It’s Wednesday and today I check in via email with my creativity coach, Jill Badonsky. Just give her a sense of what movement or non movement I am making in the direction of what we talked about last week.
What Jill and I talked about last week is that people are asking about purchasing my art work. Specifically two of my friends by the name of Megan, one of whom just moved into a new apartment and would love a piece to decorate her place, and my friend and acupuncturist Stacy who has a birthday coming up and would like to see what’s available for a gift to herself, and my dentist – Dr. Thomas Blake – who is redecorating his office. These are only recent requests!
If you are in anyway a proponent for my success you will cringe and perhaps shudder when you hear my of late standard reply;
“ummmm…..cool. Ok, well, my website is not up to date – I’m re-doing it, I don’t have an organized inventory of what’s available, I don’t have a display venue, uhhhh…I don’t have any brochures….” That’s the outer voice.
The inner voice, which until lately was whispering so quietly I couldn’t hear it, was saying;
“I’m scared. I’m scared to make sales. I’m afraid to show my work to others.”
I was not really aware of how deep these inner feelings ran until I mentioned to Jill that the simple display portfolio I had created for the grant proposal I had just written might be a really easy way to showcase my work to people who are asking.
When I say simple, I mean a Word Document with a few images .jpg of my paintings dropped into it. Really that simple.
I also realized something huge about how I have been handling this little inner voice of fear. I had not been handling it. I have succumbed to the creative killer called: PERFECTIONISM!!!
Holy shit, I never realized how much I use perfectionism to stop myself moving forward in my creative projects and in the business of bringing my art into the world and selling it.
Straight out of the * KMZ Coaching Manual, here I am described:
Negative feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that may be associated with perfectionism:
- Fear of failure
- Fear of making mistakes
- Fear of disapproval
- All-none-thinking
- Overemphasis on “shoulds”
- Believing that other are easily successful.
After reading this, I went into minor ego-gets-obliterated shock.
“Oh-my-God that’s me”
No wonder all my work is sitting in my back storage area of my studio. No wonder I don’t have a brochure that’s let alone a “good enough” never mind a really nice one. No wonder there are about 10 completed paintings in my studio I have not had photographed because I was waiting to make them a little more perfect. No wonder I am what feels like eternally (note the all-or -nothing thinking) paused in the creation process of the new website. No wonder I have not made any art sales in a while! It’s all starting to make sense.
So…my commitment to myself, to you, to Jill is to put together a not so perfect inelegant “brochure” of all the beautiful and vivacious work that has been hiding in my studio for much too long and cannot wait to be hanging on your wall by next Wednesday May 7th.
(Setting manageable obtainable deadlines also tends to kill perfectionism – cause oh shitttt I gotta get it done!!!!)
If you’d like to see my new work, please email me your full name and Email with “pls send new work brochure” To deb@debchaney.com.
*KMZ Kaizen Muse Coaching Program founded by Jill Badonsky, re-printed -------with -ummmm----permission? From Jill?------
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