Personalized insight
How can artists 'On your mark. Get set. Go!' and jump into action?
I’m always encouraging artists to JUMP. But what does that even mean?
The jump is about following your heart.
If you recognize your heart as the very best of yourself, and you acknowledge that this is where your creativity comes from, you can trust your heart to lead.
Don’t confuse your heart with your head. The voices in your head are loud; your heart is quiet. You must listen closely in order to hear it.
Your head is rational.
Your heart sees the invisible. It doesn’t care about logic.
Your head carries the stories of your past.
Your heart carries the wisdom of your past.
When you follow your heart, you can trust yourself. But trusting yourself doesn’t mean you’re not going to fail, not going to get hurt. You will. But you’ll be stronger for getting back up.
When you jump, you find yourself moving between glee and terror. Between faith and dispirit.
The one thing that will ground you, that will balance your senses, is to remain present.
It sounds so simple. But all of our fears are in the future, usually about things we can’t control or don’t yet know.
One of the best ways to return yourself to the present is to identify what you’re grateful for right now. This small singular practice has enormous consequences that will lead to positive change.
And remember that words have power. They matter. So banish the word ‘IF’ from your vocabulary and replace it with ‘WHEN.’
It doesn’t matter that you don’t yet know all the answers. There’s magical power in intention, and an invisible energy behind your affirmation.
This is how you change your life.
You don’t start by changing reality. You simply focus on this moment right now, and you take the opportunity to choose your perception of it by bathing it in gratitude.
Start today. Start now. Jump!
Written by Crista Cloutier, artist mentor + founder of The Working Artist. (learn more about Crista here)
