Seth Godin had a great post on Wednesday about the power of productivity talking about business/busyness. It really is a conversation about intention. Are you able to move towards the goal you set out for yourself with singular purpose? Yes, I am a powerCapricornso this everything to me. However, even if moving towards an intended goal is not your jam, there still has to be an element of intention in your creative business. To have real intention though, you have to have real goals.
I am guessing you think real goals are attainable ones, like in any good business plan — number of projects, project size, revenue for this year and beyond. And partly you would be right. Knowing what your business looks like at the most basic nuts and bolts level is important for you to have your feet on the ground. But it is not what I meant by real goals. By real goals, I meant who do you want to be? How do you wish for the world to perceive your art, the way you conduct your business? Who is your art for? More important, who is it not for?
When you reach a certain point in your creative business, you let your portfolio and your reputation do the talking for you. You are hiding and it is a mistake. Same if all you are doing is projecting the future on where you have been. Ten projects this year, hope for twelve next year. Instead, name your goal in a way that is profoundly you. Perhaps that is based on a project, perhaps on a vision, perhaps on personality trait, it really does not matter. For instance, if you want your clients to live their best lives because of what you do, that is awesome, but what does it mean? Form? Function? Combination?
For too many creative professionals, your goals suck because they are derivative of either what history has dictated or what the world around tells you you can become. So the goals are not really yours as you stand today. Being productive to get to those goals then is fools play since you may not want to be there anyway. Better to set out using the (re)definition of what makes you relevant as an artist and business owner and then building the path that will get you to embody the definition.
It is all about investment. Anything is possible but not if you are investing in the very thing that will never let you get there. None of us have unlimited resources and using your resources without knowing your goal and without really giving yourself permission to own the authenticity and singularity of the mission will inevitably be a lot of wasted energy. Ten thousand likes with no clients is a very sad story to tell.
I have been trying to teach my eleven year old son lately that courage (he says bravery and that works too) is being able to say that you know you do not know. It means two things. First, ask for help from those who might. Second, the future is uncertain and nothing any of can do will ever make it otherwise. Put the two together and it means leap. Challenge yourself, your art and your business to be the version you could never imagine it to be. Do you really think Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos really knew what Apple or Amazon would become? Of course they did not, they just knew they had to leap. Along the way, they asked for help. A lot.
Achieving goals, that is the doable part. Defining what those goals should be, that is where the demons live. The value of authenticity is limitless. Choosing to go there means being plainly naked for all to see and judge. There is no greater risk and all of us run from it at some point. The question for today is are you willing to come back? Pretty can beget pretty but it will never be real (or sustainable). If you are to get where you truly want to go, you are going to have to imagine what you and your creative business most want to be and let go of the rest.
