A couple of totally disparate things happened this week, with huge implications for us artists.
Both are about hanging on to things that aren't working, and how that keeps you from finding the next things that WILL work.
We were at a bar the other night, watching some friends shoot pool. We talked a bit with the waitress. She started to cry about the jerky boyfriend she'd finally kicked out the week before. She was sweet, she was young, and she was sad about what could have been.
"You did the right thing," I said. "You asked for the change you needed to happen, and he chose to leave instead. And you weren't asking for much. You deserve to be treated better."
My friend who'd just dumped HER jerky boyfriend of two years jumped right in. She said, "You know, when you hang on to someone like that, you're just filling your life with something that isn't working. And when the RIGHT guy comes along, there you are, not available, not free, not happy and not ready to be with HIM." She said that now she was out of that dead-end relationship, her only regret was the time she'd wasted on it.
"You're RIGHT!" the young woman exclaimed. When we saw her a week later, she had her game back.
Then there was the decision to find new homes for some of our pets, most of whom were foster care or rescue cases. My daughter is going away for another internship this spring, then on to school. We're running out of hands to take care of all our animals. We realized it was time to find some of them new homes.
We've always labored under the "Black Beauty" ethos: We HAVE to keep them because their next home might be awful. So though we are overloaded and overwhelmed providing them with adequate care and attention, we felt that was better than taking them to the humane society or a pet shop.
But maybe they can have a BETTER home, my daughter finally pointed out. "Remember, Mom, Black Beauty wouldn't have ended up in that last PERFECT home if someone hadn't moved him on to his next step."
We realized these little guys deserved a chance at a WONDERFUL home. We think we've found one for some of them. And now it's time to let go.
Letting go to move ahead.
If you've out grown a venue for your work--a store that can no longer support your price points, a shop that no longer has an audience for your work, or even a shop that can only sell older work you don't want to make anymore--then it may be time to think about this.
If a show isn't working for you anymore--if you've saturated your audience, or the audience has changed or even disappeared--it may be time to move on to another opportunity.
If your old ways of reaching your audience or growing your business aren't working--that ad in the same old magazine isn't doing it anymore, or your press releases aren't garnering you press, or your work isn't generating the same kind of excitement--then it may be time to make room for something else.
There may be nothing SERIOUSLY wrong. But every minute you spend trying to make it work, every ounce of creative energy you pour into it, is effort you could be spending developing a NEW connection, a NEW relationship, a NEW opportunity.
This isn't about giving up when things get sticky.
It's about knowing when holding on to the status quo isn't getting EITHER party what you want and need. When maintaining a so-so relationship is keeping you from going after a different, better oppotunity.
What is ONE THING you could let go of today?
And what is ONE THING you truly desire you could put its place?
