My Secret to Success
Spoiler alert - it’s not very secret. And also, it’s not exciting or sexy. I like to tell people the truth though, so here it is: consistency. This applies to all of my life, not just business. Want to get better at painting? Paint consistently (like every day). Want to get more fit? Eat well and exercise consistently. Want to learn how to [insert literally ANYTHING here]? Consistency. And then commitment to that consistency. So you can be more consistent.
Here is the thing - emotions are fleeting. Motivation is fleeting. “Talent” only takes you so far. When there something I want to do, this is exactly how I do it:
Decide (I decide exactly what that thing is and I am specific about it)
Research. What do I have to do to reach that thing? When I wanted to learn to license my art, I started Googling, “How to license art” and I followed the rabbit hole.
Plan backwards. After I know what and how, then I plan out which steps I will do in which order.
Commit. I commit to be consistent. ie “I will spend at least 15 minutes painting every.single.day” (see my last post)
Scale it down. Yep, for real. Whatever giant plan I have, it’s almost always too big for my britches. And I want to WIN, so I simplify and scale back my plan to one that I am 100% sure will be manageable. This one is very important. For example, if I said I wanted to commit to paint for an hour every day, I would fail. Because I have a busy life and I have kids and “stuff” happens. But 15 minutes? I can do that one. I commit to the thing that I KNOW is realistic.
And then I do it. Over and over again. On bad days and on good days. When I produce crap, when I am tired, when I fall short, when I feel like I am failing. Because I committed to being consistent.
And guess what? It works. It works every single time. I hope this encourages you because I want you to know that YOU can do AMAZING things!