Achieving Your Goals

This clip of Jim Carrey shows the most extreme example of visualization and goal setting that I'm aware of.  It worked for him... it can work for you.

When I was in high school in Boise, Idaho in the mid 80's, I used to joke with my dad that I didn't really need to go to college.  I told him I wanted to start my own business, and that I didn't need a degree to hire myself.  We laughed and didn't think much about it then.  Well, I know he definitely wanted me to get a degree, but he didn't push the idea too hard.  I really did want to own my own business.  But I was incredibly shy then, and didn't have the personality to pull it off, though I tried a few times.  Now, three decades later, I am finally committing to building my own business.  Much to my surprise, I'm starting it with artwork, which seems one of the sketchiest possible ways to start a business.  I didn't even think of myself as a visual artist when I started this six months ago.  I was desperate in one sense, despite a wide variety of job experience over 30+ years, I could not get hired for ANYTHING here in this small North Carolina town where I wound up.  There are many reasons why this might be.  Maybe employers think I'm too old, too fat, too sketchy (since my last career was as a taxi driver) or something else.  But it became very clear I wasn't going to find a job here, let alone a well paying job.  Most other people in this area, facing the same prospect, would double down on applying for jobs, or try to get on Social Security Disability, which is seen as a career path in this part of the country.

But I spent most of my life in and around the actions sports and entertainment industries.  I've seen dozens and dozens of people start businesses and do projects starting with very little.  With that background, I simply made a decision last November to create my own job.  It was as simple as that.  My artwork was the only thing I'd made money at in the past years, though very little money.  I realized I had to step up my game artistically, and I started my business with absolutely no money.  I did a couple of drawings for my sister to earn my first little bit of cash, and I kept going from there.  I was living for free with my mom, in an quiet little apartment, so I had that going for me.  But we're always in financial crisis, which has been a big challenge.  I had no phone, no money, very few art supplies to start, a tired old laptop, and a background in blogging.  No one, not one single person, thought drawing pictures was a good idea.  Some of you realize that means I did have one more thing.  A belief I could actually do this.  I'd made my dreams happen, some of them, anyhow, decades ago as a BMX freestyler.  I know from experience that the "impossible" is actually possible.  That is the biggest thing I had going for me.  Then my laptop broke.  It didn't crash, the hinge literally broke.  So I was starting a internet based art business... with no computer.  My next few drawings paid for an old, but functional (barely) refurbished laptop.

As 2016 was starting, I realized I needed to raise money to really get this idea going.  I decided to go with a crowdfunding campaign, specifically, a Go Fund Me page.  I built the page and set a goal of raising $1,000.  I'll be honest, that seemed absurd four months ago.  I had no idea whatsoever if anyone would contribute.  For the first few days, they didn't.  Then my mom's best friend Linda took pity on me and donated $20.  It was a start, but would anyone else follow? I didn't know.

I looked at my approach, and revised it.  Instead of asking for donations, I raised my asking amount to $25, and offered to do a 12" X 18" original drawing for anyone who contributed, or a larger drawing for $50.  Like Jim Carrey in the video above, I started visualizing drawing pictures as well, though not near as intensely as I should have.  I started getting orders for drawings.  They started coming from people I hadn't talked to in years or from people I only knew through Facebook.  Now, about 31/2 months later, I've reached my goal when I include the drawings now ordered.  Officially on my Go Fund Me page, I'm $110 short, but I have orders to cover that.  I achieved what initially seemed like a ridiculous goal.  So I'm successful, right?

Yes and no.  I reached my monetary goal, that's true.  But it took me much longer than I'd hoped.  I wanted to earn that $1,000 in a few weeks, and buy a shelving unit to store my supplies, stock up on the Sharpies and paper and other supplies I use, have a couple hundred bucks in my checking account, and most of all, buy a good digital camera so I can start shooting my own photos to draw pictures from.  Well, I have a small stockpile of art supplies, but I'm low on certain colors of Sharpies.  My checking account in running on empty at the moment, mostly because I had to spend much more than I hoped on basic household stuff, like food and prescriptions and all that.  The good digital camera is still sitting in a store waiting for me, I haven't even come close to buying it yet.

The lessons here?  Goals need to be specific.  Visualization does work, but you have to actually do the work after you visualize it.  There are always other, unforseen expenses when starting a small business.  There are always aspects to the goal we don't think of.  For example, I visualized achieving my goal to earn $1,000 with my art, but I didn't get around to visualizing buying and using that digital camera.  Most importantly, goals are about building a belief that something will actually happen.  Also, goals are an ongoing process.  In six months, starting with literally no money, I can now call myself a "self-employed artist/writer."  But I'm not truly making a living yet.  So it's time to ponder on the goals I just achieved, and use what I learned to set the next set of goals to raise me to the next level.

Generally speaking... I'm stoked.  Things didn't turn out quite how I wanted them to, but then, they never do.  I'm off to a slow but solid start to building my own business, and that's what it's all about for me right now.

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