Smart strategies for artists who procrastinate

'Being who you are that's happiness' 

 I made this canvas when we moved home is appropriate for today and it's a wonderful day, got up early, did some miracle morning, meditation and personal development, taken the dogs to the park and all the leaves are glorious autumn colours, crunched through leaves, found a pine cone and discovered this gorgeous scented flower in our garden. Had coffee and a danish and now I'm going to do some creative work.

I have really been  trying to get my bum into gear and be proactive in my business which I do find difficult because I love the creating bit and still imagine successful business women in suits (can you imagine me in a suit hahaha) so it's undoing all those limiting beliefs, I posted in Leonies forum and got great support and some cracking answers. 

This is what I asked:

What do you think this is about? I am really creative and have billions of ideas, I start loads of projects but rarely finish them, I know I'm talented and have a 'gift' and if I got my ass into gear could do pretty well I think but everyday I wake up with great plans but then faff around, read a book, walk the dogs, snooze, eat food, watch a film etc anything really to avoid doing what I should be doing. The thing is we are now really struggling financially and it's either carry on with my art or get a job (which I really don't want to do) so have any of you been thorough this? Any tips to make me be proactive? 

Loads of various answers came back but the ones I found most useful were:

Read anything by Barbara Sher. (I have started looking at this author and feel she will be a good fit with my scatter brained approach, let me know if you have read any of her books)

First, don't think about how long something is going to take just tell yourself you're going to do fifteen or twenty minutes. (I like this because it doesn't seem too long if I get bored)

Sit down and write all about your fears and blocks around success. write down every "disadvantage" of being a successful artist/woman; your beliefs around financial success; everything you have heard about those topics that is negative or any comments from people throughout your life that say YOU can't become successful. Once you know that you can work on them and see how false they are. 

(I like this because I know I have some weird ideas as above the suit thing)

Make a "someday maybe" box or folder for your other ideas. (This is brilliant for me because I like making and creating so this could work really well and the symbolic gesture of shutting the lid on my ideas will help)

So with all that in mind I went onto my Pinterest vision board this morning to visualise and ended up finding this awesome site for creatives

I have been printing some great worksheets and reminders too last week, this was Sunday night organising for the week, I need to get my ass in gear and be the best I can be, I want to be financially free and travel, eat out, have holidays and move from Blackpool so I'm going to ride my wild donkey and get stuff done this week!

Love Dotty xx

Wearing no bra with big boobs

My friend snapped this photo of me without me knowing and I love it, I'm in the river Dee in Wales for conscious camp, it's freezing but invigorating, I'm wearing no bra, this is a big deal for me, to be in public with no bra, I have large G cup boobs and they sag down, I don't want to wear a bra for health reasons (lymphatic system can't drain toxins properly when constricted) but having them swinging around goes against the norm. It's weird when you start thinking about how society has moulded us into believing certain things and when you go against the grain you are deemed the weird one ;)

 I also feel a bit weird and unattractive without a bra (conditioning I know) sometimes it feels freeing and I don't get back or shoulder ache or headaches either when I don't wear one, I wear scarves a lot to cover them but find most of my wardrobe now totally unsuitable for going bra less, the cuts of the dresses are made with pert boobs in mind. 

It's a quandary because I feel it's important for breast health not to wear one, with underwires digging in and your lymph system being squashed, it isn't healthy at all. There have been links to breast cancer and bra wearing plus I feel constricted when I've got one on. But I feel hot and heavy without one. 

At home I tend not to wear one at all, I got this stretchy bra with no wires/structure to it that I wear if I'm doing housework, exercising or if guests are coming over. 

I figured out if I buy loose fitting tops, and wear scarves you can't really tell I am not wearing one out the house and I am sarong mad, I use them to tie around my chest in various ways to let them swing free and keep cool.

Got any tips? share them in the comments 

Check out this video about ditching bras by Nikisha Brunson

I would like to know your thoughts on going bra-less (please keep it friendly)

Check out this unapologetic account from a mum about men drooling over freed nipples!

Losing friends and don't know why?

I always say friends are like flowers, some are annual, so only around for a short time, some are bi-annual so they remain in the background, popping up now and then and then there are perrenial friends, who are there for you always, as we change and grow on our journey some friends, even perrenials wont 'get you', they just won't understand why you have changed. They may feel hurt because they are stuck (but don't know it) and feel the distance between you growing bigger.
  

It is not your job to 'fix' them, it is up to them to accept you and your changes and also to work on themselves why they feel this way (sometimes this won't happen of course and you end up parting ways). Once you become awakened or conscious, you can't go back. 
 I have had friends, ones that I have known for 12+ years say hurtful things, like 'why are you wearing THAT!? you're not in costume you know' or when I was being picked up by a friend for a day out 'You're not coming out like that with me, go back in and put normal clothes on'. These 'friends' thought it was ok to speak to me in that way because 12 years ago I wore jeans and a T-shirt and they are still stuck in that time.

I also love the eye rolling, when you talk about something like how your job is now being an artist. They patronise you with comments and sometimes even offers of money 'if you are struggling' (even though I haven't mentioned anything about money, just my passion for making beautiful art).

Understanding levels

We have to understand though, that we have come a long way and grown on our paths in life and some people are still at a crossroads or stuck in a dead end. 

My yoga teacher summed it up really well, she said we are all on levels, level 5 being the highest spiritually awakend, level 1 is your average un-concious, robot like person (when I say robot I mean stuck in the 9-5, watching tv, listening to the news) when dealing with people if you class them as a level in your head, it makes it easier to understand where they are coming from and to have empathy for the words they speak or there actions. 

I have been doing Leonie Dawson's business goddess Ecourse (which is amazing by the way) which says you are the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with, so choose carefully!

So going back to my yoga teachers level idea, you need to discover which level you are and then surround yourself with your level or higher to enable you to grow. 

As you proceed, on your journey, it's sad to say farewell to old friends but it is also important for you to realise this is not your fault, you haven't done anything wrong, you are not a bad friend, life changes, people change and some remain exactly the same (I am sure you all know someone who is living the exact same lifestyle now, that they did in there early 20's. We are meant to evolve, we are meant to learn, we are meant to change. So do it safe in the knowledge that you will make new friends who resonate with your soul.

Unleash your power

Everyone has a gift to give or share with the world, some people know straight away what that gift is, others need time to grow and figure it out, some people don’t ever know they have a gift because they never work on themselves, I am guessing because you are reading this you don’t fall into the last category.

Inside you is amazing power, the power to heal, the power to make wonderful things happen, the power to choose your destiny.

To tap into this power will make you very happy, fulfilled and rich in all aspects of your life.

I have 2 sayings

1. Thank you

2. What’s the worst that can happen?

These words have propelled me throughout my awakened life and will continue to do so for ever more.

Throughout everything I have learned the number one thing to make you brilliant is gratitude, being thankful and believing you can do amazing things turns your life around,  being thankful everyday about all things makes you a happier and positive person, this in turn makes you attractive, fun to be around, makes you capable of achieving all your dreams, unlocks areas in your life you didn’t know could be amazing, and makes you open to opportunities and have the courage to go for them. 

Make sure you use the words ( and mean them ) Thank you, every day, all day from the minute you wake up “ thank you for granting me another day”, “Thank you for a bed to sleep in” to last thing at night “ Thank you for all the abundance I have received today”, “thank you for  a good nights sleep”

What's the worst  that can happen makes you think of the truly horrific, the absolutely most hideous outcome, then you always (normally) realise that it isn't that bad after all, this eleviates the worry factor and makes you more inclined to take a chance. 

                         Photo found on Manifest your dreams

Be positive. Believe that you can do it! Don’t focus on the negatives. Your brain doesn’t have an image for words like ‘won’t’ &  ‘don’t’ so when you say things like ‘I don’t want to fail’ your brain has to actually picture you failing which then takes your focus off your goal.

Procrastination, Facebook and Instagram

Hey fellow crafters, artists, musicians in fact anyone creative, what do you do to work best and get things done?, I really struggle with this, I have a million ideas and each day want to complete...something but bedtime comes round again and guess what...nothing is finished. Not sure if this is to do with having a family and children as 'normal' life gets in the way of spending hours on a project or do single, childless people feel this way too?
Do you think its because we are bombarded by so much to fill our minds and time?
I know I have a serious facebook addiction, I use the excuse its for work, well it is a lot but I bet if I worked out how many hours I clock up on Facebook doing nothing really except reading about life instead of living it, it would be a lot of hours.
I do love it, its informative, I have met some wonderful people on it, my fairs wouldn't do so well without social media but its a time waster.

I have just read this article in the telegraph about how workers waste an hour a day on facebook.  According to them:

 Top twenty personal things Brits do during work hours
1. Online banking
2. Check the weather forecast
3. Check/reply to personal emails
4. Read news sites
5. Research holidays and search for best deals
6. Pay bills
7. Browse clothes online
8. Browse social network sites
9. Call friends/relatives
10. Online clothes shopping
11. Book a holiday online
12. Update social network sites
13. Arrange nights out with friends
14. Book dentists/Drs appointments
15. Look for discount codes
16. Look at photos
17. Call companies and organisations for personal reasons
18. Read sports updates
19. Shop or sell on eBay
20. Compare insurance prices

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10194322/Workers-waste-an-hour-a-day-on-Facebook-shopping-and-browsing-holidays-study-finds.html

This is office workers they have targeted, I wonder how many hours self employed people waste?

Instagram, have you got the app yet? I love it, I encourage people to get it, its a photo sharing site that's global, you can follow others on it and they can follow you, you can also search #hashtags for interesting things, I love it because when you share a photo it gives you the option of sharing to twitter, facebook, tumblr, flickr and email contacts all at the push of a button, this saves time and its great to update lots of your sites at once. I think Instagram is not too much of a time waster as there is only limited photos to look at unless you follow hundreds of people of course, but I pick and choose who I want to follow carefully, the only thing I hate about it is now the spammers have gone on it and they try and get you to get extra followers and likes, but you can ignore them.

So how much time do you waste?, what tips have you got to stay on track?

feeling like your 12

I had a thought today, it wasn't a pleasant one, I came across another person online whilst on facebook (I'm rather obsessed by it) who I found incredibly rude. Now I don't know this person, shes a friend of one of my friends, I saw her comment on a post so replied with the advice that she should look into soya and hormone problems as she has lots of it, wasn't trying to be funny I genuinely wanted to help, unleash the fury, it was quite unreal, I realised I should maybe keep my opinions to myself, but I don't know about you but I presumed because she is friends with my friend she would be similar to us, would be easy going and nice.

Its made me look at this, just because you have a good friendship doesn't mean you will be friends with their friends does it, do you think we have different friends for our different parts of our personalities? do you think we have various friends to do different things with, to fulfill gaps in our lives.

It made me feel a little sick to be honest, a bit shaken, maybe my bubble of loveliness at home and the people I choose to surround myself with protect me from the outside world to some degree, I think that's why I love the homeschool route too, I know my boys don't have to deal with the bullies, mean folks, some may say its not good to shelter them in this way and they have to learn to deal with such people, but think about it for a minute, why do they?.

Can we not be happy and loved, can we not surround ourselves by good, loving relationships? Of course we can, its all about choice.

I guess that's the down side about social media, you cant really choose who and what your exposed to unless you only have about 5 friends on your page. Which is ok to do if you don't use it for networking.

I organise fairs and need to be able to share events with as many people as possible that's why I have so many 'friends' on fb, that's why I come across idiots who could ruin my day if I let them but I wont, I take a few minutes to look at why I'm feeling the way I do and move on.

can you spot the 5 yr old me?