Organizing Myself

I've been working at getting myself back in gear for what seems like months. I guess it HAS been months. I'm just not myself anymore, but I miss me! I need to get back to myself, my art, my routine. It's been hard, but I'm just tired of my whining already. I'm not usually one to sit and feel sorry for myself. I'm usually hyper-motivated, I love life for crying out loud! 

This past weekend I took out my planning notebook and started working on revising my business plan. Turns out, from looking at my old planner notebook, it has actually been 6 YEARS since I used it. Ironically, the last date I used it was the day I got a call from a hospital in El Paso to let me know that my dad had suffered his first heart attack. He was ok, going to need bypass surgery, but he would be ok. That day, I rushed down to El Paso and spent a couple of weeks with my dad and helped him out as he recovered. 

There were a lot of other things going on that year. Problems with my 2 older sons, hospitalizations, drama, all the things that can derail anyone. However, I hadn't realized until this weekend that I have been derailed for so long! 

Not totally, to be fair, I went back to work and I've worked hard with my art the past 6 years. My style totally changed. I've painted a whole new body of work since then. I just haven't worked diligently on my business plan or used my daily planner since then. 

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20 as they say. It was interesting to make that discovery though. So, I finally sat down and worked on my plan on Sunday afternoon for a couple of hours. I started all over, from scratch, after looking at the old plan and realizing how things have changed in the past 6 years.

So, as a way to get myself going, I just finished reading Alyson Stanfield's book "I'd Rather Be In The Studio". I have been a subscriber to her Artbizblog for years and have always enjoyed her newsletters. Her book is great! It's completely up to date with the 21st century. She spends a lot of time on the internet, blogging, websites, etc. I've read many, MANY artist promotion/marketing books and I have to give Alyson's book a big fat two thumbs up! I'm even thinking about using it for an art marketing class I'm putting together for Chroma Studios. 

After all that, I'm feeling pretty motivated again! Yay! I have so much work to do, a new website to build, art cd/dvd to put together, mailing list to update, etc, etc. Not to mention blogging more often!