There is a lot of advice out there that counsels us on only taking on what we feel we can handle.
In other words, don’t push yourself to do something where failure might be a possibility.
That’s bullshit.
The only way any of us will grow is if we say “yes” to projects or ideas or businesses that we’ve never tried before.
Some examples of ways that you can expand your boundaries of what you think you can do:
- Train for a marathon instead of a 10K
- Apply for a consulting position that seems slightly out of your reach instead of the one you know you can handle
- Take a level 2 or 3 yoga class instead of yoga 1
- Ask for an upgrade to first class on your cross-country flight
Notice that these may have nothing to do with your business. The confidence you’ll gain from taking on something new in your personal life will have a positive ripple effect on what you think is possible for your business.
The point is this: sometimes we have to pretend we can take on something before we really believe that we can do it. Our own minds can be amazing in the way that they stand in our way of trying new things.
Eventually, you’ll get to the place where you realize that you can totally handle this [insert bigger project here].
Note: It’s not necessarily important that you succeed. Training for a marathon is very difficult. You may get to a point where an injury prevents you from continuing the training. Even if things don’t go according to plan, your world will still be expanded. Your mind will still be opened up to things that you thought you could never do.
Have you ever bitten off more than you could chew? What was the result?
via James Calder
I’ve spent almost this entire weekend inside, bundled up and surrounded by wine and candles, due to a snow storm that swept through the D.C. area. I’ve been baking, napping, reading, and dreaming all weekend (and struggling with taking time away from my business, it hasn’t been all fun and games 
).
Since we are a few days into February, I want to share some of my favorite blog posts from January. These posts made me stop in my tracks, and say “Yes!” or “Huh.” Enjoy.
The Difference Between You and Lady Gaga from Sarah Bray at S. Joy Studios–On how taking ourselves down a notch is not a business strategy (amen, sister).
Seth Godin’s guest post on Escape From Cubicle Nation, You Are Not a Cog–On fear and the lizard brain and its effect on our business.
Danielle LaPorte’s guest post on IttyBiz, No Bullshit Branding–On un-branding and the empire of one (you).
Ali Hale’s guest post on Productive Flourishing, How Being Busy Means Not Being Creative–How busyness is shallow, antithetical to creativity, and stops you from dreaming (eek!).
In this vlog, I share how I deal with self-doubt. (Hint: It’s not by working harder.)
Here at Creatuitive Coaching, we are all about taking risks (so that you can build bodacious confidence muscles!). That is why every Wednesday I ask readers, “Why not?” do something daring, creative, and unconventional.
Open a window.
Maybe just a crack.
Maybe just for 10 minutes.
Let some fresh air into closed-up winter space and see if it clears your thinking. (It will.)
DC-folks: I’m leading a workshop for the February 10th meeting of the Capitol Creativity Network on risk-taking, and would love for you to join.
The Details: Wednesday, February 10th | 7:00-9:30pm | Cleveland Park Club House, 3433 33rd Place NW WDC 20008
Stretching Your Creative Boundaries: Creative Risk-taking for Generating Brilliant Ideas…and Boldly Acting on Them
“When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.” ~ Tuli Kupferberg
Rather than consciously building risk-taking into our daily to-dos, we often take risks only by accident or because we feel “forced” to. For entrepreneurs that want to integrate creativity into their work, risk-taking allows you to generate more novel ideas and move those brilliant ideas forward in big jumps. In this interactive workshop, Ana Ottman will guide you through creative risk-taking and how you can harness its power for your business. Through a dynamic 5-step process to engage your whole-brain in dreaming bigger and bolder, you will:
- Learn creative methods to bring more originality into your business or work
- Discover insights and detect patterns within your previous risk-taking
- Create a Risk Autobiography-moving one step closer to understanding your Risk DNA
- Uncover the risks you want to take this year, and identify creative action steps to help you take those risks
Learning to take more risks in your thinking and your business will allow you to develop your signature brand; produce original products and services; and confidently put your offers out there. Prepare to challenge your creativity muscles, and leave the workshop inspired and emboldened to embark on a new path of risk-taking…and with some tools to do it.
RSVP to Michelle James (michelle@creativeemergence.com).
Welcome to the 16th edition of the Creatuitive Living podcast: a guide for women on living an authentic and creative life.
direct download (mp3) :: Feeding Your Creative Spirit
You may subscribe to the podcast RSS feed via ITunes or another podcatcher - You’ll automatically get the latest podcast as soon as it becomes available. The Creatuitive Living podcast is published bi-weekly on Mondays.
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This week’s podcast is an interview with Mariam Aryai Rivera, owner of The Hand of Fatima Designs. She is an artist, designer, mother, wife (adoring that is). She started making jewelry when she had her first son, Amir Gabriel (she now has another angel as well, Ramiel Khyan).
She creates her collections across from one of the oldest, historic, Victorian cemeteries in the city, that was founded as a result of overcrowding dead bodies in the downtown burial grounds from typhoid, cholera and smallpox. She is quite sure this coincidence has influence on her aesthetic a bit.
In Mariam’s culture, the Hand of Fatima is a token of good luck, and all that she makes with her hands, hence the name…also her alter ego is Fatima…among others.
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Creatuitive challenge: Who are your 3 muses? Discover and name individuals from history and that are still living that provide inspiration for your life.
When I think of the color Blue, I think of…
via flickr user jonrawlinson
Wide-open sky in the west
via flickr user David Sifry
The cold ocean that I watch from the beach
via flickr user Pink Sherbet
Tart summer blueberries
via flickr user Tom T
Colorful Moroccan tiles
What does Blue inspire for you?
Here at Creatuitive Coaching (soon-to-be Red Dress Studios), we are all about taking risks (so that you can build bodacious confidence muscles!). That is why every Wednesday I ask readers, “Why not?” do something daring, creative, and unconventional.
"Caroline" via Etsy shop PinupBrenda
Yup, you heard me right. Bask in your solitude and take yourself on a date.
Dress in your favorite clothes that make you feel like the rockstar you are. Take your time getting ready, allowing yourself to indulge in the beauty products you normally save for “special occasions.”
Suggestions for places to take yourself:
- Your favorite restaurant, bar, or coffee shop (proudly ask for a table of one)
- The indie theater for the latest documentary
- Your favorite yoga studio or meditation center
- An art museum or cultural event
- A class on creative writing, learning a new language, or personal development workshop
Another option is to stay in and go crazy with self-care activities.
Feelings to cultivate during the date: excitement. confidence. and self-love.
Treat yourself after your date to a nightcap: a bookstore, a coffee shop, a walk through your favorite part of the city. Revel in your amazing-ness. Fall head over heels with…yourself.
Try it out–I’d love to hear how your date went…and join me in the comments!
Money is congealed energy, and releasing it releases life’s possibilities. ~Joseph Campbell
Last week’s post on the topic of money generated so much discussion that I wanted to continue the theme. (Note to self: Sometimes blog post topics turn into little series that you can’t predict.)
In the last post, I talked about shifting your mindset on money as an entrepreneur. There are so many subconscious, hidden beliefs that each of us carries around about money. Many of these stem from childhood.
If you want to get to know yourself better and uncover what some of those beliefs might be for you, the following questions may help you to shake them out.
Take some sacred time this week in your journal to respond to the questions below that move you. Light a candle, have your favorite beverage nearby, and let everything else that is going on in your life just float off your body (that’s a hippy-dippy way of asking you to center yourself).
Answer the questions below as honestly and accurately as possible.
- When I think of money, what associations does it bring up?
- What is my earliest memory of money?
- Growing up, how did my family relate to money?
- Complete this sentence: “Wealthy people are __________.”
- When I think of money, what do I feel in my body?
- Name the one thing that scares me most about money.
- Complete this sentence: “To make money, you have to __________.”
Most likely, you’ll just scratch the surface of your relationship with money in the first round of journaling. Circle back around to the questions again after a few days, and revisit your answers and thoughts. Follow the answers that feel the most uncomfortable (a sign that there is something deeper to discover there). Be gentle with yourself while also being tenacious about this self-discovery process.
As you move towards a full(er) understanding how you experience and think about money, you’ll likely experience benefits in other areas of your life (relationships and your business’ bottom line, most commonly). Notice the benefits. Notice the shift. Enjoy the new-found awareness.
If you’d like to share–what did some of these questions bring up for you?
When you’re an entrepreneur, money takes on a whole new meaning. You’re hyper aware of what’s coming in and what’s going out, and some of your deep-seeded beliefs about money may reveal themselves.
I had to face my own money-demons during my entrepreneurial leap as well. I realized that the period of time when I racked up the bulk of my personal credit card debt was the year I was working in a soul-sucking, ulcer-inducing office job. I know that when I’m feeling really unhappy with my work life, I spend money to feel like I’m in control (even though that has the opposite effect). Conversely, when I’m really happy and feel an inner peace about what I’m doing and the people I’m helping, I spend very very little money (total spendthrift).
What we often forget is that we’re still in control–even if it’s over money, which feels like this big, intimidating, scary thing with a mind-of-it’s-own.
It’s all about your mindset. If you’re able to shift your mindset to see money as something that is neutral, just a part of the process of owning your own business, you’ll be light-years ahead of all those people out there worrying about money right now.
Some mindset shifts that might help you…
Release your paycheck mentality
What I mean is that you won’t be getting the same amount of money every two weeks in a nice, direct deposit paycheck as an entrepreneur. Start to separate money from your emotions, and see it as an instrument to help you make that mental shift from employee to entrepreneur. You’ll have to come face-to-face with your financial patterns and money management style. Realize that over-spending and under-spending are psychological problems. Begin to understand your emotional patterns around finances, and a new, more stable and confident money mindset will emerge.
Recognize that constraints fuel creativity
As a start-up, you’re going to be utilizing your creative powers every single day. When you can’t throw money at every need or problem, you are forced to come up with creative solutions. Time and time again, we see this pattern of amazing, important, and beautiful ideas that come from a period in the business when there was a tiny savings account. (Please do not misunderstand me here and think that I am glamorizing poverty. I know the feeling of having to eat cereal for weeks and not knowing whether the next trip to the grocery store will overdraft your checking account. It’s not fun, I don’t wish that for anyone.) What I am saying is that constraints create and fuel creativity. Learn to lean into those constraints and see what amazing idea you are “forced” to come up with.
You are not your salary
How many of you have heard this saying? “Self-worth equals net worth.” While it’s true that the more your confidence builds, the higher income you may generate as a result–the reality for many entrepreneurs may be quite the opposite. You may highly value yourself and your talents, and your services are priced at a competitive rate. But for the first few years, you may not be drawing an income that matches your “self-worth.” Decouple your feelings of self-worth from your actual net worth. They will likely not match during your first few years of business. Instead, connect with your version of success. What would it take for you to consider yourself successful? (For many women, it has nothing to do with money.) Also, don’t forget to enjoy all the non-monetary rewards that owning your own business offers. These may not add to your bank account, but they will add to your overall happiness and contentment.
How do you feel about your relationship to money as an entrepreneur? Did you ever have to come face-to-face with your money beliefs? How did you move past them?
Why Not Wednesdays is a series I feature (you guessed it) every Wednesday. I’ll be asking “Why not” do something that is scary, unconventional, creative, or a mix of all three. My hope is that you allow yourself to dream big, and routinely ask yourself, “Why not?”
Join people from around the world in local treasure hunting, otherwise known as Geocaching.
Huh?
Seriously. Geocaching is a fun treasure hunting game played by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices aounrd the world. (The tagline is: “The sport where you are the search engine.”)
The premise is to locate hidden containers (called geocaches) and then share your experiences online.
Sounds like fun! How do you get started?
This official geocaching site is the place to learn more about how to get started. They’re also on Twitter.
If you live in the DC area and are craving some special visioning time just for your business, I have the perfect event this weekend for you!
The scoop:
I’m going to lead an interactive (emphasis on the active) workshop to re-connect you to your business vision. I’ll share inspiring tips for creating a compelling vision that motivates and energizes you. You’ll also get the chance to indulge your inner artist with a creative collage activity (okay, that’s so much fun).
The details:
- Sunday, January 24th | 2:00-4:00pm
- La Madeleine Georgetown | 3000 M Street NW, Suite 205 (Head to the Lower Level aka The Cave)
- Registration is $25
Click here to register–hope to see you there!
Welcome to the 15th edition of the Creatuitive Living podcast: a guide for women on living an authentic and creative life.
direct download (mp3) :: Claiming Your Passion
You may subscribe to the podcast RSS feed via ITunes or another podcatcher - You’ll automatically get the latest podcast as soon as it becomes available. The Creatuitive Living podcast is published bi-weekly on Mondays.
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This week’s podcast is an interview with Tara Joyce. Tara believes that every single one of us can have the career of our dreams… if we are willing to do the work to align that dream with our current reality. You can find her shaping her joyful business, and writing about it, over on Rise of the Innerpreneur. When she’s not absorbed in her writing, she coaches Innerpreneurs on creating profitable businesses driven by their passion and their sense of purpose. Specifically, she helps her clients to shape a sensible marketing strategy for turning their vision into reality, and help them to create an effective and authentic web presence to support it. When she’s not geeking out on the web you can find her enjoying the busy streets and eclectic culture of her hometown, Toronto or traveling anywhere and everywhere.
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Creatuitive challenge: Look within yourself. What are you passionate about? What are you hiding from? Begin to take tiny steps towards claiming your passion.
Let’s say you have this brilliant business idea. Everyone is telling you that you need a business plan, and because business plans seem so complicated and scary, you haven’t started creating one. Or, maybe you’ve had a business selling artwork for years, but you’ve never created a business plan because you thought it was unnecessary (and a bit intimidating).
Do one of these scenarios sounds familiar?
You only need to do a traditional business plan (with extensive market research and projected profit/loss sheets) if you’re seeking outside financing for your business.
For the rest of us, the good news is that we get to do whatever the hell we want. Don’t take this to mean that you don’t need to do any planning. Visioning your business’ future is super important. You may have some big goals to reach in 5 years that you need to start walking towards now. Having some goals on paper strengthens your business and ultimately your message to your ideal clients.
The good news is that the planning can be as creative as you’d like. There is an antidote to the drudgery of traditional business plans (yay!).
The Right-Brain Business Plan* was created by Jennifer Lee, a Bay-area life coach that worked with a ton of creative entrepreneurs that were turned off by the traditional way of writing a business plan.
She knew that being turned off by the traditional business plan approach should not equal creating no plan at all.
Jennifer smartly created a “right-brain approach” to business planning. With her help, you are guided through a creative process of visioning your business and crafting your business plan.
The product includes a gorgeous ebook to guide you through the right-brain business plan steps; a guided visualization to help you get in touch with your vision; and a simple right-brain template for starting on the left-brain numbers.
I used Jennifer’s instructions to develop a whole new plan for my business. The most important thing that the Right-Brain Business Plan did for me was give me permission to think differently about my business vision. It also helped me get the important details and financial targets on paper that I needed to in a way that wasn’t intimidating or mind-numbing.
Go check out the product for yourself. I dare you to not have it impact your business in an amazing way.
*Disclosure: Yup, these are affiliate links. I wouldn’t be including these if I thought this product wasn’t amazingly special and useful to women business owners.
Why Not Wednesdays is a series I feature (you guessed it) every Wednesday. I’ll be asking “Why not” do something that is scary, unconventional, creative, or a mix of all three. My hope is that you allow yourself to dream big, and routinely ask yourself, “Why not?”
This is a scary one. Join me in the comments with your thoughts.
I let myself relax and be in the moment for most of this weekend. Stepping away from the business (even when you know you have a million things you could be doing) is so important for your mental health and for the health of your business. Although I didn’t completely stop checking email and responding to client needs, I did so mindfully. It felt really good.
Personalizing my planner
I love writing in my paper planner. Love love love. I use Planner Pads (they have an amazing system to organize tasks by day). This weekend I indulged my creative muse to make my planner reflect my personality. The finished product is below.
The front of my planner. Gorgeous photos from the Anthropologie catalog. Words to inspire.
The inside cover. Filled with my goddess habits for the year (dreamed up with the help of Goddess Leonie’s 2010 workbook). They include “single-task” and “choose commitments that nourish and excite me.”
The gorgeous back. A mixed media piece from a Somerset Studios magazine. The quote at the bottom reads:
Whatever you can do or dream, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. ~Goethe
Beauty Experiments
Knowing that aluminum in our deodorant has health repercussions. Not liking the natural brand deodorant I’m finding at organic stores. Wanting to create my own.
Teaming up with a partner-in-crime to make our own little concoction. 1 part baking soda to 6 parts cornstarch, with around 10 drops of essential oils (we chose lavender, tea tree, and lemon). Tested at a yoga class. Smells yummy. Feels good.
Now I’m on the hunt for a pretty container to keep it in on my dresser.
Zero inbox strategy
Working on my new approach to email. Checking email 3 times per day. Responding immediately to responses that will take 60 seconds or less. Filing the remaining emails into 3 categories: Follow up (requires some work or a lengthy response); Hold (waiting for someone else to respond); and To Read (newsletters and articles). So far, so good. It feels like I’m in control of email (instead of the other way around).
Join me in the comments with the interesting things you’ve been up to. I’d love to hear your stories.
So, you’re stuck in a day job that you dislike. (Join the club.)
I’ve been there, so I know the feeling of dread that overcomes you every morning you have to go in to the office.
Recently, I read a couple books that re-framed my view on day jobs—and helped me understand their value.
Day jobs give you a stable income to help you grow your dreams on the side.
The only thing worse than not going after your dreams is feeling constricted by money to do it properly. Your day job can help you start your new business, whether it’s painting, life coaching, virtual assistance, a yoga studio, or some really cool thing I don’t know about yet. Start to think of those 8 hours that you put in every day as part of the path to your successful business.
Your dreams are bigger and badder.
You make take the financial stability that your day job provides for granted now, although when you’re doing your business thing full-time, you’ll recognize the luxury of financial stability. If you’re like most 9-5ers, you get a regular paycheck with the same amount of money every two weeks. Trust me that when I say as an entrepreneur you will envy those days is true. So, what can all this financial stability afford you? The opportunity to dream bigger and build something amazing. If you didn’t have the day job and were trying to make it off a mixture of part time jobs and savings, you are operating in a place of scarcity. Learn to value your day job as the fertile soil you need to grow.
You manage your time better.
When you are required to put in 8 hours a day (or more!) into a job that isn’t your passion, you can get really disciplined about working on your dream outside of your day job. Many women can put in a full hour before work, an hour during their lunch break, and a good two-three hours after work to develop their business. That’s five hours a day!—not to mention weekends. Not being able to work on your passion 24/7 means that you often carve out sacred time for it and look forward to the opportunity to work on it (read: no burnout or resentment brewing for your dream).
If you’d like some more re-framing, some great books on this topic: Living Your Joy: A Practical Guide to Happiness by Suzanne Falter-Barns (the title is deceiving) and The Art of Happiness at Work by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler.*
I’m not trying to convince you to love your day job (they are pretty icky). I am advocating for you to recognize its value for you at your start-up stage. It’s all about your frame of mind. If you can change how you view your day job, you can grow an amazing business before you know it.
*Disclosure: These are affiliate links to my Amazon store.
This is the final piece in a series of guest posts from the fabulous Tara Joyce, a self-described fanatic about how Business shapes our Self and our World. Her first post introduced us to the concept of “Innerpreneuring” and how to look within to find the work that is right for you. In the second post we came face to face with some no-holds-barred truth, aka that “knowing is half the battle” and “belief wins the battle” and “the only battle is with yourself.” Her third post told us that our authentic voice IS our brand, and to let it out.
Doing what you love is not enough to grow your business success. You need to do the work. Actively choose to make your dreams a reality.
Strategically create your future one day at a time.
Create a reasonable strategy for achieving your vision. Set realistic, tangible goals for your Self and your business and actively pursue them. Let your daily choices and actions support your long-term goals.
Just because you build it does not mean they will come.
As Innerpreneurs, we feel so much passion for our work that it’s hard for us to imagine people not sharing in it… or wanting to pay money for it.
We want to believe that if We build it, They will come. That it’ll be easy. That our talent and our work will speak for itself.
It won’t, until you…
Communicate what’s in it for them.
If you want people to support your work, and help your business to grow, you need to give them a reason to do so. They need to understand why they should pay attention. You need to give your work a voice.
It’s your job, as a business owner, to understand why your ideal client should care about you and your work.
What painful problem do you solve?
Do the work to have your voice heard.
It doesn’t matter your industry — your clients, not your ideas, drive your business. They provide the income that sustains you and your work. You need their attention.
It doesn’t matter your talents, if you’re a business owner, half your job is marketing.
You are a Marketer.
Your job is to:
- understand your client
- generate business
- be a creator of value through great work and empathy
Work to communicate your voice and connect your value with the people who can benefit from it the most. How you go about doing it is a recipe that is uniquely yours, you understand your business and your clients better than anyone.
But don’t be foolish. Get online. Give the world a way to hear your voice and help you to realize your Innerpreneurial dreams.
I’m Tara Joyce and I’m building my dream business over on, Rise of the Innerpreneur. When I’m not writing, traveling, or singing out of tune, I help people to create their dream business and market them authentically.
Welcome to the 14th edition of the Creatuitive Living podcast: A guide for women on living an authentic and creative life.
direct download (mp3) :: Connecting with your Inner Self
You may subscribe to the podcast RSS feed via ITunes or another podcatcher - You’ll automatically get the latest podcast as soon as it becomes available. The Creatuitive Living podcast is published bi-weekly on Mondays.
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This week’s podcast is a meditation on connecting to your inner self. This is your true being, that authentic self that is deep tp your core and feels like “you.” Our inner selves need compassion and support in order to show up in our lives. This guided meditation will help you focus on your needs and how you plan to support your inner self so that she shows up in your life.
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Creatuitive challenge: Spend 10 minutes every day in meditation. Use this podcast, or just close your eyes and say a simple mantra in your head (such as inhale “let” exhale “go”).
{ via etsy shop livingston&porter }
Happy New Year everyone!
2009 has been really amazing in many ways.
I’m really looking forward to the new year, though. Lots of changes are a-brewing.
Thank you for reading this blog this year–I know you have many, many choices and I’m so glad you’re part of my world.
