Riding life’s waves is one of the most important things we can do. It's an amazing skill to have. When you learn how to ride the waves that your creative life sends you, a full time income can happen.
Right now, you may be on a wave of doubt, or a wave of elation that you just sold something. Creatives are known for having ups and downs. Maybe it’s that we can see and feel them more easily?
Tides Come and Go
Looking at what you're experiencing right now as a wave is helpful because you know it will pass. A wave is temporary.
If it's a good wave, it's to be cherished and enjoyed while you're on it.
If it's a not so good wave, you have the solace of knowing it will change.
Know that riding the waves of life is just surfing. And, surfing is actually a fun activity. Even if you're like me and you don't surf, watching it is fun, right?
Our Lives Are Better With Waves
If you had no waves in your life, you'd be in the doldrums - flat, stagnant seas that don't carry you anywhere. So those waves are really good for creating motion.
You get good at riding the waves by practicing. …And, surfing is more fun when you aren’t focused on the rocks and sharks that are below the surface.
Instead, focus your attention on where you want to be. Determining where you put your efforts as you ride the waves of life makes a difference.
Creativity and business also have waves and as a human, those waves can overlap a great deal.
A Real Life Creative Surfer
This came up recently in a voice message with my client. We use Voxer, a voice messaging app, to talk things out and she sends great updates this way.
What this client has learned by running her business, and through parenting, is that when she rides the waves and moves in tune with life, abundance comes.
It's not without fears that are hardwired but she knows what she needs to do to make abundance happen. Seeing things that happen and riding life’s waves with grace are a part of it. Even if it doesn’t always feel easy.
As a result, she’s seeing that she’s working so many fewer hours than she was previously. In fact she said she’s working the “bare minimum” and still making her money goals. And, she’s getting people asking to pay her six months in advance for her offers.
She is creating a real full-time income with her creative practice. This is what can happen when you learn what you need to make abundance happen.
This is what happens when you learn to ride the waves.
When creative humans work with me, they have me along with them as they ride the waves. It’s helpful to not be alone as they build their solo artist / freelancer / maker practices, and the income that results from those endeavors.
Your Waves
Some of life’s waves are certainly easier to ride than others. Maybe you’re a natural surfer. Maybe you still have some wave riding skills you’d like to hone like planning how you’ll sell your art and offers this year. Or figuring out how to be able to predict how much you’ll make over the next six months.
There’s a correlation between life and creativity and how they ebb and flow. You can look at having a business based on your creativity as difficult to do. Or you can view it as an extension of your natural creativity.
Do you think about the ups and downs in your practice, your life, and the business side of what you do as waves that come and go?
If you know you want to make your practice feel more like it’s generating income as a business, let me know. We’ll schedule a time to talk to see if having someone with you to ride those waves would be helpful right now.
I’m over here cheering you on!
-Kate