We're on the home stretch of my riff of Lori Parch's article "Secrets of Thin People: How they get there, how they stay there" published in the April 2006 issue of MORE magazine. Just a few more tips to go!
Here's number 10:
Thin people don't skip breakfast.
Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day for successful weight loss and maintenance.
I had two thoughts on this tip.
Breakfast is about "starting strong", and "filling up".
Breakfast is the first meal of the day. The standards you set for yourself here can prepare you for the rest of the day.
But it's also the one meal--perhaps the ONLY meal--that should "fill you up". In fact, we're advised to "breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper."
Let's start with the first premise, "Starting strong"--making good choices at the onset of your day helps you make good choices for the rest of the day.
One "strong start" for me is my schedule book. It's just a dollar comp book I get at any office supply store. I keep everything in it--appointments, notes to myself, ideas, observations--and my all-compelling to-do lists. I have trouble prioritizing. I find it helps to make a list of what the most important things I need to accomplish this day.
That can change with a phone call, of course, and flexibility is crucial to my life. But it helps me to focus on the critical "next steps" for everything going on in my biz.
Another "strong start" is considering what you do best in the morning. I actually find my best production time is in the late afternoon/early evening. But I WRITE best in the morning. So knowing where my best energy lies for any given task is helpful.
The biggest "strong start", though, can be what your biz is built on. This is painful to say, because we all have to start somewhere. But the biggest obstacle I see with new artists is....
Their work isn't that special.
I'll repeat: We all have to start somewhere. I cringe when I pull out old samples of my earliest work. What was I thinking?? What saved me, I think, is it had something DIFFERENT going for it.
And I constantly worked to IMPROVE it.
We are all inspired by other artists' work. Copying or imitating others' ideas is a good way to learn. We were taught to do this in art classes. We were urged to look at the drawing style, the color usage and the compositions of "the masters"--sometimes to even copy their work outright.
That should be a STAGE OF LEARNING, though. One that you quickly abandon once you understand the underlying principles.
Likewise, sloppy technique, clumsy execution and poor design have no place in your work once you "know better."
I always urge emerging artists and craftspeople to hone their technical skills, improve their critical eye, and get busy coming up with their own ideas. Granted, being the BEST at something isn't any guarantee of success. But not being even very good at it is not going to help you. Let me rewrite that last sentence... It HELPS to be good.
So take a look at your work, the foundation your entire business will be built on. Is it your best effort? Could it be even better? MAKE it better. It's your "strong start".
Now for the second premise--that breakfast should "fill you up" for the day. How does this apply to our successful art biz?
To me, this means asking ourselves, "What is it about what I do that fills my heart and feeds my soul?"
We should constantly remind ourselves WHY we are doing all this hard work for our biz. It helps during those bleak days and slow times, when nothing seems to be going right, when everything seems to get in our way. Including ourselves!
When we are overwhelmed with all the work we have to do, frustrated at cancelled orders and sluggish shows, anxious about whether we have made the right decisions for our art and biz, and upset with people who seem to have so little regard for what we do and what we make, it's time to look at what fills us.
It helps to remember what it is we love about all this.
Whether it's the thrill of making our own money, the freedom of working for ourselves and being our own boss, the heady pleasure of being introduced as "the famous artist", the pride of knowing our hands and hearts and minds are working together to make beautiful things, we need to remember we CHOSE this. And why.
It helps to take time to "fill ourselves", our hearts, our souls, with the reassurance that we are doing the work we were put on earth to do. Bringing our own little contribution to making the world a better place, with a little more beauty, a little more integrity, a little more human connection. Whether we do that with the things we make, the people we meet, or simply by being a happier person, that contribution is significant.
The phrase "my cup runneth over" takes on a whole new meaning in these moments.
Let those moments fill YOU.
