Celebrating How Far We’ve Come
Dear Subscriber,
Welcome, subscribers new and old! We’ve enjoyed sharing our insights with you this year, and hope you’ve gotten value from our newsletter. Your feedback helps us grow and serve you better.
This month we take a look at the year gone by, celebrate our wins, and appreciate the lessons we’ve been given. Next issue, we’ll create our plans for a successful 2005.
If this newsletter is useful to you, please click the link at the bottom to forward a clean copy to a friend.
Wishing you a Happy, Healthy, Joyous Holiday Season,
- The Coaches of Artist’s EDGE -
Debra Russell and Wendy Keilin
Challenge of the Month
As 2004 draws to a close, it’s worth taking some time to reflect on the passing year – to celebrate what we’ve accomplished, the challenges we’ve overcome, and the learning we’ve gained in the process.
This month, we explore the value of a year-end assessment, and present some concrete suggestions for doing one.
In our January issue, we’ll apply this year’s learning toward planning for success in 2005.
Wendy’s Solutions
So why is it worthwhile to assess the year gone by? Because there’s a surprisingly fertile field there to be mined for gold.
I encourage my clients to cultivate a general focus on the positive – on what’s working, where they’re headed, what they’re grateful for, what’s good about themselves and their lives. I do this because I’ve found it to be remarkably effective. So I was jazzed to hear of a recent scientific study confirming this.
In this series of studies, participants who regularly wrote down things they were grateful for felt better about their lives, were more optimistic, made more progress toward their goals, felt more connected to others, were more supportive, experienced fewer physical complaints, got more and better sleep, and even exercised more. On top of all that, their significant others noticed the difference! Another study showed that positive emotions broaden mindsets and build enduring psychological, social, and spiritual resources – reserves to be drawn on in times of need.
Keeping a gratitude journal (the tool the study used) is one great way to cultivate a proactive, can-do outlook that leads to results. A related technique I use is maintaining a “win log” – taking a few minutes each day to write down at least three things (you’ll probably find dozens) that you’re proud of, things you did well, results you produced, even happy accidents. (But really, there are no accidents, right?)
Take a moment to really celebrate your wins – you’ll be amazed how wonderful this feels. You deserve to feel great. (Some of you don’t think you do, but the truth is it works, so why not? Why are you listening to those negative messages anyway? Is it helping?)
Feeling great is like turbo fuel for your engine – you’ll accomplish way more of what’s important to you, with less effort and more fun. Filter in all the positive you can find – let the negative brush past you like chatter at a party. You can only take in so much anyway. Tune your dial to pick up the good stuff.
Sometimes there are things we’re not feeling great about. Even these are wins, when looked at through our half-full glass. Things always go exactly the way they’re supposed to, and that’s a good thing! Everything that doesn’t go the way you want is an opportunity – to learn what works, to confront your growing edge. Life only presents what you can handle, so interpret the challenges as an acknowledgment of how far you’ve come! Find the lesson in it, apply it, and move on.
As you assess your passing year, tune into the wins and the lessons, toward a successful 2005!
Wendy is no longer with Artist’s EDGE. To contact her click here.
Debra’s Solutions
Looking back at 2004 can feel overwhelming, so where do you start? First set aside a few hours of uninterrupted time, perhaps an evening after dinner. Pour yourself a glass of wine, sit down with your calendar, a notebook and a good pen. Brainstorm all the obvious accomplishments for the year. Notice the “Yeah, but” voices. (Yeah, but you didn’t do this….) and tell them they will have their chance when you plan 2005. Right now, you’re focusing on what you accomplished.
Once you’ve tapped the obvious things, use your calendar to jog your memory. List everything, big and small, complete and still in progress. Maybe you’ve finished half of your CD or film. That’s still an accomplishment, right? Then, ask yourself the following questions:
- How did I grow in order to accomplish that?
- What did I learn from those experiences? (remember you can learn from both positive and negative experiences)
- What were my goals for 2004 – how much have I achieved?
- How have I changed in this past year?
We will use this material to springboard our planning for 2005. It’s a critical component of any plan to establish your starting point.
Acknowledging your accomplishments is imperative to stave off burn out. If you only focus on what’s not done yet, what you are really telling yourself is, “It’s not enough. This accomplishment isn’t enough, because I didn’t finish….” And if you tell yourself that often enough, you will begin to believe it’s never enough. No matter what you accomplish, it will never be enough. This, my friends, is the recipe for burn out.
There’s another side to this. As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, “Whatever we put our attention on will grow stronger in our life.” So focusing on what you lack will increase deficiencies in your life. Focus your attention on the successes, accomplishments, and wins and increase your abundance.
Contact Debra for a Complimentary Coaching Session
Get the Artist’s EDGE!
Free Workshop
Get The Artist’s EDGE is a free class by phone that takes the themes from the Artist’s EDGE newsletter and expands on them live.
This month we’ll be celebrating and learning from the past year. You’ll have the opportunity to work with expert coaches, Debra and Wendy, on the challenges you’re currently facing. Every workshop will be different, so attend as often as you like.
Register for ‘Get The Artist’s EDGE’ Free Teleclass
Artist’s Edge Looks Back
While we’re recommending you to look back and assess your year, we thought it only fitting to take the opportunity ourselves. We’re so pleased and proud with how our Artist’s Edge partnership has grown this year!
We got our beautiful web site up in May, and sharpened up our wonderful logo (at upper left). We’ve been adding resources to our resources page, and keeping you abreast of our events.
With Debra’s move to California, a long-time dream of hers, we’re now bi-coastal! This way we’ve been able to cover twice as many conferences – the IMC, West Coast Songwriters, FAR-West, the IFP Market, NERFA, Taxi. It’s been really fun to meet people at one conference who’d already met the other one of us at a conference across the country, and really gratifying to see our name recognition spreading.
We both spoke at conferences – Wendy on Mining the Gold from Your Conference at the Independent Music Conference in September, and Debra on creating a 5-year plan at FAR-West in October – and produced printed materials that people have been finding really useful.
And of course, we started this newsletter – already in its seventh monthly issue (you can view past issues on-line). We’ve been so pleased at the great feedback we’ve been receiving from so many of you. Please keep letting us know what we’re doing well, and how we can serve you better.
And please forward a copy along to friends you think would appreciate it – that’s how we continue to grow and make a bigger impact.
Cool Resource
Since we’re on the subject of gratitude and appreciation of our lives, how about giving yourself a holiday gift of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s lovely book, The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude.
This is an actual day-by-day journal for counting your blessings, sprinkled with inspriational words of wisdom. Happy holidays!
Also, if you’d like to see the actual paper on the gratitude studies, it’s here.
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