Living a creative life, especially deciding to make a living from your art involves taking a giant leap of faith–of a very big cliff. It's easy to back off from the cliff when the inner critic starts to pipe up.
Often, artists say things like, "I'm not a very good business person." or "Don't worry if you don't see my show, who knows how good it'll be." or "Maybe I'm
just not ready to hit the big time." Us creative types tend to either downplay or oversell their creative work. Why? What makes us think our work is less valuable than the paving of a road, or the filing of a dental x-ray, or the programming of a computer?
Think of the most important moments in your life, those that were inspired, those that brought you to a new level of understanding about what life means to you. Was art part of that? Was it something you read in a book or a piece of music your heard? A film you saw? Each of the creators of those works pushed past the internal and external voices that said, "Don't bother."
Not all of us will make a living from the creative work that comes from the core expression of our being, but perhaps there could be more singing road pavers, dental x-ray painters, and authors who program computers. We can take the myriad of voices who find all the reasons to say "No" and transform them into voices who say, "You do your creative work, and I will support you by thinking logically, planning for the future, and helping you pack the parachute… if you insist on jumping off this cliff!"
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"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence… Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
-Calvin Coolidge
