Patience

We are all busy trying to master the new new thing.  Be it all things social media, business offerings, employees, vendors, markets, even clothes, we just do not want to be left behind.  Staying the course so often is interpreted as sitting still.  The fear of the world passing us by makes it virtually impossible to take a breath and just see what is to come.  Welcome to the hamster wheel.

Change is hard, talking the talk is not.  You can embrace the idea that you have created a better version of yourself, even be able to convince those around you of the new you.  Just look at your new Facebook page, headshot, stationery, logo, website copy, advertisement, etc.  However, evolution takes humility and grace – humility to know that to live your own truth when you have not previously done so is unbelievably scary; grace because you need to have faith that the unknown you are leaping into is better than the known you are choosing to leave behind no matter the result.

Fortitude is not tested in theory.  Clients, readers, employees, vendors will look at you funny, slyly mock or be outright indignant at your decisions.  When you stop taking commissions, refuse to work with PIA clients, encourage your employees to be willing to fail, etc., there will be those who, at best will not believe you, and, at worst, actively participate in undoing the change you have set in motion.  How you choose to respond is a litmus test of how far you are willing to expose yourself, your art and your creative business.  It is also for you to see just how much you might be working to undo changes you have made.  No one will understand the change as much as you will.  Everyone will adjust at their own pace.  Your work is to live in yourself, your convictions and your new direction until it becomes the fabric of your creative business.  Patience.  The thousandth time you talk about why you do what you do will be different from the first so long as you are willing to listen to and then ignore the voice inside you telling you to hide.  If you go about over-steering the boat every time you face confrontation to change you will go around in circles and get nowhere.

The roots to success for your creative business is not in the money you generate, the attention you are able to grab, or even the artistic statements you can make.  The roots are in your mantra, your idea of integrity, your vision for what you must share with the world and the depth of your unwillingness to ever be shaken from all that you stand for.  With these roots you can go literally anywhere.  The whole point of working so diligently on your own integrity is to ensure that the next move for you, your art and your creative business will only make the roots stronger no matter whether the result is a traditional measure of success or not.  A strong foundation is just that and it is foolsplay to think that the new new thing will provide it for you.  It will not.  The new new thing is only the reward of a strong foundation as are all of the traditional measures of success.  What you tell yourself today matters.  Patience, humility, grace and the fortitude to see beyond today matters more.