Hello artist friend

 

Good news! I've discovered the secret to life!

 

Just kidding. {Or am I?….🤔 } 

 

I've been noticing something over the years I've spent living this artist life, and since opening the Happy Artist Studio - welcoming in new members and speaking daily with other artists - that noticing has become a knowing.

 

There's a LOT of advice out there about being an artist, whatever stage you're at. Some of it inevitably conflicting {and I don't think that's a bad thing}. A lot of it excellent. Some of it not so much.

 

And most of us are creating our artist life - whether we think of it in those terms or not - by cobbling together a mixture of what's available.

 

A program about selling your work here, a workshop on building an artist website there, a free mini course on freeing up your art here 😉 , and all sorts of bits and pieces of information gleaned from blogs, books, social media and podcasts.

 

This is all great! I personally love learning, and the wealth of opportunities available is endless. There's something for everyone. 

 

Or is there?

 

There's something that often gets missed out of the equation in all these offerings, and I think it's why so many of us go from thing to thing and never seem to quite find what we're looking for.

 

That thing is something we'll never find ‘out there’. It's what's going on in our brains - what and how we think about who we are and what the world is like and what's possible. Also known as mindset.

 

Mindset is admittedly a bit of a buzzword these days, and often when I see it myself I kind of shut down, so if it's the same for you bear with me here! 

 

Buzzwords can become meaningless through overuse, but we'll use this one here as it's quicker than saying ‘what you’re thinking that you don't even realise you're thinking that's affecting every single choice you make and how you experience everything'. {Less catchy.}

 

And I know there are offerings out there that talk about mindset, and even address it in various ways. I didn't just invent it, obviously. 😆

 

There's a good chance I'm wrong about this, but I travel pretty extensively on the internet and haven't yet found anything that addresses mindset in the context of the fact that we are all completely different, despite our similarities. 

 

So while what's available can absolutely help, and I don't think any experience is wasted, I'm still seeing lots of artists jump from thing to thing, while their fundamental questions go unanswered.

 

Why is that? 

 

Well, from everything I've observed and experienced over the past decade or so, there are two main reasons:

 

1. Mindset advice tends to be generic. It doesn't take into account the complex layers we each carry. Saying, ‘if you're procrastinating, put some time in your calendar to make sure you make art' only goes so far; it doesn't address why you're procrastinating, or how procrastinating might be actually serving you, or if you even actually are procrastinating. It also doesn't offer any nuance in terms of how you might address that, and if hows are offered, they tend to be one size fits all - say these affirmations, write morning pages, set a timer. Those things aren't wrong - they may even be very helpful for some artists - but for most of us they don't go far enough and aren't subtle enough.

 

2. All these things deal with an outside in approach - ie. the actions you must take, rather than who is taking the actions {you!}. A program can teach you so many wonderful things, but if underneath all of that you're still carrying some beliefs that run counter to what you've learned, what you've learned won't stick. It won't feel quite right. It'll be hard to implement because it feels like going against the grain. And if you haven't looked at your brain recently, you might not know that it's simply a misalignment of thoughts, and think there's just something wrong with you that you couldn't make it work. {Been there, so many times.}

 

Now, I'm not a neuroscientist, or a therapist, or a coach, and I'm definitely not the person with all the answers and one ring to rule them all. I'm ‘just’ an artist.

 

But I think in some ways that qualifies me even more to share what I've learned about this, and how I've transformed my own life as an artist, and continue to do so. I'm simply a really normal, average {and of course unique and extraordinary, same as you} human who doesn't have superpowers or a degree, but who has found a way to deal with the demons - the mindset issues - and become a happy artist. 

 

The irony is, of course, that anything I share with you that works for me may well not work for you, because of exactly what I'm talking about - there's no one size fits all.

 

But I'm gonna give it a go! And here's why:

 

I see artists struggling every single day in all sorts of unique-to-them ways, and I seem to know how to help them in ways that make a tangible difference. I have a deep understanding of nuance. Every course I've made has been about you in your uniqueness; they all offer adaptations and alternative suggestions and quirky approaches, because I recognise that that's what we all need in order to find what's true for us and let it shine out. 

 

I specifically create things that honour all your wonderful idiosyncrasies, and that guide you back to yourself, to your own knowing and autonomy, so that you can create the art and the artist life you're dreaming of, and stop having it be a ‘one day’.

 

So I'm declaring this month {non generic} Mindset Month! 🤓 💪🏻  I'll be sending you some emails over the next couple of weeks, each addressing a single demon {or mindset issue}, with some thoughts about how you can start shifting it for yourself. While not every email will be relevant for you, if you do struggle with any of the demons we'll talk about, I recommend taking some time to really dig into those emails, and most importantly, accept the missions in each one!

 

Sound good? Good! I'll see you soon with the first demon we'll be tackling!