Fire your inner troll and stay on track

Just under three weeks to the art fair. Still haven’t got business cards done!

Frame sets arrived - twenty of them and they’re heavy! It’s going to be fun getting all this into London. It was suggested we bring a small stool as well…I’m thinking it’ll be sensible shoes instead. Cushioned insoles are a wonderful thing.

Now, if you’re in the habit of negative-talking yourself out of your ideas, read on.

Last week my mood slumped around where my life is. Great timing. While I’ve become more focused on what and where I want to be art-wise, the Poor-Self-Confidence gremlin has sulked in a corner, feeling neglected (ah, poor lamb/sarc) and plotted to get attention by lying in wait until a deadline approached. Sneaky.

It’s not getting sympathy. I was hacked off. You make progress on your mind set then the gremlin butts in, and here you are, banging into the same brick walls of frustration and procrastination again.

Why do we do this?

It’s that conflict between what we want and what we’re in the habit of believing we can have. Our own thoughts undermine us and when we can’t see how we’ll get to those dreams - we don’t start. And we’ve been thinking this crap for years without realising we’re doing it.

Usually, when I’ve had a little yip of excitement to a new idea, within five minutes I’ve gone off it! I’ve moved from ‘oo, that could be fun/interesting’ straight into ‘how would I do that? Nah, it’s just a daft thing’, courtesy of the ‘What-A-Silly-Idea’ goblin. I’ve done this A LOT.

But this time, I caught it.

Naturally it’s best mates with the ‘You-Can’t-Do-This’ troll and frankly they need all their heads cracking together. Ganging up on people like this is not cool.

What to do?

I looked over my last couple of New Year life reviews to see if I could nudge my thoughts in a better direction. And found that my current dreams are now much bigger than they used to be.

Eh? I’d always thought small. Never felt desire for very much. But there it was - evidence that actually, I now have big ideas about a number of things.

Unless we live in a cave, we're going to find bigger goals. But we have to grow with those goals.

Our mother used to say ‘I wants, never gets’. (You're supposed to say ‘I would like’ cos it’s more polite.) But another meaning was that whatever I wanted to have/do, I couldn’t have it anyway (encouragement wasn’t a family thing), so I gave up on my future.

Now the dreams have resurfaced and I've not exactly been helping them come to fruition. Out of habit. Habit, people. Not actual barriers. Years of thinking I can’t do something or I’m not good enough or knowledgeable enough or whatever. Fill in the blanks – you’ll have a bunch of your own for sure.

And where's your evidence that this is true?

...

When did you encounter these actual problems?

Right. You didn't. Because you haven't dared to try yet.

Which is fine - many people aren't raised to have laser focus and self esteem. We have to practise the first and rediscover the second. Look at high achievers anywhere; regardless of their beginnings, when they set their sights on a huge goal, they didn’t assume they weren’t up to it!

We all have things we’d love to do with our lives. There are three basic approaches to these ideas:

1. Decide they’re not realistic and dump them. Result – unhappy, unfulfilled people. This continues for years until you forget what the dreams were and just feel life isn’t all that great.

2. Hold the dream (or rediscover it), but squish it into something more ‘realistic’, and listen to people who tell you it’s really hard and virtually no one ever manages to do this thing anyway. So you scrape along, have little expectation of success and feel frustrated that things aren’t going anywhere and maybe you’re just not cut out to do this.

3. Have an idea or a dream. Say ‘I want that’ and ‘I’m going to do that’ and start doing something, anything, that gets them started on the road. And then keep going. No ifs or buts. Just ‘I want it so I’m going to get it/do it’.

I’ve done 1 and 2. They suck.

Might as well see what #3 achieves. I’m dragging myself back in line several times a day, but the more often I can catch myself blocking my own way and refocus, the easier it’ll become. Like a good habit.

If you have an idea for your life; something you’ve always wanted to do, how about just starting and seeing where it takes you? Don’t question its feasibility. Explore its potential! Definitely don’t question your ability. Imagine what kind of person you'd be if you achieved the goal!

Many people were taught to disregard their heart’s desires because others didn’t ‘get’ it. The ones that pushed ahead anyway – some of them have changed the world, the rest are 'just' having the life they always wanted. We need more people doing both.

And on that note, I’m off to design my business cards.