I’ve been to Alt Summit twice and both times I had the chance to learn from the awesome photographer Jasmine Star. She is a great example of a gutsy woman who does what it takes to make her dreams come true.
Jasmine’s dream was to become a wedding photographer. The only problem was that she didn’t know anything about photography and she was in law school. But as soon as she decided what she wanted, she went after it. She didn’t sit around wishing things would be different. She didn’t finish law school because it would be the “practical” thing to do. She stared her dream straight in the face and said YES.
Taking a step back from blogging like a madwoman five days a week has done wonders for my brain. I’ve been able to think about my own creative path, as well as the type of people that I want to use my knowledge and skills to help. I’m still going to be working with creative people and businesses, but I’m adding a disclaimer.
I only want to work with people who are ready to commit to changing their life.
One of my pet peeves is “the wisher.” Not people who wish and dream of awesome things for themselves, but the ones that ONLY wish and dream. The ones who never take a single step to change their own circumstances. They will sit in a boring job forever because that’s more comfortable than trying something new. They will analyze everything to death, but never DO anything. That’s not who I am and that’s not the type of person I want to work with.
After I got into screenwriting, before I moved to Los Angeles for the first time, I decided to join a writing group. They met once a month, so I thought it would be a great way to get some feedback on the stuff I was producing before I finally made it to Hollywood. I went to one meeting and never went back. You want to know why? Because THEY WEREN’T WRITING. They were talking about writing. They were planning to write, or at least “come up with a couple of characters before the next meeting.” But no one was doing the work.
You absolutely HAVE to do the work if you want your life to be any different from what it is right now.
It drove me insane. The same goes for people who complain about something they don’t like about their lives that they actually CAN change, but they just don’t.
A good place to get started is to take Jasmine’s advice and define what success means to you. And I don’t mean wallow your thoughts for a year. I mean take a couple of hours out of a day and sit down with a notebook and really think about what you want. Write it down. Trust me, there is power in actually writing the stuff down in longhand. Ideas will come up that you may have never considered and these ideas may help you change your life.
And it’s okay if you don’t know exactly what you want. You just have to be doing something to get you closer to discovering what those things are.
One of the things that I’ve figured out about my own business and what makes me successful is being able to use my knowledge and experience to help creative people who are still figuring out their path. Price can be an obstacle in the earlier stages, so my goal was to put together a level of service that individual creatives can afford.
I am opening TEN Creative Coaching spots between now and September 30th. If you are READY TO WORK, send me an email to reserve your spot.
I hope you guys have an awesome weekend! Today I’m so excited because Drew and I are having an afternoon date. We’re going to see Man of Steel. I can’t wait! See you next week. xoxo