I’ve been talking with people thinking about changing careers and avocations, people who are getting serious about putting more of their dreams back into their lives.
What’s poignant is how relieved and joyful they get when they start talking about these buried dreams. They are so excited to find there are people out there—ordinary people, not superstars—who decided to make room in their lives for things that were very important to them. No one in their world ever talks like this. It's like they've been wandering in a desert of compromised dreams and abandoned visions, and have been offered a drink of water.
I went to an on-line forum I participate in, with a question about a new piece of office equipment, and came away with dozens of thoughtful answers. It felt good to be able to ask people a simple question without getting raised eyebrows or “What would you do with THAT?!” responses.
It got me thinking how important my little artist support groups were to my growth as an artist, especially when I was first starting out. Once a month, these carefully chosen people listened to me with all their attention as I tentatively picked my way to building a life as an artist. More than a drink of water in the desert, this little community was a spring, an oasis of hope and determination.
We simply believed it was possible. We believed it was possible for our cohorts to do this, and learned to believe in ourselves.
I remember talking with a woman while volunteering in my kid’s classroom. She asked what I did. I said both my husband and I were self-employed, me as a full-time artist and he as an internet consultant/analyst and journalist.
She stopped in mid-stride and gasped, “WHAT…does that look like??!” She had no concept, no idea of how someone went about doing that.
I gave a brief description of the process. Although it had started with my husband’s sudden and unexpected lay-off a few years earlier, we had already taken the steps we needed to jump into our respective businesses. We’d thought seriously about it, built the connections, done the preliminary work. When the get-busy time hit the fan, we were terrified—but ready to go. From then on, each business decision seemed to lead steadily to the next. Results were not always immediate, but eventually every step we took built our momentum, until finally we had a sense of progress.
I said, “It’s like stepping over an abyss that’s a mile deep but three feet wide. You have to focus on getting to the other side and not look down.”
What helped me not look down? My tiny hand-built community. One that encouraged me to not look down.
Wherever you are in your life, whatever stage you are in, do not pack away your dreams for yourself. Take them out EVERY DAY. Look at them. Think about one thing, one tiny thing, you can do TODAY to move closer to it.
And pick a group of people—friends, heroes, companions, whatever—you can trust to believe in this dream with you. Share it with them. Make them hold you accountable to your goals of making it happen. Talk through your fears until you see how tissue-thin most of them are. They can be close enough to meet with for coffee once a month. Or only as close as a phone call or e-mail. More important than proximity is that they are simply willing to believe that you can achieve your dream, somehow. And that they would love to be a part of making that happen.
If you build this kind of support for yourself, then you can stand strong against the rest of your world that does NOT believe you can do it. Sometimes the people who love us best—spouse, family, friends—want to protect us from failure and disappointment too much to stand quiet while we do the hard work. It’s great to be safe for awhile, but life isn’t like that. You need people who encourage you to be stronger than that, and better than that.
Who is one person you would choose to be in your artist community?
