Enjoying the Here and Now

Setting goals is awesome. Setting goals with specific dates of fulfillment is even more awesome. It’s awesome-er.

Planning for the future motivates us and fills us with hope. It gives us the push we need to get to work and get shyte done.

Reflecting on the past helps us to consider what mistakes to avoid, and what good choices to repeat while we work on those future-goals.

But what about the here and now? The part we are currently living, but don’t often think very much about?

It’s great that you are working on your goals, but don’t forget about right now. By this, I don’t mean that you should stop working on those goals, but I do mean that you should enjoy your journey as you head in that direction. Too many of us hold off on happiness, on congratulating ourselves, until the work is finished and the goal is complete.

You have plenty of reasons to be happy right now. You may not be at the level of success you are aiming to be at by next year, but you are getting there, and that is most certainly something to be proud of and to celebrate.

You’re on a journey. Enjoy every step. Reward yourself for the progress so far, and give yourself permission to be happy now.

Putting Your Day Job into Perspective

How do you feel about your day job? Do you love it, hate it, or are you somewhere in the middle of those two extremes? Our job is a pretty significant part of our lives. We spend the majority of our waking hours at it, especially if you count our commute time.

We identify a large part of ourselves with our field of work.

One of the first things we ask when we meet someone new is “What do you do?” We base much of our first impressions of someone based on how they respond. We can be quite a judgmental bunch, looking at someone differently if they say “brain surgeon” versus “freelance rapper.” We shouldn’t, but we do.

As for those of us who run handmade businesses in addition to our day jobs, there are a couple of ways we tend to regard the 9 to 5. I often hear one or the other from the colleagues I’ve spoken with.

You often hear the first group say, “If only I didn’t have to work my day job, I would…” [insert completed goal, dream reached, Mount Everest climbed, etc.]

This group tends to their of their jobs as a necessary burden. They don’t like them, but their handmade businesses are no where near the point of being able to financially support them on their own. So the job is a necessary evil, providing temporary cash flow while restricting the ability to reach the larger entrepreneur goals that “could be,” you know, “if ONLY.”

Then there is the second group. This group may or may not like their days jobs. That’s not the point. The point is, they view their day job as a means, not an inhibitor.

This group (also the kind of people who view the glass as half full, as you have probably guessed), think of their day job like this: it’s an opportunity to make money while still being able to work on building their business in their spare time. This group knows that while operating a business while working full time may be hard, it is still entirely possible.

The first group, the Debbie-Dowers, will use their day jobs as an excuse to not work on their dreams. They act sad about it, but really, they are using the 9 to 5 as an excuse to not even try. It let’s them off the hook you see, as failure is always an option.

The second group views their job as a means, as well as a safety net when considering the possibility of failure. They refuse to use their jobs as an excuse to quit working towards their dreams, and move full speed ahead. The first group ends up with a job they despise and blame for the regrets of all they things they didn’t try.

Which group do you want to be a part of?

Creating White Space for Your Life

Graphic designers have something of a love affair with white space. We drool over the blank areas within a composition as if they were made of milk chocolate and lightly salted caramel. It’s the white spaces that make the design, really. Of course we love it.

Uh… Megan, what’s a white space?

In case you’re unfamiliar, I’ll give you a brief lesson of design. White space doesn’t necessarily have to be white, but it refers to the negative areas within a design without other elements demanding our attention. It’s the white space that draws our focus towards what’s important. For example, check out all of the beautiful white space in this design:

White space, almost as good as chocolate.

Or this design, where the white space isn’t necessarily white:

The white space in this design is actually a pale yellow, but I think you get the idea.

Now, watch what happens when we fill up the white space with other elements:

Ew, this looks gross. Plus, the text is hard to read now.

Lesson #1: White space in design helps us focus on the important elements of the design.

Lesson #2: White space in our lives helps us focus on the important parts of our life.

You just knew I was going to get all deep and sentimental on you, didn’t you?

The same white space principal applies in life as it does design. If we are intent on filling up every spare minute of our time with something, we won’t be able to focus on the important things. Instead of always trying to be busy for the sake of being busy, schedule yourself some white space. Leave a few time slots in your daily schedule with nothing filled in. Use this time to meditate, read, think, and focus on what’s important. Use this time to visualize your goals and consider whether or not your daily activities are helping you achieve them. Leave some time for yourself to breathe, to relax, and to recharge.

White space can be a beautiful thing.

Release the Pressure by Lowering the Stakes

The stakes tend to be pretty high nowadays for a lot of things. If you’ve thought about trying to run a business or start your own blog, they could be enough to scare you away. The pressure to be amazing is daunting… and is the root cause of a lot of our procrastination. We are afraid to start something because we’re afraid it won’t end up as good as we want it to be.

How to lower the stakes:
That thing you want to do but feel like you have to do it really well?

Do it.

Do it so often that it no longer becomes such a big deal. If you can, do it a little bit everyday until it becomes a habit and who cares if you’re as amazing at it every time as you initially thought you should be.

Think about how nervous you were that first time you stood up to belt out your favorite karaoke song in front of everyone. Talk about SCARY, regardless of how many apple martinis you may have downed. NOW: think about the 100th time you’ve stood on that stage to sing the same song. Not as scary anymore, right? You may have even gotten a little better at singing. But even if you haven’t, the pressure to be as amazing as you thought you needed to be has loosened, if not disappeared completely.

Now about that business and/or blog. Same technique applies.

If you’ve been hanging around here awhile, you’ve probably noticed that I blog a lot. I generally schedule a new post to go up 6 out of 7 days of the week. I haven’t been around that long (about 2 years), but I’ve already published well over 400 posts, along with a scattering of guest posts on other blogs to boot. Not every post is amazing. Some of them turn out to be downright duds. But that’s okay, because I’ll be posting a new one shortly afterwards.

Same applies for your business. Not every item I list is amazing, but by listing as many as I do I don’t feel the pressure that each one has to be. Not every craft show is going to be a smashing success, but if you do enough of them every year one single show won’t have as much pressure for you to make it one. Not every Facebook update is going to go viral, but if you update on a daily basis, you’ll start to get a better handle on which ones grant a larger reach.

I know what you’re thinking: Quantity does not beat quality. Maybe not, but it sure beats doing nothing. And, dare I suggest, that the great quantities you produce will give you the room and practice to create better quality right along with them. It’s simple, really. The more you do it, the less pressure you’ll feel each time.

Talent is Only Half the Battle

You could have skills, mad skills. You could be the best and the brightest and the most brilliant. You could have all of the talent in the world and there will probably still be others of a far lesser degree of talent who will maintain a much higher rate of success.

Why is that?

Because, like it or not, talent isn’t everything. It’s not even half of everything. There’s a lot of frikin’ work that needs to be concentrated on elsewhere in order for your talent to succeed.

For starters: success takes a lot of work. It takes pressing on past the point where your initial enthusiasm runs out. It requires a lot of huffing and puffing to get over the hump that will feel like it’s lasting forever and only getting steeper. It requires a gross amount of dedication and the ability to handle a lot of let-downs.

The Highs and Lows of Striving for Success:

Getting Started	The Long Middle Period	Getting Closer	Success!
0-20%	20-60%	60-80%	80-100%
Yay! I’m excited to do this!	Holy crap this is a lot of work.	All this work is actually paying off!	Time to celebrate!

The long middle period (the 20-60%) is when most people give up. This is where our natural tenancy towards laziness kicks in and the excuses start. Suddenly, there isn’t enough time to work on those projects you had been so excited about to begin with. Sometimes even, you start to feel that jittery excitement about a new project, so you give up and the ones that have gotten difficult, leaving them to sit unfinished and abandoned.

Generally, the long slug towards success occurs when we realize that our talent isn’t enough. A bright idea isn’t enough. We have to work at our goals, market our products, network with others, and much more on top of all that. We despair when we start to realize that simply making awesome goodies isn’t enough. Turns out, we have to work our arses off to get those goodies seen and sold. This is the point where many of your peers will throw in the towel. They will give up on their goals simply because the path to achieving them turned out to be a lot more difficult than their initial daydream had implied.

Here is where you must press on. Because if you are willing to stop the excuses and do the hard work, you will climb over the hill and see the other side. If you have it in you, and I believe that every one of us does, you can pull yourself forward. You can trudge on, towards accomplishing your goals and beyond.

Waiting for the Guarantee

There is no guarantee that you will succeed. There will never be one. You can wait, and wait, and wait for your window of absolute certainty, but it will never come.

I know it’s scary, but sometimes life requires the courage to take risks. You need to embrace the possibility of failure.

If you never take a chance, you will never see success from your efforts. That is the only guarantee.

What Would You Choose

• If you had to do one thing for the rest of your life, what would you do?

• If you knew for certain that you would not fail, what would you try?

Now you know what I’m going to ask next: Why aren’t you working towards THAT?

I’m personally guilty of this. Between the bills, and the immediate needs, and the lack of time… I tend to work on projects that pay sooner rather than later. I need to stay afloat, as we all do. But what would I do if I knew I could not fail? What would I do if I had to choose only one thing to be for the rest of my life?

I would write. I would write novels and they would be delicious and fulfilling and terrifying and it would be wonderful.

How long has it been since I’ve indulged in writing fiction? Too long. So here is my kick in the pants to get my own butt in gear. For 2013, I will begin outlining a novel, or two, or three. Because sometimes you just have to get started in order to get the ball rolling.

What’s your response? What would you do?

Please share in the comments. Lets talk about making our dreams happen.

Have you thought about 2013 yet?

Unless you’re a big believer in Mayan predictions, 2013 is just around the corner! I know we’re all crazy busy with the holidays coming up, but you’ll be grateful for taking a quick moment to make some plans ahead of time.

So in-between wrapping presents, shipping out orders, and frosting your latest batch of sugar cookies, let’s take a moment to consider…

What worked the best in 2012?
Which craft shows offered the best results, which months were the busiest, which promotions were the most effective? How about which items sold the best, and which ones didn’t? What monetary investments proved to be the most worthy? Which time investments offered the biggest bang for their effort?

What lessons did you learn from 2012?
Did you not charge enough to make a decent enough profit? Did you goof on some packing and end up shipping broken items? Did you spend too much money on supplies that you probably won’t ever use all of? There is a lesson to be learned from every mistake, so what has 2012 taught you?

Are you ready for tax-time?
January is tax-time for most small businesses in the U.S. To save yourself the panicked scramble of trying to gather all of your documentation and numbers, perhaps a little pre-planning and accounting on your part in December can save you some grief.

What are your goals for 2013?
Keeping in mind the benefits of choosing measurable goals, what are some of the things you would like to accomplish in the new year? What steps can you start during the beginning slow months to help kick them off? A little consideration now, could make a big difference later.

Cut Yourself Some Slack

Maybe you thought you would have more accomplished by now.

After all you’ve been at this whole business thing for HOW LONG? Shouldn’t you be raking it in at this point?

Shouldn’t you have the mansion with the indoor swimming pool complete with a garage full of stretch limos?

Okay, so maybe your expectations haven’t been THAT GRAND. But STILL.

Instead of feeling disappointed in yourself, I implore you to take a moment to think about how far you’ve come. If you’re further along in your goals now than you were a year ago (or 5 years ago), then that’s progress to be proud of! As long as you are working hard, and things are moving forward (no matter how gradually), you get to pat yourself on the back.

The only time you need to be worried is when you start to think you are done. Don’t ever start to think that there is no more work, and your goals have been completed.

Sorry darling, there is no finish line. You will keep on going, keep moving forward, and keep expanding and improving on those original goals of yours. That’s the point. As long as you have the strength to not give up, and the motivation to press on, impatience and disappointment won’t creep in.

So keep pressing on my friend. You’re doing alright. Go ahead and cut yourself some slack.

What’s your Excuse?

Not enough time. Not enough money. I’m too shy. I’m too busy. Not enough help. Not enough talent.

There’s an excuse for everything.

You can tell yourself whatever you want to ensure an absence of guilt for not doing something in regards to anything.

(Whoa, that previous sentence included a lot of generalizations.)

You fill in the blanks:

_________ needs to get done, and ___________ is your excuse for not doing it.

Time to rethink those excuses and re-prioritize.

Saying you don’t have time for something is admitting that it’s not a priority.

Write your priorities down in order from most important to least important.

Now, think about your daily activities and see how they line up with the list you just wrote. If “good health” is one of your priorities, but you don’t have time to eat lots of vegetables or get exercise, then it’s not really a priority. If running a successful business is one of your biggest goals, but you don’t have time to market your products, then the success of your business isn’t really a priority.

What are you spending a lot of time / money / energy on that doesn’t fit within your list of priorities? (Time spent on Facebook perhaps? How about money spent on non-necessities, like ANOTHER pair of shoes?) By recognizing these things, we eliminate the legitimacy of our excuses.

So… what’s your excuse?