Gary GoodwinLet’s say you have all the intention in the world to paint 45 minutes, 6 days a week. You hit this target just fine for a few days but by the fourth day, some distraction (big or small) comes up and you just can’t get your work done.
When we don’t meet our creative daily goals we are presented with two choices: 1.) we can beat ourselves up for not getting to our goal and thereby burn our energy on blaming ourselves and gnashing our teeth or, 2.) we can choose not to sweat it and instead put our energy towards planning a successful tomorrow.
Think through how you can get to your target tomorrow. Do a mental rehearsal of how things will go and make changes in your plan if obstacles come up in your mind’s eye. Really get your plan down and reaffirm your intention to follow through. Get set for tomorrow.
Spend your energy on focusing forward and setting things up to succeed.
I do this a lot. I’m constantly missing self-imposed deadlines. Like the site redesign that took me three months longer than expected. I try not to focus on my failure to meet my goal (often because I have a tendency to give myself unrealistic goals), and focus more on the things I did get done.
I live this! How timely that you shared this today. Thank you for the reminder to stay positive and keep working.
How encouraging!!! It is so easy to get frustrated and discouraged when “life” interferes with your creative plans. It is so important to set boundaries for your creative blocks of time each day, but sometimes things just happen. It makes me feel positive and hopeful as I read this post. I am determined to stick to the plan as much as possible to protect that time, but if something happens to steal it, just go with the flow, remembering that focusing on “tomorrow” is keeping the artist’s brain turning. Thank you for this.,
Just what I needed to hear today. I have my intention each day to be mindful and creative and sometimes its easy to beat yourself up when you don’t live up to your own expectations. I am really working to make sure I give myself room to let life evolve and embrace the new gifts that may occur if I can be open to them. Thanks for the reminder.