things can change in a year!

I am so happy to have added this piece to my business. To have connected with so many amazing artists. To be working with Paul Brent and talking about potential ventures with other power-artists in the industry.

I’ve written 5 eBooks. I send out a weekly newsletter. There is a forum where artists are connecting and sharing. I’ve conducted 6 ask calls, one teleseminar and another is planned for June 9th. (Goal Setting for Artists — it’s going to be good! You really should check it out!) I’ve learned that I really enjoy coaching and brainstorming with artists about licensing. And apparently I’ve gotten over my ‘blog resistance’ since this will be post #151…

Wow! Not bad for a year. Especially since I’m still creating and licensing my art as well.

Now for the looking forward… what can I do better? What do I want to change? Am I using my time the way I want and need to to build the business I want.

Overall, things are good. But I’ve decided to make a few tweaks. Keeping balance in life and business is so important to not burn-out or lose the passion for what you are doing. So here are some changes…

I need to spend more time on my art so that side of my business doesn’t slip. I’ve worked too hard for 6 years to lose my momentum. And the point is to learn from an artist who is doing what she’s teaching so I better keep doing…
Less is more. I often say that – less is more in speech, emails, many conversations. I’ve decided to apply “less is more” to my newsletters and will be changing from every week to twice a month. Newsletters will now be the second & fourth Monday of the month – with the occasional ‘extra’ if needed. Much of what I do in the newsletter is link to the blog so you can still get your fix by subscribing to the blog – get an email every time I post, a weekly update, etc. RSS feed or to your inbox or just check in every so often. You are in control. If you want to subscribe, click on the SUBSCRIBE button towards the top right of the blog.
Ask calls and audios take quite a bit more time and energy than I anticipated. Calls will remain free if you listen live (subject to phone line capacity). Pre-order the replay or buy within 10 days of the call and the audios will be $15. Buy after the 10 day period and they will be $25. This change will allow me to keep moving forward on this and making it worthwhile for special guests to get involved. This change will be effective with the Paul Brent call on June 24th.
The volume of emails I am getting from individual artists is increasing quite a bit. I love your feedback but need to be careful with my time spent on email every day. I’m going to take an idea from Alyson Stanfield, “the Art Biz Coach”, and instead of answering most emails personally, I will use them as topics for blog posts. If one person has a question, chances are, many others do as well.

Those are the main things that I believe will keep me sane, happy and creative. Thank you so much for joining me in this adventure and all the wonderful feedback you have given me. It truly does keep me going to know that I’m not typing or talking into a vacuum but helping others learn and understand about the art licensing business. Here’s to another great year!

– Tara

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has commented or emailed me – I’m feeling the love!

How can artists set goals and still work from a place of inspiration?

We’ve all heard things like, “If you don’t know where you are going, how do you expect to get there?” or “Without a target you can’t hit the mark” or any other number of sayings that boil down to this: without a plan, how do you know if you are making progress or spinning in circles?

But I know that as artists, it is hard to make inspiration and creativity flow during set office hours. Sometimes it hits at 10 pm and you just want to watch tv mid-day. We need flexibility!

Which lead me to the conundrum, and maybe you have shared it: how do you do both? Set goals and still have the time and flexibility to work when inspiration strikes?

As I try to do, when I’m faced with an important dilemma, I look for a solution. That is how I came up with “The Goal Wheel for Artists”. It is a dream / goal / task setting system that works — I know, I use it. It keeps me focused and flexible. On June 9th at 5:30 pm PST / 8:30 pm EST I’ll be doing a teleseminar to teach any artists wanting a fun and effective way to set and achieve goals as well.

Watch the video and check out the website. I hope you decide to join me!

GET ALL THE DETAILS AT www.TheGoalWheelForArtists.com

Here’s to building your creative business!

– Tara