Category Archives: Inspiration
How to Be Free
This is Independence Day. The day the United States celebrates her declaration of freedom.
Make this your personal Independence Day.
What do you need to be free of? What’s holding you back? What can you let go of? Or even just decide to let go of?
Freedom comes step by step. And it starts with an intention, the desire to be free, and discomfort with what is constraining you. You gain freedom when you let go and say no to whatever is keeping you from feeling free.You have to let go of the familiar and be willing to risk uncertainty.
We keep ourselves prisoner and we release ourselves by our thoughts. By how we choose to perceive and apply meaning to our experiences, motivations, actions, and reactions.
If you’re feeling unfree in your spirit today, don’t berate yourself for it. Ask yourself: what if I were free? What if I could create a new way of thinking about my life? What if I had the power to change my thoughts and that would change my feelings and create new circumstances and experiences in my future?
Let your mind explore the possibility of actually creating a future where you are happy, whole and living your dreams. Open yourself to the possibility that you could experience this. Then start thinking about the thoughts that limit you. Are they true? How do you know they are true? What if they weren’t true?
What new thought could you think that would feel freer?
Top 10 Ways We Give Away Our Power
Mike Dooley, founder of Totally Unique Thoughts (tut.com) wrote the following “Top 10 Ways People Give Away Their Power” in the latest Notes from the Universe e-mail I received. If you’re not familiar with Dooley’s work, I encourage you to check it out. I want to comment on these Top 10 because they really do have the power to leave you disengaged and feeling helpless to actively create your life. (By the way, you’re creating your life all of the time – it’s just a matter of “what” you are creating. And “what” you are creating comes down to what you are predominantly choosing to think, believe, envision and expect.)
So, let’s dive into these a bit more:
Top 10 ways people give away their power:
1. Asking others what they should do.
You know in your heart, if you stop and really listen, what you are to do. You know the right path for you, for your work, for your characters. Asking for feedback or advice is beneficial only to the degree that it opens you up to see things from another’s perspective – but no one else can ever see from your inner knowledge. So do ask, but own your role as the creator and know that you are the only one who can decide.
Keep in mind, too, that everyone has their own opinion about you and your work. Don’t let others’ opinions become your reality. Take what can benefit you, discard what will not. It’s too easy and we all do this – to value other people’s opinions more than we value our own. Yet, in the end, our opinion is what ultimately matters. Own your opinion and your power.
2. Thinking God decides who gets what.
We create how we experience life by what we think is possible and impossible for us. Focus on what you do want, not on what you don’t want. Start asking “what ifs” about all the good things and big dreams you have. What if it were easy? What if is happened fast? What if I really could achieve this? That creates space for your mind to start considering the possibility of it happening and the more you dwell on it, the more energy you give it and the more it will manifest in your life.
3. Worrying about how their dream will come true.
How is not what we need to focus on. Remember the troops in my general analogy? They represent the Universe and they know how to work the miracles needed to achieve your dreams. Don’t worry about the hows. Focus on the destination and the actual steps you can do now to step closer to that destination. Take Toyota’s mantra “Choose any direction, as long as it’s forward” – if you haven’t heard that from them, it shows up in Closed Captioning at the end of their commercials.
4. Thinking they have dues to pay.
The only dues you have to pay is the time it takes you to let go of limiting beliefs. Start believing that you can create your dreams. Start challenging all those thoughts that tell you you can’t or that make fear seem more powerful than you are.
5. Attaching to unimportant details and outcomes.
Focus on the destination. Keep your end goal in sight, imagine what it’s like to be in that space. Live from that space. Don’t get hung up on the little details. As Dooley says: “It’s not the steps that matter, but the path. And the path will take care of itself, when you keep focused on your destination.”
Open your mind up to allow your dream to become reality in the way that it needs to. Don’t try to control all the details or how it happens. Let it come to you in the magical way that it can and will.
6. Believing in soul mates.
This is a tricky limiting belief if you interpret it to mean that there is only one person or solution out there right for you. If that’s what you believe, it closes you off to the possibility of letting the Universe choose someone who will love you in a healthy, enjoyable way. Believing that there’s only one person out there for you – or one producer, director, buyer, agent – is based in fear.
However, when you allow the Universe to make the connections and you trust that you are being guided, then you often will find that the person who comes into your life will be a soul mate – someone just right for you.
7. Thinking karma or spiritual contracts are absolute.
The only absolutes in this life are the moment of birth and the moment of death. Everything else can change, because we perceive experiences through our thoughts. If we change our perspective on something, we change how we feel and when we change how we feel, we change our behavior and that leads to new and different ways of experiencing life. It’s our interpretation of experiences that creates our perception of events.
8. Fear of anything, especially falling in love.
You can say no to fear. Fear doesn’t like to hear that, but it’s true. You can look it in the face and choose to say no. You’re not going to stop feeling afraid first and then say no. You have to choose to say no to fear first and then feelings of fear will dissipate. And remember, fear is often the child in you trying to protect itself from change.
9. Waiting for their ducks to line up before acting.
Your ducks will line up after you take action. It’s easier to direct the course of a moving object than a still one. Let me tell you this, too: the “ducks” in your life are waiting for you to act before they line up. You’re the creator, remember?
10. Choosing to be unhappy.
“Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be,” said Abraham Lincoln. Happiness is a choice. Choose to be happy and the feelings will follow. Don’t wait for something else or someone else to make you feel happy. It’s not anyone’s job to make you feel happy. You’re responsible for it.
So choose happiness. Choose faith. Choose trust. Choose to say no to fear. Choose to take action. Choose to listen to your own guidance. Choose to create the life you want.
Overcoming Rejection, Overcoming Fear – Commit to Your Big Dream
People are going to tell you that you can’t do it.
The odds are against you. It’s nearly impossible to “break in.” Only such-and-such a percentage of people achieve it.
Don’t listen to them.
The only people who tell you this are those who haven’t achieved it.
This is your journey. You are the driver. And while these “voices” out there may or may not be concerned with your well-being, they actually have nothing to do with YOU.
Why do people caution others against hope? Why do they always tell you to be so careful? Why do they think you have to be told (like they have some legal obligation) why you shouldn’t expect too much from yourself, your dreams, your desires? Why does everyone think we all have to be so insulated from disappointment? As if not achieving a dream would be fatal or something?
This is a Game and You’re Ultimately Going to Be Fine
Dreams – achieved or not achieved, held on to, let go, changed, altered, dreamed bigger, dreamed differently – they’re not life and death matters, folks. They’re supposed to be pursuits of joy. You’re supposed to be lighthearted enough in life to enjoy the process and know that no matter what happens, this is a game and you’re ultimately going to be just fine.
Okay, okay. You could look at “facts.” You could look at numbers. Those numbers all apply to other people’s experiences. You don’t know the stories behind how those numbers came to be.
When it comes to your dream, you are the only one who can decide what you want. And I can tell you, very few people actually decide what they want. They linger in wishful, hoping, wouldn’t-it-be-wonderful-if-it-came-true land. That land is Indecision. And with indecision is lack of commitment.
Lack of Commitment Will Always Result in Not Achieving Your Dream
Imagine this:
You’re the general of a strong, powerful army of well-trained, skilled troops. Each soldier has very specific expertise. They know how to work together to get the job done.
They’re all standing in a field in front of you. Ready.Waiting. Fully capable of going into action to achieve your goal.
You’re sitting in your tent (yes, this is ancient army imagery). You’re thinking how wonderful it would be if maybe, perhaps, gosh, you better not even dare imagine it – but wouldn’t it just be so great if you could really make it. If you could achieve this big, huge goal that everyone says you shouldn’t even reach for because, well, so few generals have ever achieved it. But what if you could? No, you shouldn’t even think it. Wouldn’t it be awesome though? Yeah. You can feel how awesome it would be….
Meanwhile, the troops are getting impatient.
Back to you: okay, maybe you could take at least a few steps in that direction. You emerge from your tent. All eyes rivet on you. Every body poised to jump into action.
Here’s what you say:
“I don’t know if I can achieve this. I mean, who am I to achieve this? I probably shouldn’t even bother. I’m not ready. I don’t have the experience. I can’t really be a ‘general’ can I? I mean, I need someone to tell me if I’m a general. A real one.” You turn and go back inside, the crowd sighs, look at each other, wonder about you. They wait.
You come out again.
“Okay, I’m going to give this a shot. If it gets too hard, I can always quit. No one will know. I probably won’t make it. Few people ever have. I won’t get my hopes up. Let’s take a few steps, see what happens.”
The soldiers groan with disappointment. But they’re good troops and they do exactly as you say. Half-heartedly.
They take a few steps, but no one feels any real commitment, because you haven’t committed. And what do they achieve? Exactly and only the few steps that you told them to do. That’s what you wanted, after all. That’s all you asked of them.
NOW, let’s change things up. You are sitting in your tent. Looking at your maps. Visioning exactly what you want to achieve in the end. You have a big goal – yes, you know it’s bigger than what most generals attempt, but you don’t care. That was their decision. Not yours. You believe in your troops. You believe in your ability to lead them to this goal.
They’re outside waiting for you. Excited, expectant.
You emerge from the tent. All eyes rivet on you. Every body poised to jump into action. Here’s what you say:
“This is what we’re going to do. This is what we are going to achieve. It’s big, it’s going to take everything we’ve got. People say it can’t be done. We’re going to do it. This is where we are going. I want every one of you in action. I expect you to do your best work. Make it happen. You have the skills to get this done. I trust you to know what to do, when to do it. If you have questions about where we’re going, come and ask me. I’ll remind you. We’re moving forward. There’s no turning back.”
Shouts of joy and excitement fill the air. The troops rally, move out into action. They know exactly what to do, who to contact, what connections to make, what paths to go down and who to say “no” to because, in their expertise, they know a better, easier, and more impactful way to reach this goal. They do things in ways that surprise you, but you trust these troops and you keep your eye on the goal, not the individual steps they take. You hold the destination in sight. They report back to you with opportunities, connections, yes’s from supporters, no’s from detractors, detours around obstacles, paths they’ve taken that you would never have thought of.
True, sometimes they come back without progress to report. You wonder a bit if you’re going to achieve it after all. You remind them of your commitment and they continue using their skills to get you closer to your goal. They have perfect faith in you and you have perfect faith in them. This is who you are, this is where you’re going. You aren’t striving or pushing or pulling by yourself – you’re leading your troops, keeping your end destination in sight and adjusting course as you get feedback from them. You feel an ease, a faith, a confidence because you know that these troops come through.
You spend time visualizing what it feels like to already have achieved your goal – you can feel it, you live it out in your imagination now, you adapt your mindset to the person you’ll be when you achieve it. You start to think from that new perspective. You make decisions based on that future you.You have full confidence that as you keep moving forward, you’re getting closer to your destination.
And you have the ease and peace of mind to enjoy the whole process of getting there. You even start to plan your next big campaign, because once you achieve this one, you know you’re going to want to head out on another journey, this time even bigger, more amazing and far-fetched.
Which General Are You? Decide & Commit
Feel the difference? Decision and commitment. It puts everything into full-fledged action. It gives your dreams the driving energy they need.
You decide which general you are. The troops are the Universe. They’re waiting outside your tent.
What are you going to ask them to do?
How to Put ‘the Magic’ in Your Writing
Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing a songwriter who has been behind some of the top pop hits in the last decade. Something he said in regards to the writing process hit close to home:
“If it (the content) is just okay, but it doesn’t feel like magic, then find something else, don’t waste your time, on writing.”
Feel like magic. That’s what it’s supposed to feel like, isn’t it?
What encouraged me was the fact that even after so many years writing songs for A-list artists, he still judges his writing by the magic. As creative professionals it can be hard to keep that magic front and center in the work we do for others. But the magic – and finding it – is the key to what makes our work stand head and shoulders above the rest.
So how do you know if something has the magic?
I know one thing: you can’t create magic. You can receive it and you can refine your work until the magic comes through – but it is not something you can order and have served up in your work. You can’t layer it on top. It has to emerge organically. And it comes by listening.
Listening.
Getting quiet. Paying attention. Asking questions. Asking for guidance. And listening to what you hear, to what you feel, to what your intuition is telling you. From the Story, from the Characters, from the work, from your Spirit.
Magic evades us most when we are striving. When we disconnect from Spirit and push, pull, tug and coerce creative results.
This is one of the key risks in revision and one we need to be very careful about. Revision has the potential to delete the magic. And while you need to revise (revise, revise, revise) you also need to know your Story and Characters well enough to know which parts are magical and which parts aren’t. It’s the magical scenes and dialogue that give Story its soul.
How do you know which scenes those are?
By how they make you feel.
Chances are that if a scene you’ve written moves you emotionally, it’s carrying magic. Not everything in a script or novel is going to evoke emotion. When we’re writing a script, we see every page, every scene, every word in it’s long form.
We do not see it condensed down into film, with actors, sound and editing to carry the emotional tone through 90 minutes.
So we need to be aware of which scenes and dialogue carry the magic and protect those.
Magic flows most freely in the first draft, so mine it for gold. Magic also flows during revision when characters share scenes with you that you weren’t aware of before. In a script, the magic is in the characters. So you have to listen to them and let them express it.
And if you’re not feeling the magic?
Don’t waste your time. Don’t write something that just doesn’t speak to your own soul. If you’re on assignment, and you have to write the story given to you, then pay very close attention and listen to the character’s hearts. Let them give you the magic. Ask them for it. Give them room to find it amongst themselves.
It’s there.
Thriving Artists Series: How to Make More Money
“Thriving” and “artist” don’t often snap together in most people’s minds.
But they should. If anyone has a reason to thrive it’s those of us who make a living based on creative inspiration. And while many artists in all walks of creativity “struggle” to create a thriving income, when it comes down to it, making money doing what you love for a living is possible. We have no problem understanding that we own the power to create our work, but many of us stumble when it comes to owning that same power to create income.
Thriving as an artist involves more than just making money, of course. It’s a “whole-person” definition that needs the sum of it parts. Spirit, craft, experience, attitude, beliefs, effort. More on those in other posts.
How do you make more money as an artist?
Let’s start out by examining what it is you are being paid for. And for our purposes here, we’re not going to address unions or other “going rates.” Those are a part of many artists’ income guidelines, but that’s not at the core of what I want to discuss today. We need to back up a bit before we get to that aspect.
What are you being paid for? Your time? Your talent? Your marketability? Your experience? Your “you-ness”?
Most likely, it’s going to be a combination of all of the above. What I want to drive home is the fact that behind whatever it is you are doing for your art – acting, painting, writing, set designing – you are the key factor for why someone hires you or buys your creative work.
Your value is you.
But many artists, new and experienced, struggle with valuing the “you” aspect of their work.
Money is energy. Nothing more, nothing less.
We use it as a form of exchange for value. People respond to you based on the beliefs you have in yourself. (Occasionally, “old souls” (not to be confused with age) in the industry may respond to you based on the higher value they see in you and their belief in you – knowing that you’ll grow into these beliefs as you mature spiritually. But while this is a pure blessing if it happens in your artistic career, it’s also pretty rare.)
Let me say it again, people respond to you based on the beliefs you have about yourself. If you do not value yourself appropriately, they will value you at the level you value yourself. You’ll be paid for what you “believe” you are worth. No more. No less. Why? Because…
Money is an exchange in perceived value.
It’s what we are each willing to give and accept in order to receive the value we perceive. So, yes, you do have to be good at what you do, work with integrity, live up to professional standards and give them their perceived value’s worth in exchange. But ultimately, you set the value of “you.”
Believe that you can only earn the “going rate”? That’s all you’ll earn. Believe you can earn more than the going rate? You’ll find opportunities and ways to do so.
We externalize our income and tend to believe that it comes down to “the system,” “that’s just the way it is.” We set the locks on how much we earn by our beliefs.
We unlock how much we can earn by our beliefs as well.
I’m not talking about wishing on a star for a million dollars and it will land in your lap. Your income usually incrementally reflects your expanding beliefs.
Most people never gain consciousness of their money beliefs, let alone change them. But once you do, you take back the power over how much you earn and you create income – you don’t “get paid” by others. (In other words, yes, other people pay you, but you know that you are receiving that money because you created the ability to receive it and you opened your beliefs up to receiving it. The power remains in you. Not outside of you.)
You set the real value of your work and your income will reflect it.
This isn’t about arrogance or ego. You do have to be good at your craft to attract top dollar. But even if you’re not at the top of the league, you have the power to create more money in your life. It starts with your money beliefs. It starts with placing a higher value on you and your work. It starts with realizing that you can earn more. That it’s in your power to generate a flow of income into your life. When you do, you’ll start to create, find and accept opportunities for more income. It may mean raising your prices, your rates, asking for more during negotiations, and it may mean turning down work that doesn’t pay what you have decided you are worth.
This may sound crazy to you if you are still in a place where you are struggling financially. Turning down work? Yes, turning down work.
Remember, people respond to you based on what you believe about yourself. Believe you can only get buy, that you’ll never make a living at this, that you have bad luck, that it’s hard to get work, that the odds are ridiculously impossible – and that’s what you will experience. You’ll attract people who get that you don’t expect more or believe that your work is worth more and you’ll be a good match for them.
But, believe that your work is valuable, back it up with craft and performance to match it, never give luck or odds a second thought because they don’t apply to you, maintain that your work is worth what you are asking, turn down opportunities that don’t match your belief and guess what? You’ll attract people who get that you expect to be paid for what you are worth, see your work as valuable and they’ll have no problem paying you for it.You’ll be a good match for them.
There are jobs and people to match every level of money belief.
You are the one who sets the money beliefs about you and your work. It starts with you. You set that belief in others.
And get this, people leave it up to you to set your value. They meet you where you are.
You are the one who has the power to change it.
creative inside out 