Transforming Your Art Business: Work with Yourself, Not Against Yourself

Megan Wimberley: 00:00:01

Hi, welcome to Cowgirl Artists of America's podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Cowgirl Artists of America, Megan Wimberley.

Today we're going to be talking about how to work with yourself instead of against yourself to build an art business that actually fits you.

If you're like me, you probably love reading business books, learning how to set goals, how to accomplish goals, and learning from what other people do. At some point in my career, I realized that I was trying to follow systems that weren't actually made for me. That's because we're all different.

And so what works for one artist or one business owner or one guru or whatever it is who you're reading may not work for you because your body and your brain and your particular situation in life is different.

An easy example of this is if you're a night owl or a morning person, but you find yourself trying to do work at the time of day when you're least active or least alert.

So if you're a night owl, but you find yourself trying to wake up at 4:30 so that you can paint by 5 like your friend does, because it works for them, but you find that you are just. It's a struggle and a slog and you don't enjoy it and it's. It's hard to do. That's because you're not working with yourself.

Now sometimes, of course, there are situations in life where we can't set up our ideal systems, and we're going to talk about that a little bit.

But so much of what we're doing, we can make it so much harder or so much easier simply by being mindful of how we are setting systems up to work with us or against us. So I want you from here on out to think, how can I work with myself and how can I set myself up for success?

It's kind of like if you've ever worked with horses or children or dogs, you want to set them up to do the right thing. You try to. You don't give a third grader an algebra quiz. That's for a senior. They're not going to know how to do it.

And you're not going to take a young horse into a rodeo arena that's only been written three times. You're going to do things slowly to set them up for success or even create a system where they can. It's only possible for them to do the right thing.

You're going to do the same thing with yourself. You're going to be working with yourself.

So I want you to think about just who you are, how your body, how your energy functions and flows, what are your natural rhythms, when and how do you do your best work?

This could be creatively and administratively and for a lot of us those two things are equally important but use very different aspects of who we are. So for example, I'm really not a morning person. I do like to have a routine. I don't naturally wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed like my dad does.

I wish I did, but I don't. So. But I, but I do know that once I get up, once I have my coffee and breakfast, my brain's ready to go. It's fresh.

And so it's easier and better for me to do harder brain, heavy thought heavy work in the morning and then go do painting in the evening. Because even though. Or the afternoon.

Because even though for me painting is very brain involved, it's very thoughtful and I'm actively engaged, it's also a different sort of engaged. I also know as I've gotten older, for example, that if I'm going to get work done at 7:30, like good luck, it's not happening. Like if I.

Even when I've like had situations where I'm like, okay, I really do have to do something past this time because there's just a deadline looming. It's going to take me so much longer to do it after seven than it would have if I would have done it first thing in the morning.

So that's another really great example.

When we're working against ourselves, not only is it harder, but often it takes longer and it takes more of our time away from doing the things that would be better to do at that time. So again, think about when do you like to wake up, when do you like to go to sleep, when do you notice that you have energy?

I know there are a lot of women now even thinking about their cycle throughout the month because hormonal fluctuations can cause fatigue, brain fog, you might have cramps, things like that that you deal with.

And if you know those things are coming up and that those are things that you deal with, you can plan out some of your tasks for what's going to work best.

If you know you're going to be in bed for a day with cramps, but you don't mind working on your computer, maybe that's a good office work day, or maybe it's just a good rest day because we have to learn how to take care of ourselves. In fact, one of the probably hardest lessons I've learned, you know, I think so many of us have learned how to kind of disconnect from our bodies.

It's like the, I can't think of the phrase, but there was this phrase I grew up with about like making your flesh obey you basically. And, and we learn, and it is good to learn how to have self discipline.

But there's a difference between self discipline and not listening to our body because our body tells us really important things. And when we don't listen to it, sometimes we actually cause long damage to ourselves, whether physically or emotionally or mentally.

And so I learned that one of my strengths is working really hard, but that our strengths, often taken to the extreme, become a weakness. And so I was able to work really hard for a very extended amount of time.

But at some point it was causing me to feel really bad and to become very anxious and at one point even to feel so burned out that I started feeling depressed and really having a hard time. And it was because I was not listening to what my body was trying to tell me.

And the thing is, when we get to that point, we learn pretty quickly that we actually can't do anything if we don't take care of ourselves.

You know, if you, if you weren't meeting the things that your body needs, you can't do anything because the way in which you function in the world is through your body.

So if, whenever you start thinking, ah, whatever, I don't need to exercise, I don't need to eat, well, I, whatever, you know, it is, no, you do need to do those things because if you don't take care of your body, your body is the vehicle that you do the things that you're passionate about.

So this is a really important conversation because not only is it about helping you to set yourself up for success and make things easier, it's also about enabling you to continue to do that for longer. So a big part of this is taking time to plan and to build systems.

So for example, if you are using hopefully a digital calendar, but some sort of calendar, I do recommend digital because you can access them anywhere. You can start scheduling in those things. So say you, you want to. This doesn't sound like business, but again, our body is the way that we do things.

Say you're wanting to start working out and getting in shape.

And for myself, I know that if I try to make myself wake up early to go work out, I'm going to be weak, I'm going to be tired, I'm not going to have as good of a workout and Actually, the rest of my day is going to feel pretty crappy. My brain's going to be foggy, I'm going to be sluggish, I'm going to feel like I need a nap. It's just the reality of it.

My partner on the other hand, he could go out and pretty much run a marathon early in the morning. He is good to go, he feels great, but that is not how my body is.

And if I look at Pete and think, oh, I should be like him because look how in shape he is and look how well he does, I can't do that because I could try to follow the exact same thing as him. And the reality is not only am I going to be not successful at working out, I probably won't stick to that habit.

I'm also going to be unsuccessful at my work for that day because I have done something that doesn't work for my body. So you got, don't, don't just tell yourself, I've just got to push myself through this. I've got to work harder, I've got to not be lazy.

I got to, I got to, I got to think and said I can set myself up to do this in a way that feels good to me, in a way that's a little bit easier. So I'm going to teach you some systems and some tricks that have worked for me. One of them again is pre scheduling that time.

So for example, I know midday workouts are best for me. So I just have that as a reoccurring event on certain days in my schedule. And I know I'm going to schedule around that thing.

I know that thing is coming up. I know that my brain does better with office work and administrative tasks in the morning. So I'm going to put those in the morning.

I'm going to schedule those things for in the morning. I know that my brain shuts down in the evening. So I'm going to make my workday end at 5 and I'm going to try to do in the afternoon and evening.

The last part of my workday is going to be more about painting.

I have also recently started setting some really strict rules about not working after a certain time and not being on social media after a certain time or on the weekends.

And that's really helping me a lot because social media is one of those ever present things that we can feel like we have to do it, we have to constantly be looking at it. We're hoping that we can get collectors eyes on our work and things like that.

And we feel this constant need to be available and active in those spaces. Uh, I have very recently stopped letting myself get on social media at all on the weekend, and absolutely no checking of emails on the weekend.

And it was the first time in years that on Sunday I was ready to get back to work. I was looking forward to Monday morning. And so that's another good thing.

When we do these things, when we listen to our body, we can bring back some excitement back into the tasks that we do. Sometimes we're having a trouble, a hard time doing tasks because we're feeling feelings of procrastination. We have a hard time getting going.

And procrastination is a big one. And I think a lot of us feel kind of guilty or inadequate when we experience those feelings of procrastination.

But the reality is that often procrastination is the result of stress. And so when you're feeling that I don't want to get started, I don't want to do that, take a beat and ask yourself, what am I stressed about?

What am I afraid about with this? What am I worried about? And often you'll find that there's an underlying issue, like, maybe I don't want to do any social media posts.

I. I know I need to. Haven't posted in three weeks, but I don't want to. Okay, what are you worried about?

Well, I'm worried that what I write sounds stupid and I'm worried that I don't take. The pictures aren't going to be compelling, nobody's going to look at it, nobody's going to comment. What's the use of.

And so once you identify that, then you can redirect your perspective on it. So, okay, well, maybe some of those things are true, but maybe the writing and the photo isn't as good because you're just getting started.

And just like with artwork, you have to make the ugly work to get to the beautiful work. And you will never get better if you don't practice.

And I can say this from experience, because with cga, I have been required to do a lot of things that either weren't in my wheelhouse, weren't a strength of mine, or things that I had to learn. And definitely I was very rusty at those things. I'm not amazing at some of the things that I do. I'm good enough, and that's okay.

But the thing that I. I've really realized is that the more I do some of these things, the more that they start to make sense and the better I get. And so we can't be afraid to, to do the work poorly and, and, and get better. It's totally okay.

We don't first of all have to be perfect at all about anything, but certainly we don't have to be perfect with everything sometimes good enough.

What is it done is better than perfect, I think, because, you know, sometimes the perfection that, striving for perfection, it just causes us to be at a standstill and not get it done at all and never get closer to that level of perfection. Maybe you never reach perfection, but if you don'. Take the practice and do the things, you will never even get close to it.

And so you've just got to have the willingness to do it and not be so worried.

You know, people generally, I think, are, are not going around just waiting for us to do a bad social media post where the photo wasn't lit very well, you know, and, and probably those aren't going to be seen as much anyway. So anyway, the point being is, don't be afraid to be imperfect and ask yourself, why are you procrastinating?

Because often it comes down to stress or anxiety. And when you can find out why that is, maybe you can, maybe you can approach that.

Maybe you're procrastinating painting because your studio is a disaster and you don't want to walk into it because it's like, oh my gosh, nothing is where it needs to be and I'm going to trip on things and I hate being in here because it looks like a disaster after doing three art shows. And so, well, maybe the, the thing is, okay, you know, you want to paint. The thing is the mess. And so you're going to say, all right, you know what?

I'm going to take tomorrow and I'm going to clean my studio because I know it's going to set me up for success. And that's the goal here is, is how do you set yourself up for success? So once you think about those things, you can start making your schedule.

You can build your schedule out. Some people like to do time blocking, which is where you essentially take a block of time. It's just like it sounds.

You take a block of time for a certain thing, and you do that certain thing with focus. And then once that time is over, you go to the next thing. Systems and schedules and routines can be really helpful, but they can also be harmful.

And harmful is not the right word. But sometimes if we don't structure them right, we can get in a rut or they can set us up for failure.

So One thing that I noticed that I was doing is that again, being such a hard worker, I was having really high expectations for all the things that I would accomplish in a day and my schedule would be cram packed back to back. And it still pretty much is. But the thing that I've changed is that I've started adding cushions, room.

And so maybe if I'm like, okay, I need to write my newsletter, and I think it's gonna take. I think I can make myself get it done in 30 minutes.

So I'm gonna schedule it for 30 minutes so that I'll make myself get it done because I have to do something right after that, right? So that was my old mindset. My new mindset is, like, probably my newsletter. It's gonna take me 30 minutes, maybe an hour to get it all together.

So I'm gonna give myself either an hour or an hour and a half.

And the great thing about that is if I get done before the hour and a half that I blocked in, I can either go to the next thing and start working on it, and guess what? Yay, I'm ahead. Or I can say, hey, nice, I'm gonna go for a walk, I'm gonna have a snack.

Whatever it is, I'm gonna do something nice, Take care of myself in this moment because I did the thing I needed to do. Both of those things are super valid.

But the thing is, is that when I started building that cushion in, I no longer came into situations where, oh, I thought my. I could force myself to get my newsletter done in 30 minutes, but it took me an hour. And now I'm behind on two other tasks that I missed.

Now that's not the case. Now if I, if it takes a little longer, typically I've already accounted for that, so it doesn't make me behind.

And it's better to set ourselves up for success about being ahead than on getting behind. Because, you know, so many tasks, they're harder than you think they are. Something comes up, your wi fi goes out, whatever it is.

So that's another way to set yourself up for success.

I also, I. I noticed something that I was doing that was setting myself up for failure was that I would plan these trips where I was going, driving like 17 hours to Arizona. I was going to be at an event for a week. It was going to be a lot of work. I was going to come back home, and I was.

And I was working through the weekend. Well, I would arrive back on Sunday. So Monday morning, I need to get to work. Well, that's silly. Like, I never gave myself breaks.

So now I try to schedule a day or two of rest days after an event, whether it's a big event or a small event, I take those things into account. Because we can't just push ourselves forever and ever and ever.

And if you push yourself too hard, eventually you get burned out, you get sick, you can't keep doing the things. And you gotta take care of your body.

Your struggles might be different than the ones that I'm talking about for me, but you're probably thinking of ways in which you've set your schedule up. Maybe your schedule is the opposite.

Maybe you prioritize flexibility so much that no matter what happens that comes up in the day, whether it's a friend who wants to come and have coffee with you or somebody, whatever, anything it is that comes up, you're like, okay, I'll go do that. I need to do X, Y and Z. I need to go grocery shopping. I need to do laundry. I need to go. My friend wants to have coffee. I'm gonna do that.

And before you know it, you haven't done any work. So you're setting yourself up for failure by not doing the work. And maybe the thing you need to do is be more strict with your schedule.

So, like I said, this is different for everybody. But you're probably noticing things now when it comes to routines.

There are some things that we can do in our routine that helps us when we are feeling stuck or procrastinating, and that is rituals. And I've talked about rituals before, but they can be really powerful, and they don't have to be big.

So, for example, when I first noticed how powerful this was, it was whenever I had first started running, trying to get back into running a few years ago, and I found myself listening to the same album every time that I went running. There was this album I really enjoyed listening to while I was running.

So I would play that, and I got to where after that, I had been doing this for a little while. I would be in the car and. And a song from this album would come on.

And even though I had not been thinking about running at the time, all of a sudden I was like, oh, I really want to go for a run. And so I thought, okay, this is interesting. It's like Pavlo's dog. You know, the guy that rings the bell and the dog salivates.

We can do that for ourselves as a way to set ourselves up for success. So maybe every time you paint, you make a hot tea or a Hot coffee or, you know, hot beverage.

And you play a podcast, or you play a book or you play some music. And you do that every single time.

And eventually what that does is whenever you start doing that, it starts preparing your brain and your body to do that task.

But the great thing is that sometimes when you have a day where you're like, I know I have to paint today, I really don't want to, I'm not feeling it. Guess what? You go and you start making that hot tea and now all of a sudden your body's getting ready to do it.

Your brain, it's so interesting because your brain just starts flipping, flipping into that mode. Now obviously some days that's not going to work. Maybe you've got a migraine or whatever and that's a different story.

But those rituals can really help set us up for success and help us to get over a hump when we're having a hard time getting going. There are lots of different things like this. One of the things you're going to want to do is just identify, where are my pain points?

Where do things feel sticky? Where do I feel stuck? And then figure out how.

Like if you can figure out why the caught, what the cause is and then figure out ways to go around that. Our last meetup about organization, Molly Mellinger talked a little bit about this.

In a physical space, like if you are in your studio and there's your paint isn't easy to access. Well, okay, you need to create a way for your paint to be easy to access, things like that.

So this is, this can be a physical space, it can be a brain block, it can be emotions, it can be your physical well being. You know, when your energy levels are. So think about where those points are and then think, how do I set myself up for success?

Now sometimes you really can't. I set yourself up for success ideally. Maybe the reality is that you really want to be able to paint from three to six every day.

That's your sweet spot.

Maybe you work a part time job in the morning, you're not full time artist yet and you want to paint or make your boots or you know, do your craft from three to six, that's ideal for you.

e reality is you came home at: 12:30

It was kind of interesting because I taught for quite a while in a school for kids with learning disabilities. And so I think old school there was a lot of like, if a kid was just misbehaving in class, it was just because they weren't being disciplined enough.

And it was all about discipline. And certainly, you know, we need discipline and consequences and that sort of thing, but our school is very aware of that.

You know, a lot of people have things that they're struggling with and how can we again set kids up for success?

So maybe that kid in my class who I thought was being a disruption in my class, I found out, oh, actually he has auditory processing problems and he's sitting at the back of the room and he can't hear me. And if I'll put him at the front of the room, he can hear me. And guess what? He's not bored and he doesn't bother his neighbor anymore.

And so it's the same thing in our lives sometimes. Okay, not an ideal situation, but how can I problem solve that?

And, and especially, you know, if it's something like the example I was giving a minute ago. Maybe it's that you, your kids have a mandatory play outside time for a few hours when they get home from school.

Or maybe, you know, you set up some systems, you have their snacks pre made or you teach them to make their own snacks.

But, but I guess the point that I'm making here is that sometimes we get stuck in a perspective and we assume this is just the way it is, there's nothing I can do about it. But sometimes when we think creatively and say, okay, I really do want this to be different, how can I creatively solve this problem?

A lot of times there are creative ways to solve the problem or at least reduce the problem. And so when you're stuck in those ideal, less than ideal situations, how can you make it a little bit more ideal?

And sometimes call up your friend or if you're a member, go in the member space and be like, oh my gosh, I need to paint at 3. My kids are so rowdy. What do you mothers do?

Like, how do you, what are some tips and tricks and lean on your community to help you find some, some problems, you know, that are some solutions. That's not the only problem that people encounter. That's just one example. So use your community.

They are a great resource so the next thing that we're going to talk about is, is just a little bit about redefining productivity and success to be more on your terms. And so one of those things is to just stop measuring yourself by someone else's pace or method.

When you look at what other people are doing, you've got to remember most of what we're seeing is on social media.

And I think there are some people on social media who are truly dishonest, who are just trying to create a facade and make people believe something about them. But for the most part, I don't think that that's typically true.

I think simply what happens is that that is their public facing account and it's just like going on a first date or, you know, we have businesses and we're promoting our business and so we're not going to go on our account and be like, oh my gosh, today was the worst day of my life. I started a fire in my studio on accident and I'm broke and life is just terrible. You know, we're not going to do that.

That's not the way people are going to approach.

So the point being is when you look at people's social media, they could have had the worst day of their life, but they're posting a picture from last year on their painting vacation in Spain and you would be none the wiser.

And so if you're measuring your success or your pace by what you're seeing on someone's social media, you've got to remember that that's not a real way to even measure what's going on in their life.

And oftentimes, like we see people say maybe having a lot of success in their career and you maybe just started following them because they were having success and the algorithm was pushing that out to you.

And so you started following them at the same time 5,000 other people started following them, but you didn't follow them for the last 10 years when they were building their career and making ugly work before they got to the beautiful work. So you just, you have to, you have to run your own race.

You can't constantly be looking at what other people are doing and worrying about not being where they are. Another thing to be thinking about is being sustainable, being consistent.

And so, you know, I found myself the last few years with CGA working at really an unsustainable pace. And I've been slowly trying to like rein that back in.

But you know, we get really passionate about what we're doing, opportunities come up, but we have to be really mindful because I, I was cognizant of how hard I was working and I knew I couldn't do that forever.

And I kind of had a stop point for when I was going to do that, stop doing that and slow some things down or like make sure I had implemented better systems. So I was being really cognizant about it.

But even with that, I still, like I said, got to a point where with running two businesses, running CGA and running my art career, I was absolutely exhausted and my mental health was suffering and I was just so tired and on the edge of burnout. And so even though I was approaching things really mindfully, I still got myself to that level.

And the reality is if I would have continued at that pace, I wouldn't be able to keep doing the things that I'm doing. And so the, it's the same for you. You have to make sure you're working at a sustainable pace so that you can keep going long term.

It's not about this quick win, which probably isn't even going to happen. It's about looking towards the future and helping to take the steps towards that future in a way that you can continue to do long term.

You don't wanna, you don't wanna fizzle out, right? You've gotta take care of yourself. You gotta give yourself permission to slow down.

Again, going back to those social media, the, I don't want to say facades because I don't think people are being fake, but just like we don't see the whole picture, social media is incomplete.

So going back to the incomplete picture of people's lives on social media, it can really make us feel like we, we've got to speed up or we've got to push through or whatever. And sometimes really the best thing you can do to make measurable gains is to go take a nap.

Maybe you don't take the nap and you work on the thing you're working on, but it takes you two hours when it would have taken you one if you would have come back to it, rested. I realized for myself that I was having this feeling of what I call a buzzy energy.

I was essentially my body and my emotions were approaching everything with the energy as if it was an emergency. It didn't matter what it was.

And I think it started because I was doing things so fast and really trying to get a lot done and wanted to be really good about the way I was creating things. And so I was just going, going, going, and so my body was always ramped up.

And I realized one day I was answering emails, just questions and emails, and I had that same feeling.

And I was like, okay, I am internally approaching this email as if it is an emergency, and my body is ramped up to emergency level nonstop, because that's the energy I'm bringing. And now when I start feeling that, that is a immediate trigger that I think to myself, oh, hold on, that's not how I'm approaching things.

I want to approach things from a more grounded, peaceful place.

And it's kind of interesting that I'm talking about this right now, because literally last night I was doing some planning for my art business, and I'm really excited about some things, and I have some big goals that I'm working on, and I want to make them happen right away. That's kind of my M.O. even though I'm working on it. That's a habit I've had for a long time. And I got kind of into it and.

And that buzzy energy hit and I didn't pay attention to it. And I was just, like, leaned in. And wouldn't you know it, I got close to bedtime thinking about all these plans, and I was having some major anxiety.

And I. I realized the next morning it was because I allowed my body to kind of spiral into that emergency level anxiety. Planning. Instead of thinking from a place of groundedness and peace, I was thinking of a place from. Strictly from.

I want to get all this accomplished. I have all these goals. I want to make it happen now. And that, first of all, is just unreasonable. I cannot paint five large paintings in one day.

That's not going to happen. But also, if I have that energy, I'm not going to be able to create my best work. I'm not going to be able to be present in the moment.

I'm not going to be able to be mindful and grounded and peaceful. And that's the thing for me is I want to be mindful and grounded and peaceful. And I think when.

When you're thinking through these things, I think that's a good thing to say. Like, how do I want to feel in my business? How do I want to feel when I'm planning? How do I want to feel when I'm working?

And you can use that as a measure of success. So maybe used to. I measured my success in, oh, I had 20 things on my task list, by the way. That's unreasonable. But I accomplished them all. Yay, me.

Now, I would say, oh, like, yeah, I did accomplish a lot, but I kind of feel pretty yucky at the end of the day. So that's not sustainable long term. So I want to approach this with more groundedness tomorrow.

And if you struggle with this, what actually whatever it is, whether it's like the overworking, like pushing yourself too hard or if it's the under functioning making excuses to not get in the studio, you can start doing a daily journal and in the morning just say, I want my day to feel. And it could be different each day, but that way you're setting your intention. And then my top three tasks that I want to accomplish today are these.

That's a really great way to set an intention and have a reasonable goal and set yourself up for success long term. Make sure though that you are taking breaks, that you are taking care of yourself and that you are getting out.

Like being an artist is such a solitary task for most of us. We end up in our studio a lot not talking to anyone and it can get lonely.

And I think it's easy for us to not realize that we're feeling lonely because our work is so engaging. And I don't think sometimes we recognize it until we get out with our artist friends or our friends in general and we're like, oh, this is fun.

Like, oh, I have some ideas for a painting. I feel inspired. So make sure you are taking time for those things that are just to set your yourself up for success as a human being.

Because you are a human being and you are not, not limitless. And even when you're passionate about the work you're doing, it's important to make sure that that is not your whole life.

Our work has to be inspired by the lives that we live. So we can't, can't let go of living life to just live in the studio. I'd be interested to hear what struggles everyone else has.

And I'm sure we'll have some social media posts on Instagram coming up. Or if you're in the member space, you can share your thoughts and feedback about different things like this.

But I know that all of us have these struggles with how, how to just, yeah, not work with, not work against ourselves. I think it's so easy to, to feel that push and that pressure and to not listen to ourselves.

And so learn how to listen to yourself, learn how to work with yourself. Stay in your lane. You're like the horse with the blinders on, you know, on the racetrack. You don't need to look at what so and so is doing.

You just need to look at the race. You're running and how you can run that race better. I think that's about it that I've got for today.

So just as a refresher, find your pain points, find the sticky spots. Don't work against yourself. Work with yourself. Set yourself up for success.

See if you can find some quick wins this week to just get that little boost of yay, I did it. And then figure out how you can approach those bigger tasks and happy creating. Be kind and be creative. Thanks for spending time with us today.

Remember, the goal isn't to push yourself harder or to force yourself into a box that was created for someone else. It's to learn how to work with yourself and not against yourself so you can work smarter and not harder and build a creative life that supports you.

When you stop fighting yourself, you free up so much more energy for what really matters. Your art, your goals, and in a way that you can do it joyfully. And that feels good to you.

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And if you're ready to go deeper, Cowgirl Artists of America is here to help you connect with a community of artists doing the same work, learning, growing and thriving together. Enrollment is currently closed, but it will open in December, and you can join the waitlist at cowgirlartistofamerica. Org.