We all run into rough stretches sometimes. But it doesn’t mean your creative work has to stop. 

You can do your art even when the nanny leaves, your house is being repainted, or your partner is away on a business trip. You just need the right approach.

In this video, I share that approach.

P.S. Want support to help you do your creative work even when you’ve got a lot on your plate or you’re dealing with tough things? 

The Artist in Action program is designed to help talented, ambitious writers and artists do their creative work regularly and easily–even when times are busy or tough.

Interested? Email me.

Maybe you have a friend who’s a successful artist or writer. She’s published books, gotten a teaching post at a college, won awards here and there. She’s not a huge star or household name, but her career has grown steadily over time. She’s a working artist–a real professional.

What separates her from the people who haven’t made it? 

Some would say it’s talent. 

But, the truth is, there are a lot of talented people in the world. 

Almost every school has its “star” writers, artists, and musicians, but most of those people end up in other careers. Others discover their talent later and are brilliant hobbyists. 

(And so many people die with their creative potential unrealized.)

On the flip side, most professional artists have some degree of talent, and you can’t be completely talentless, but there’s a wide range in what people respond to–and plenty of so-so artists succeed.

Just look at the bookstores filled with derivative novels, movie theaters filled with predictable sequels, and radio stations playing songs that all sound the same. 

Professional success doesn’t require extraordinary talent.

So what really separates the artists from the wannabes? 

Two things: Confidence and perseverance.

Doing your art–and continuing to do it through the ups and downs. 

Being willing to put yourself and your work out there. 

If you have trouble doing your creative work, it’s easy to start wondering if you have what it takes–or thinking there’s something wrong with you.

THE TRUTH:

You’re fine, and you can change the story you tell yourself NOW.

Do your creative work today, do it tomorrow, and then tell yourself, “I am writing regularly now.” (I say writing here, but this is true for any creative work that comes from the soul.)

And you commit to yourself to keep up the streak. You make that as important as anything.

You don’t have to do it perfectly. 

You just need to do it. 

And keep doing it.

P.S. What if you have the drive and determination–but spend more time fighting your self-doubts than doing creative work?

There are actually a few simple steps that can take you “over the hump”–and into doing your art. 

(They work even if you have deep-seated blocks or have been avoiding and procrastinating for years.)

I teach them to my clients in the Artists in Action program–so they can stop fighting themselves… and become the artists they’re meant to be.

Interested? Email me.

Want long, super-productive, super-creative, fun work sessions? 

That’s the dream, isn’t it? 

Hours-long sessions where you channel whole chapters of your novel, dive deep into the internal workings of your screenplay, rework whole sections of your song cycle…

However, before you start trying to rearrange your schedule, know this: It’s actually a mistake to expand the amount of time you spend doing your art before you have a strong foundation of doing your art regularly.

If you’re still procrastinating, avoiding, or facing any kind of block with your creative work, trying to spend more time on it will lead to more procrastination, avoidance, and blocks.

If you’re still procrastinating, avoiding, or facing any kind of block with your creative work, trying to spend more time on it will lead to more procrastination, avoidance, and blocks.

That’s because if part of you is resisting the creative work, long sessions create pressure, high expectations, and a fear of failure… which can easily lead into a negative cycle.

As an artist, you want to create a positive cycle of excitement, anticipation, success, and momentum.

That’s why I like to start by teaching my clients exactly how to do their creative work under tight time constraints.

They build a strong habit of doing their art. Then they expand the amount of time they spend on their art.

This lets them create regularly and easily, even with hours-long (or day-long) creative work sessions.

If you want this for yourself, ask me about the Artist in Action program.

The Artist in Action program is designed to help talented, ambitious writers and artists do their creative work–even if they’re working full-time jobs, have a family, or live full, busy lives.

You’ll discover exactly how to do this… and then how to find time and expand into long, spacious, joyful creative sessions where you get a ton done.

You’ll feel amazing as you successfully (and easily) do your creative work day after day. 

And ultimately, you’ll celebrate as you finish your novel, sell your screenplay, or see your work performed in your favorite venue.

Interested? Email me.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here in the United States, Thanksgiving is a time to connect with what we’re grateful for—blessings, the people we love, and more.

The energy of “thanksgiving” is also a powerful energy we can connect to at any time to work creative magic.

There’s magic in gratitude: what we focus on expands, so when we focus on what we love (and what we desire to come to us), those things can expand.

Gratitude expands your attitude and lifts you to a higher perspective so you can see all the good in your life–including the opportunities that surround you in each moment. 

Gratitude fills you with positive energy and raises your vibration. It makes you more magnetic. As a result, you attract more goodness in the form of inspiration, creative opportunities, relationships, powerful collaborations, and more.

You can also use gratitude in a very specific way–to create what you want. 

Let’s try it with your creative work.

Gratitude Magic for Your Creative Work

Imagine an average work day in your most ideal life, six months from now.

1. What writing or art are you working on?
2. How regularly are you doing your creative work?
3. How does it feel to do your creative work?

Allow yourself to really see and feel what it’s like to have this life. Sink into the feelings, and let them fill your body. Feel your joy and gratitude. Let every cell of your body soak it in. Take as long as you need.

Now imagine: If you were filled with this perspective and energy every day, what would be possible for you? 

And ask yourself: How would you feel if THIS were your life every day?

Gratitude is the first step in making it so.

---

P.S. Want to turn this ideal, average day into your ACTUAL LIFE? 

Artist in Action is a specially-designed program to help talented, ambitious writers and artists do their creative work regularly and easily. 

In it, you’ll discover exactly what steps to take to go from not doing your truest creative work (or not doing enough of it)… to being an artist who is in action, doing your art and loving your life.

Interested? Email me.

P.P.S. I’m grateful for you, my community. For reading my pieces and sharing them, for watching my videos and commenting on them, for letting me know about the posts that moved you. For being open, for growing, and for your commitment to your own creative work. For stepping into my programs and for the honor of priestessing your creativity into this world.

(See Part 1 of this series here.)

We all want time to do our creative work. 

And it’s possible to have it–even if it’s always been hard for you to find time. 

One reason you might have had trouble making time for your art? 

You’re stuck in a habit loop.

Habit loops

Here’s a scenario you might recognize: 

In the evening, you squeeze in the last bit of work… which means you go to sleep late. In the morning, you’re exhausted, so you lie in bed trying desperately to snatch at some last few moments of sleep. 

When you finally get up, it’s too late to exercise because you need to do things for the kids. By the time the kids are off to school, your body feels off, you feel cranky and pressed for time.

You’d planned to write, but the rest of the day’s responsibilities are staring you in the face. 

“I can’t today. I don’t have time,” you say.

And there goes another day. 

Repeated over and over again, this becomes another week, another month, another year, and another decade. Until the day there truly is no more time.

It doesn’t have to be this way. 

Even though it might seem like “this is just how things are,” the truth is there are many ways to create the life we want. We just can’t see them when we’re caught in the loop. 

But, to be artists doing our work, we have to get out of those loops–and find a way of being that SERVES OUR ART.

Where habit loops come from

Habit loops are created from a complex intersection of physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual ways of being. 

For example, I come from a Taiwanese immigrant family. There’s a long history of working hard to survive and succeed.

That showed up as certain physical habits (always pushing to accomplish one more thing), mental beliefs (“You have to do the practical thing” and “You have to work hard”), emotions (an underlying habit of worry), energies (an ancestral story that “We don’t get to do what we love”), and spiritual ways of being (getting caught in fear and not opening to divine guidance that would help me succeed).

All of those factors came together to create the habit loop of “going to bed late and getting up too late to write.” 

You have your own version–your own habit loop–created by your own combination of physical, emotional, mental, energetic, and spiritual states.

So is this impossible to get past? 

It sounds like there are SO many things to deal with… just to write a few pages, right? 

How will you ever manage?

Freeing yourself

Fortunately, taking out one strand–removing one “lynchpin”–can collapse the whole habit loop… so you can do your art. 

This is what we do in the Artist in Action program. 

To start doing their creative work regularly and easily, my clients don’t have to heal every single trauma, childhood experience, or past life. 

They don’t have to clear every chakra, do months of therapy, or hire a coach for years and years. 

(Now, to be sure, there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. To do your truest, best creative work, you DO have to clear anything that’s blocking YOU as a divine channel.

But, you don’t have to do ALL of that to get started, to find time for your creative work, or be an artist who does your work regularly and easily.)

Instead, in Artist in Action, we go straight to a simple, practical “lynchpin”–and shift it–so you get in action right away, doing your creative work. 

Interested? Email me.