THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: How do you know the difference between someone who’s committed? Because remember, we said, if you’re just merely interested, you’ll do what’s convenient. If you’re committed, you will do whatever it takes. So what does it look like when you’re just interested versus fully committed? So, people who are just interested, they might say things to me like, ‘Oh, I just want to get my art out there.’ Or I just want to make enough money to earn my supplies. If you’re seeing this as a side hustle or a jobby, you’re not fully committed. Fully committed means you’re going to do whatever it takes. You’re going to go through the pain. You’re going to go through the discomfort. You’re willing to fail in order to live the life of your dreams.
Speaker 2: It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place Podcast, an Art World Insider podcast for artists by an artist where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Well, hey there. Welcome to The Inspiration Place. I’m your host and curator of inspiration, Miriam Schulman. And today, we’re talking all about one of my favorite topics, which is goal setting, but in a completely different way than I’ve talked about it before. So I have an upcoming podcast interview with John Assaraf, and whenever I have guests who’ve written a book, I always like to read their book, and I got a lot of value out of it. And even though I have the interview with him coming up, the conversation went in a different direction than I expected. So I still have content that I want to share with you today around goal setting. So I actually did a mini-training for my accelerator students around that. So I’m going to talk about some of the stuff that we talked about there and some of my other deeper insights. So one of the things that I talk about in the book Artpreneur is that our thoughts and our thoughts about the world create emotions. And our emotional experience is what’s going to drive our actions or inhibit our actions, which will in turn create our results or sabotage our results. Okay, so you have your thoughts that drive your emotions, that drive your actions, that create your results.
So what happens is that if we have a limiting belief, something that is interfering with us getting the result that we want–that’s why it’s limiting us, we won’t get the result we want. So the idea is how do we change our beliefs? And a lot of that has to do with the power of affirmations. And I never quite understood it the way I understood it after I read his book. And like I said, we’re not talking about these things in the interview. You should listen to the interview. It’s amazing. We talk more about Resonance Match during that interview. So that will be coming out in July. But for now, I still want to talk to you about achieving. So what I did was I took what I read in the book and as usual, I expanded it a little bit more. So what I want to share with you are the seven steps for achieving anything you want. Okay, so seven steps to achieve any goal. So achieving goals is a spiritual and non-conscious exercise. What do I mean by that? So when you set a goal, you’re using the conscious part of your brain, which is about 2 to 3% of your brain–is your conscious brain.
The rest of your brain is the nonconscious part. So you set goals with the conscious part, but you achieve them with the nonconscious part. So then it’s how do you change your nonconscious, your deeply ingrained thinking? So there are seven steps to achieving the life of your dreams. So let’s talk about that. So step one for us, I’m going to assume since you’re listening to this podcast, that you know what your passion is, because step one is find something that stirs your soul. So you’re a writer, you’re a painter, you’re a sculptor, you are an actor, or you’re trying to achieve something else. But you know what stirs your soul and you know what that desire is because you do need to recognize your desires before you move forward. But let’s assume you know what that is. And the step two, of course, is to become excellent at that. No one is saying that you should skip this part, but if you’ve listened to my podcast in the past, you know that I say that marketing trumps talent every time. But that doesn’t mean we don’t work at improving our craft. Of course, we have to master craft. Of course, we have to be good. Arrogance is not going to take us very far. All right. And step three is to create the goal. And I recommend that you write it down for all the reasons I talk about in the book, Artpreneur.
When you write it down, it activates both sides of your brain. It really helps in print and helps tell you and your unconscious [brain] what it is that you want. But here’s where things get more interesting. Step four. You have to really commit to it. And by that, we’re talking about relentless commitment. If you’re just interested in getting something done, you’ll do what’s convenient for you. If you are committed, you’re going to do whatever it takes. Commitment is the key. Sometimes I like to use the Picasso quote, which says it’s easy to be an artist when you’re young. It’s a lot harder when you’re older. That’s not the exact quote. It’s something like that. And I know that Picasso meant it in the sense that creating naive art is better and it’s easier to create naive-looking art when you’re young. It’s much harder to do it when you’re conditioned and you’re older. However, I interpret it as that as you get older, it’s easier to give up. So those of us who just stick with it were the ones who make it all right. And step four is believe. Now, I give a lot of thought work inside the book Artpreneur. I talk about what you might be thinking, your limited beliefs. And so there’s thought works throughout in every single chapter. I think we have thought work. I’m just going to open it up to a random page. So like on page 28, starving artists think ‘I’m not ready yet.’
Artpreneurs believe ‘I’m ready for the next step’. So everything that you might be thinking, we have a replacement thought. So let’s talk about how we’re going to change those beliefs from what starving artists think to what Artpreneur believe. Everything. Everything starts with an idea. And as artists, we know this. We have an idea to create a book. We can’t create a book until we have that idea. So everything starts with an idea, which is a thought. So in other words, everything starts with our thoughts. Thought is the most powerful force in the universe. And you get what you’re looking for. So if you believe it’s not a good time, that’s a starving artist thought, you’re going to find all kinds of evidence about why it’s not a good time. “Oh, that’s a sign” you know, “Something—something crashed. That’s a sign”. Like “My credit card didn’t go through. That’s a sign”. It’s not a sign. Just keep at it. It’s your time. It’s your time. If you’re thinking, “This won’t work for me because—” you will find all kinds of evidence and all kinds of reasons. We’ve talked about this before. Whenever you have fear, you will come up with all kinds of stories why this is a terrible idea and you will continue to find evidence about why it’s a bad idea. If you believe this will work for me, you will find evidence about why it will work for you. If you think to yourself, “I don’t know how to”, then you will fixate on that.
Instead, you can think “I’m figuring this out. I can’t wait to figure this out”. So change what you’re looking for. You can do this by changing your beliefs and stop thinking starving artist thoughts and instead think like abundant Artpreneurs believe they have different thoughts. Okay. So what is a belief? A belief really is a habit. A habit. A thought. My mom used to say to my sister when she was having like, her little tantrums, I’m not going to say how old she was when she was having tantrums. But she said she would tell my sister, “Change that tape in your head”. So when you’re saying negative thoughts, you’re practicing negative thoughts and those become your beliefs. If you practice positive thoughts, that habit of thought becomes your positive belief. To turn a thought into a habit, you have to practice it. So let’s talk about the different ways you can talk about turning your thoughts into beliefs. One way that I did when and I do this actually quite a bit, so one way I suggest is you write the new thought you want to believe every day or you say it out loud or you make a tape or you post it up in your room somewhere so you can look at it every day. That’s definitely a great technique. I did this when I was going for my book contract.
Every day I wrote down, ‘I’m going to sign with an agent’. And then when it got narrowed down where I knew it was–it looked like it was going to be Michelle. I’m going to sign with Michelle Martin. And then after I signed with the book agent, “I’m going to get a publishing contract”. Now, apparently it’s supposedly really hard to get an agent and literary agent and a book contract. I didn’t know this. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing I didn’t know this so I didn’t have to overcome those beliefs that this is going to be too hard. So I didn’t sabotage myself with these limiting beliefs. If an agent rejected me, I was like, okay, so it’s not that agent. I have a whole list of agents. I’m just going to keep going down my list. Now, Michelle actually happened to be one of my top choices, but that’s because I knew that we were a resonance match. I knew that she worked with other thought leaders like me and that she would be able to see the value on how I can sell my message and how I can package it as a book. So it was a good match for me. So there were other people who initially thought they’d be a good match for me. When they read my proposal, they didn’t like it and they let me know. There was a lot of tears shed. But I didn’t give up.
J.K. Rowling didn’t give up either. So she was not accepted by her first, second, third, fourth–I think she applied to at least 30 publishing houses before they bought her and bought her book. Harry Potter, which is why she is with what was then a very little-known publisher, Scholastic. Okay. So she didn’t give up. She kept going. All right. Step five is understand how to make money with your desire. So we talked about step one is find out what stirs your soul. Step two, get excellent at it. Step three, create the goal. Then you have to have the right beliefs in place. But then you also need to learn how to make money with this. That’s where my book Artpreneur comes in. That’s where my course the Artist Incubator comes in. So if you want to learn more about the incubator, go to SchulmanArt.com/BIZ and we do have some free training that will help get you started if you’re not ready to invest in the incubator quite yet. So that’s where we talk about how to make money and how to change your beliefs. Alright. So we’re going to take a quick break. And when we return, we’re going to talk about the next steps.
**Artpreneur Review**
Miriam Schulman: Welcome back. So we are talking about the next step. And I realized what I did wrong is I actually had re—had made a mistake in numbering the goal. So I think I had a number four twice. So step three is is create the goals. Step four is commit to it. Step five is believe. And that is pretty much where we left off. So step six is understand the strategy. In other words, whether you join the incubator or you work with somebody else, or you’re just learning how to make money from what it is that you’re good at. And step seven is to take daily inspired action. Now it’s much easier to take these actions when you believe. When you don’t believe, you’re going to sabotage yourself. You’re either not going to do the actions or you’re going to do it in a half-hearted way because you’re trying to avoid failure or avoid disappointment or to avoid the negative thing that you think might happen whether you succeed or don’t succeed. So those types of avoidance tendencies or the discomfort of doing something that’s scary, so you’re trying to avoid the thing.
So let us review the seven steps. So step one is find your passion. Step two is to become excellent at it. Now, I was asked very recently on a podcast, how do people find their passion? I’ve been asked that on more than one podcast. And my answer really is that by the time someone comes to me, I assume that they not only have already found their passion and not only have they gotten good at it, but they’re committed. And so the podcast interview or one of them said, ‘How do you know the difference between someone who’s committed?’ Because remember, we said, if you’re just merely interested, you’ll do what’s convenient. If you’re committed, you will do whatever it takes. So what does it look like when you’re just interested versus fully committed? So people who are just interested, they might say things to me like, ‘Oh, I just want to get my art out there.’ Or ‘I just want to make enough money to earn my supplies’.
If you’re seeing this as a side hustle or a jobby, you’re not fully committed. Fully committed means you’re going to do whatever it takes. You’re going to go through the pain. You’re going to go through the discomfort. You’re willing to fail in order to live the life of your dreams. All right. Let’s continue back with those steps. Okay, So we’re set. Find your passion, become excellent, commit, and make a goal. Believe in the possibility of the goal. Believe that you can do it. Believe that it’s going to happen. Keep retraining your thoughts till you have that habit of thought. That habit of thought is what a belief is. You need to learn how to make money from it. That’s what I do on this podcast and my book and inside the Artist Incubator and then take inspired daily action. These are the seven steps and it’s not linear. Continually, they’re kind of circular because you have to—you take an inspired action. If you fail, you have to recommit. You have to learn how to believe. You have to believe new things. You might have to modify your goals, not to lessen your goals. But things may change a little bit. You may have to find out different things. You might need to learn different skills to get to where you need to go. So these are seven steps, but they are definitely not linear.
This is a circular process. All right. I want to share some of the ways that I retrain myself with beliefs. So inside Artpreneur, I give you what are starving artists think and what Artpreneurs need to believe, but I don’t talk to you as much about how do you really change those thoughts? So some of the things I do is I will write down at the beginning of the day and I think I’ve already shared this like I’m going to sign a book, I’m going to get a book contract. I’m going to sign with Michele Martin, I’m going to get a contract with HarperCollins. And I also do this throughout in my art journal. So those of you who have taken my Painting with Words course or have seen any of my art journaling, I actually will make art journal spreads out of what I need to believe. So I’m going to share a few of these beliefs that I have inside my current art journal. And that you can feel free to borrow any of these.
I am beautiful.
I’m worthy.
I love money.
What I say matters.
My own life inspires me and others.
I am a quantum soup of infinite possibility.
I also like to celebrate some of my wins in here, so I might write something that I sort of believe, but not completely. So, for example, I might write down ‘Inspirational speaker.’ I might also write down something that I want to remember because when I art journal and I color it in, it helps imprint it in my brain.
Living from your future. Your future is a resource. Best-selling book. Million Dollar Miriam. These are things that haven’t happened yet. Well, the best-selling part has. I’m a best seller on Amazon in a certain category during a certain period of time. So I’ll take it. This was one that I talked about before it happened, and then I celebrated it when it happened. #1 New rRelease on Amazon. And the coloring it in helps me meditate on these new beliefs. Um, I might make a goal of how many books, how much money I want to make in a year. Here’s a couple of things that I had written down Artpreneur and airports. This, you may recognize is the first chapter of my book, Choose to Believe, which, by the way, you can always get if you dm me the word ‘Believe’ on Instagram and I will send you chapter one absolutely free. Uh, and then I have some other things that I haven’t quite colored in yet. But just so you could see my process, I will write on top of what already happened. So this is going back from February, March. I wrote on top of it and then I’m going to color in around it. So some of the mantras I have in here, ‘money is flowing to me from both expected and unexpected places’.
Okay. So we’ll be back in just a moment.
**Artpreneur Review**
Miriam Schulman: All right. Welcome back. And let me just continue sharing with you some of these beautiful affirmations that you can use. And I do want to remind you that you can get a set of affirmations when you download chapter one of my book, Choose to Believe. We are giving away 12 affirmations along with that chapter. So to get your hands on that, go to SchulmanArt.com/Believe. You’ll get the first chapter ‘Choose to Believe’ as well as 12 audio affirmations. In the meanwhile, here are some affirmations that you would like. Here are some affirmations that you can use. I give myself permission to be powerful. I live each day with passion and purpose. I am a success in all that I do. I always have enough money for all that I need. My business is now filled with prosperity and abundance. And then I have some more I’m just going to share. Those are the ones I haven’t colored in yet, but I have do shit you don’t want to do. Uh, what else do I have in here? So I put all of these in my planner because that is something that I have all the time.
Maybe I will vibrate on filling up my accelerator program. By the way, I do have seven in the current cohort and for the fall there’s only ten spots. It’s actually half filled already for the fall. If you’re interested in the accelerator, go to SchulmanArt.com/BIZ and you can check out the programs that I have available and apply to be part of the accelerator or join the Artist Incubator program. Okay, so here is another one. What I may even include like a quote like that. Art is never finished, only abandoned.
All right, my friend. So I hope you got so much out of this episode. Remember the seven steps of how to achieve any goal. Find your passion. Become excellent. Commit. Make a goal. Believe. Find out how to make money from it and take inspired action. All right, my friend. So that’s it for today. Until next time, stay inspired.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart on Instagram @schulmanart and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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