There are times when you find yourself reflecting on the choices you make. Like when you’re laying in the middle of your driveway, reflecting on the laws of physics and the frailty of the human body.

Allow me to elaborate.

A lesson in physics
I walk my dogs on long leads. Several days ago, as we set out on our usual morning walk, something flashed across the end of the driveway. It was either one of the neighbourhood cats or a hare. I can’t say which because it was moving too fast to identify. The dogs took off, I started running behind them, then one of them suddenly changed direction, and I went down like a gazelle on the savannah. The lions (or in this case, the wolves) abandoned me, apparently far more interested in pursuing smaller prey.

I remember the instant of impact. I’m not even remotely prone to falling, so I vividly remember being shocked at the force when I hit the gravel. I rolled after I fell, but don’t recall how many times.

I figured I wasn’t in nearly enough pain to be seriously injured, but I wasn’t interested in getting up, either.

I considered gathering the dogs before they got into trouble, but I still wasn’t interested in getting up.

I pulled my right hand out from under me and discovered gouges on the heel of my hand. “Great,” I thought, “That’s going to leave some scars.” Didn’t look forward to cleaning the dirt out of the worst one. But that would have to wait a few minutes.

I finally got to my feet and retrieved the dogs, who were in the woods, still frantically sniffing for the mysterious beast that instigated the big adventure. I got them back into the house, cleaned and dressed my hand, inspected the road rash on my left knee (minor) and hip (impressive), and got on with my day, planning my next blog post. The worst of it seemed to be my hand. I couldn’t grasp anything without irritating it, or type very well.

But then there was a second crash. Two days later, my twitchy metabolism let me know I finally pushed it too far. I crawled into bed and stayed there for a day and a half.

Five days after the big fall, I sat across from my doctor and felt the extraordinary ambivalence that comes with the words, “Can you stop work for a while? Can you take the summer off?”

The prospect of having a summer off is like being a kid and finding out school is ending a month early. On the other hand, several weeks without your usual income is okay if you qualify for employment insurance or short term disability, but if you’re self-employed? Not so great. Not even if you have a backup income in the form of a significant other, because your business is still new, and you really don’t want to find it in a shambles when the respite is over.

Like I said, ambivalence.

The hazards of self-employment
My health is a delicate balance at the best of times. I don’t much like discussing it, because I don’t define who I am by my current circumstances. Mostly I’m able to keep myself in running order, but the rigors of a new startup and occasional forays to the land of Forbidden Food left me a little too close to the edge.

The whole “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” thing pretty much did it. To make a long, complicated story short: I’m in the middle of a massive energy crisis.

A tough choice and clear lesson
So there’s a choice to be made: try to keep going with a partially charged battery and scale back as much as humanly possible, or hit the Pause button for a couple of months and let the battery charge fully.

Neither choice feels exactly right for various reasons. But there is one smart choice.

And the only guarantee is there will be lessons learned along the way.

The big lesson so far is simple: I shouldn’t have tried to ramp up a new business while winding down another one. An overlap seems logical, but things haven’t gone as planned. Since I haven’t had enough energy or clarity of thought, I’m not doing anything particularly well.

When you think you’re done, but you’re not
I didn’t expect the sense of loss that came with the decision to wrap up my bricks and mortar artisan venture. I couldn’t grow it the way I wanted to, so instead of driving myself (and everyone around me) crazy bemoaning the fact, I decided to move on to something else. It sounded good, but when I started telling people, I realized I wasn’t entirely relieved. I also had to keep things running until the announced end date. It’s been surprisingly difficult to keep my head in the right place with it.

The best laid plans get bigger than you expect
I was surprised by the amount of work that came with building and marketing an online business. I’d also conveniently forgotten about the standard package of freakouts that come with any new startup. Add to that the demands of running a second business, even though it’s winding down, and the load gets heavier than you ever could have anticipated.

Business, like life, is funny that way.

Check the space between your ears
There’s a big pile of coping in my world. I require more sleep than most humans, which shortens my work day, and have a list of food sensitivities as long as my arm, which strains my sense of humour.

That’s my baseline.

There are also the above-mentioned businesses that need tending.

This may not seem logical, but I discovered it’s not the number of tasks that get you, it’s the consciousness required to keep everything sorted and moving in the right direction. There’s a point where you want to throw yourself down in the middle of the floor and wail like a two-year-old, or do something stupid like eat an entire carton of ice cream, or drink way too much. While that may be cathartic in the moment, there can be consequences (I don’t recommend having the tantrum in the middle of the frozen food section of the grocery store, for example, and no, I did not do that). It may be a pleasant break from your routine, but the work is still there when you’re done.

Taking theory into practice requires a master translator
Yes, I know. This all looks very good in writing, and it seems simple to avoid these painfully obvious problems. But we’re complex creatures—ingenious, creative, resourceful, but when you translate theory into practice, we often discover we’re really not that bright.

Or maybe that’s just me.

But what’s true for most of us is it’s hard to see the big picture when you’re in the middle of it. It often takes a good shakeup to get you to see what’s really going on, and sometimes the only way to deal with a difficult situation is to step out of it.

Ironically, the unexpected meeting with the driveway happened just as things were starting to settle with both businesses and I was getting ahead of the stress. I’m going to tell myself that, anyway. It sounds better to blame irony than to say “My dogs saw a bunny and I fell down.” I’ll save that little gem for when I’m sitting in my recliner in my fancy sweatsuit watching Wheel of Fortune.

What the future holds
I’ll heed my doctor’s advice and spend the summer in my garden, contemplating the mysteries of sorrel and hawkweed. I’ll do my damn stress prevention yoga routine, take my extra supplements, go to bed at 10pm as ordered, and we’ll see what transpires come September.

Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to introduce you to a couple of my friends and colleagues. They’re busy business owners too, so if they aren’t able to finish their guest posts before I officially hang up my Gone Fishin’ sign, we’ll just postpone the introductions.

The moral of the story
I’m writing this story instead of making a short announcement because someone might find some value in my experiences. Like, say, instead of following my stellar example, have a contingency plan in place in case your doctor “suggests” you take some time off work before you do yourself some serious damage.

I’m also writing this because a three week gap would be downright flaky. I believe in being consistent with your brand and your marketing presence, and while I don’t have the illusion that any of us are machines, I also realize that you, dear reader, have reasonable expectations, and continued silence is no way to treat people whose attention I value.

Have your say
Have you ever been faced with choices you’re just not happy with? Does your brain ever elbow your gut out of the way?  Do you have a contingency plan for your own business?

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Sunday, 7:00 p.m. A post needs to be written for Monday morning. It’s not happening.

“Forget it,” I say, “I’m going to welding school.”

“Okay,” the fella replies, in that unmistakable tone. He’s humouring me.

Truth be told, I didn’t use the word “forget.” I used another word, one I don’t throw around in polite company.

I couldn’t do it. The well was dry. I was convinced if I tried to utter one more syllable about marketing, or creativity, I would implode.

Here’s the thing—I have perfectionist tendencies and a long-standing hangover from a sadly misguided Protestant work ethic. My art school roommate used to joke with me about it. I could never relax—an affliction unknown to him—so I’d pretend to razz him about being lazy, and he’d reply, “That’s right,” with a big, cheese-eating grin.

Things haven’t changed much. He still knows how to relax, and I still don’t.

The work ethic has evolved into something more sensible, but it still hangs me up. I feel a huge responsibility to my readers (that would be you) to deliver valuable information. There’s a lot of noise out there. I don’t want to add to it. I don’t want to be a make-believe, self-appointed guru. I want to help people for real.

You would be amazed at how fast that kind of self-inflicted pressure can throw you into a seething pit of self-doubt.

Then again, maybe you wouldn’t.

I’ll bet my last dime you’ve been there at least once. You ask yourself, “Is this good enough?” and a voice rises up like a recurring nightmare, laughs at what you’ve just created, and snorts, “No!”

When that happens, all you want to do is raise the white flag, gather your wounded, and get the hell off the battlefield as fast as you can.

But before you declare your surrender, there’s something you need to know. The voice isn’t yours. And it’s lying to you.

“Is this good enough?” is a worthwhile question. It means you care about what you send into the world. It means you’re not so deluded that you think everything you create is perfect and wonderful. It keeps you from becoming complacent.

If something needs a little more polish, or even a major rework, fair enough. A sense of responsibility to your audience, a sense of integrity, pushes you to be better. A chronic, knee-jerk, all-encompassing negative response will make you crazy. That goes beyond self-doubt and into full-blown self-sabotage. You can’t make anything good when you’re being crushed under that weight.

You need to know where your self-doubt comes from, and you need to shut it down.

You don’t require a PhD in psychology to figure it out. Somewhere along the line, maybe when you were a kid, you got it into your head you couldn’t. That’s not an accidental grammatical error, that’s how it feels when you fall into serious self-doubt. You can’t. Period.

Something happened to make you internalize someone’s criticism. When you were little, you didn’t have the experience, or the vocabulary, to understand how the world works. When someone criticized you in adult terms instead of talking to you at your level of understanding, you weren’t able to reason it out. Adults were powerful. Adults knew everything. So you decided you were wrong.

Maybe it happened later in life. Someone you admired stomped all over you. And you absorbed it.

You might not even be aware of how it seeped into your consciousness. But now you carry it around, a toxic load of criticism and negativity, waiting like a virus to jump on you when your defenses are down.

It might happen when you’re about to send work to a jury, or bidding on a job. It might rear its ugly head when you’re developing new work, or crafting promotional copy.

One negative comment from one person could trigger it.

Or it might just show up when you’re overtired, or when you’ve been working too hard, and all you’re trying to do is something you’ve been doing consistently for months, or even years.

Pull back the curtain and see self-doubt for what it is—an imposter. A boogeyman who should have been retired long ago.

If you learned the skills and executed something that was good, you have proof you can do it. If you’re starting out, you’re not supposed to be a master. Mastery takes time and practice. The “no good” message is a habit so deeply ingrained in your thought patterns it’s automatic.

Self-doubt a short circuit. When you stop the automatic response and change the habit, you fix the wiring.

Skills improve. Techniques evolve. We mature as artists and as people. We all make mistakes. That doesn’t mean you’re no good—it means you have more to learn. We all have more to learn. There will always be room for something better.

The next time self-doubt comes calling, force it to state its case. Demand proof. Require it to justify its position. When you turn it back on itself—when you look it in the eye and hold your ground—it crumbles.

Over to you—what’s the most effective way you’ve found to fend off self-doubt?  What, or who, helps you through?

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Here’s a question you don’t want to ask at the dinner table: what is art? If you’re brave enough to throw that one into the soup, follow it up with this: who gets to be called an artist?

Yesterday Clint Watson began that discusson on his blog Fine Art Views. Clint wrote a thoughtful article about the potential impact of marketing guru Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, and the way he’s used the word “artist.”

Here’s a quote from an interview with Seth Godin, from gapingvoid:

“Artist doesn’t mean painter or cartoonist or playwright. Artist means someone willing to stand up, stand out and make change.”

So far, so good. Then there’s this:

“…what do we call a customer service rep or an insurance adjuster or landscape architect that changes the game, that elevates each interaction and that takes enormous emotional and professional risk with their work? I think they need a name, so I stole one. I call them artists.”

Let’s be absolutely clear: I am not out to vilify Seth Godin. I subscribe to his blog, and I agree with most of his ideas. I think he overstepped by appropriating “artist,” I said so publicly, and I stand by that. I understand where he’s going with the concept. I just wish he’d chosen a different word.

Because it feels like another chapter in the tale of a very long siege.

You know the flaky artist stereotype. If you’re Canadian, you are well aware that during the last federal election campaign, our own Prime Minister tried to convince the electorate that artists are a bunch of freeloaders who whine about funding cuts while attending rich galas.

Would the PM pull that stunt on an ethnic or religious group? Not a chance. Artists? Sure, who cares?

(Note to politicians: never take a swipe at people who communicate for a living.)

Artists have to deal other kinds of credibility erosion—there are those who produce work that’s just not good. Some are professionals, some aren’t. They still get to call themselves artists.

On the other side of the stereotype, there’s the romantic appeal of the artistic lifestyle: total freedom, not much work—it must be so cool to be an artist.

The professional artists I know make good art. They have kids, mortgages, and work their asses off.

All things considered, it’s no surprise that stealing the name has raised objections. It’s not a new thing, having to defend your worth or your work, and that’s the problem—it keeps happening.

“What is art” is a difficult question. It’s subjective. It’s hard to know where this part of the discussion is going, but it’s important to have it.

Maybe what we’re witnessing is an evolution of language, and we need to move on.

You could argue we don’t need labels to begin with, because they’re too limiting. But labels provide a framework that helps us communicate with each other. How far should we push those boundaries? What gets lost in the process?

So with the word “artist” so widely used, abused, and watered down, do you still want to be called an artist? Or are you more specific about what you do, instead of identifying yourself as part of one big category of creativity?

Weigh in on the debate: What do call yourself? Are you tired of all the claim-jumping? Do you care one way or the other?

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I just spent three very long days selling the work I design and create. The crowd was smaller this year, possibly due to poor weather, flu fear, recession, all or none of the above. Some people did well, some people did not.

This morning I got Seth Godin’s daily blog post in my In box, as I do every morning. His closing statement is this:

“Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one.”

Think about what you make. Think about why you do what you do. Think about how you present it. Artists who don’t treat what they create as a work of art send a message to their audience—and themselves.

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On Monday I wrote a post about the hazards of comparing yourself to others and how to define your own success. I had a clever little idea to link it to today’s post, where I talked about looking to your competition to see how they do their marketing, so you can make yours great. An elegant paradox, no?

There’s a wrinkle.

Part of the reason I started The Studio Source was because I was having trouble finding information that would help me with my own business. I’m always looking for ways to improve, and since I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut, I want to share that information with other people. So I started learning more. A few weeks ago I signed up for a membership site that has a forum and instructional teleconferences. I rarely call in because of my schedule; I get the recordings afterwards.

The calls are on Wednesdays. You will undoubtedly observe that today is Wednesday. (If I were a fiction writer, I’d point out this is where I build suspense.)

So I don’t call in, because I’m trying to get this embryonic blog on its feet and produce some content. (If you’ve never done this kind of thing before, or if you’ve never started a business, please be advised there is a certain amount of fear involved.) I figure I’ll write a few posts and introduce myself on the forum to get some comments going (note to new bloggers: approximately 1% of visitors leave comments). Since the good people on the forum are all marketing and business types and clearly comfortable in an online community, they’re a good bet for some friendly support.

I rifle through my In box to retrieve my login ID and spot the reminder for today’s call, which I’ve ignored until now. I click on the message, read the topic for the call, and my stomach climbs into my throat.

I won’t know for sure until I either hear the recording in a couple of days, or my marketing guru replies to my sad, sad message, but I’m about 99% sure that the topic of the call and my earlier post are the same bloody topic.

At least I didn’t go blundering into the forum with a big hello. I don’t care if people think I’m a lunatic. I don’t care if they think I’m some kind of freak who can’t make up her mind between art and business. I care if they think I’m unethical. Because I’m not.

So what to do? Yank today’s post and edit Monday’s? Head to the forum and tell everyone hello and by the way, if I ripped off today’s call I promise I was completely unaware, and no, I’m not a skank?

Go to Plan B
This is where I remind you that marketing is marketing, more or less. The difference (in my own entirely original opinion) is how you finesse it. It makes sense to talk about business with someone who has firsthand experience in your field, because every profession has its challenges and peculiarities. Those people get you. They know how it feels when you rely on your talent to pay the bills. It’s a good connection to make.

How this is about marketing
My dilemma isn’t so different from yours. There are lots of artists, designers, writers, craftspeople and crafters (yes, there’s a difference; maybe we’ll talk about that sometime), butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. There’s going to be some overlap. Sometimes it may leave you mortified.

One of the most important things you can do as a creative, as well as in your marketing, is to be authentic. And resourceful. If I trashed my earlier post, I wouldn’t get to write this one, would I?

Feel free to share your lemons-to-lemonade stories, or tales of mortification, anytime.

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