Removing Stumbling Blocks

Defining personal goals can be a fun process, but as soon as one takes steps to pursue those goals, often the road to success gets rocky and those nasty stumbling blocks impede progress.

The more lofty the goals, the higher the stakes and the longer and rougher the road can get.

I don’t write these things to discourage anyone, but to encourage my fellow travelers to eliminate, remove, or at least take measures to break apart our personal stumbling blocks. By the term stumbling blocks, I mean those things that keep us from attaining the results we set out for ourselves, and for this blog, I talking about attainting our dreams for our respective art careers.

Now that I’ve defined a few goals to focus on for the next year or two,(previous blog) if I don’t also take time to name and address those personal idiosyncrasies that have been and will continue to deter me from my personal definition of success, I probably won’t make much progress in 2008. Now is the time honestly study and name those things that have deterred me in the past, so that they don’t impede my progress any further.

Here’s a list of a few of the boulders in the road to success that I personally deal with. Yours may be completely different, but I’ll state these here to help explain what I’m talking about.

Fear: Both of success and failure. I procrastinate... what if I find out that I am not a good enough artist to reach my goals? What if I do reach my goals, what kind of lifelong commitment will that require me to make with my time? Am I prepared emotionally to dedicate a major amount of my remaining time on Earth to the making of artwork?

Too Many Interests: If I break up my most productive hours into more than 2 or 3 activities, the chance of my attaining any significant progress in any one area breaks down with the number of projects I pursue. For instance: I write articles, teach workshops, paint for galleries, like to travel, love spending time with my husband and friends – plus I have responsibilities that go along with daily living.

Daily Fatigue: I can only work in a focused fashion for 3 to 4 hours straight. My mind begins to shut down by about 2:00 pm every afternoon. I get a small burst of energy at about 7:00 pm, but I am usually not able to work on art or writing at that time of the day.

There are many more obstacles, but these are the ones that are likely to keep me from attaining goals in 2008 if I don’t take serious steps to address them. Again, for you - they may be completely different, but if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll be able to name them.

The next step in the process is to design a way to deal with these potential obstacles. After simply naming them in a list, I feel ill equipped to tackle them - they seem overwhelming. So, I need to break the mountains into molehills. The first on the list (Fear) is the most difficult to define. The other two - Interests and Fatigue are much easier to define, and therefore, easier to deal with, so I’ll tackle them first, and as I make progress with those, the fear will probably diminish - especially since I’ll be busy and feeling good about my daily progress.

Molehills: For the "Too Many Interests" topic, the answer is pretty straight forward... something’s got to go! In order to see what will go, I ask myself, what one thing must I do to meet my priorities for the year? PAINT - that’s pretty simple. In order to paint, I need to have my supplies ready, my time available, and an idea of what I want to paint. If I book too many workshops, I have no time to paint. If I write too many articles, I have little time to paint. It doesn’t mean that I can’t visit with friends or travel, but it does mean that I need to designate work time first and then see how much time I have left for the other stuff. If I am not disciplined in this area, my goal of making great paintings is down the drain.

Fatigue: Well, this has an obvious answer too, and it is like the previous answer. My best "thinking" hours must be devoted to work in my studio... period. I can be social and do chores when I’m not at my peak brain power. I need enough self discipline and vision to make absolutely sure that I do my most mind intensive work in the mornings. Easy to say, difficult to achieve.

My hope for all reading this is that you’ll take the challenge to address those demons this year that keep you from attaining your goals ,and by the way, as you take a long healthy look at your obstacles, you’ll also discern how attainable your goals are for your individual lifestyle.