The Pandemic of 2020 has shown many of us that life can be incredibly short. The lives we have become accustomed to can change rapidly, and on a macro scale. For some, this has led to the revelation that the life they are leading may not be sustainable in the long run. If you are experiencing any of these following signs, it may be time to leave your unhappy job and pursue a passion, or a lifestyle that will bring you more satisfaction.

3 Signs that it is time to leave your job and pursue your passions

You always wonder…what if?

Wondering about “what if” can be dangerous because it prevents you from fully investing in the life that you have. It can cause a state of “waiting around to see if something better will come along”. Meanwhile, waiting for something better distracts you from the real work to be done: improving yourself.

Perhaps the path for your life was laid out by your parents, or some other tradition. Perhaps you have never needed to think about where you would end up in life. If you find yourself asking many “what if” questions during sleepless nights; there may be things that need to be explored within your mind.

You are unhappy at milestones

If you are feeling unsatisfied with the trajectory of your life, news of people moving on can cripple you emotionally. Think of it like being stuck on a lifeboat at sea, and the other passengers get rescued one by one. While everyone else is being rescued, you remain in peril. Stranded. Isolated. Many emotions apply to this idea, but the one that you can get stuck with is jealousy.

When you are not pursuing your passions, a deficit can begin to emerge. The space that you want to fill can, in fact, grow wider. This can cause people to become bitter and jealous when they see others being rescued from the life boat. This can cause a more immediate and extreme need to leave your unhappy job, and to start pursuing your passions.

You are spending too much $$$ just to get there.

Have you ever sat down and completed a budget? Many people think they know how much they are spending to get to and from work; however, these numbers rarely get recorded or tracked.

You may surprise yourself to learn that between paying for:

• Parking/ transit cost
• Gasoline/ miscellaneous coffee and snacks
• Lunch (10$ per day)
• Time spent commuting (2 hrs per day round trip @ your hourly rate)

…in a major North American city may be costing you as much as 29% of your biweekly income.

If this could be your financial picture, you may need a serious wake-up call! Your job is costing you too much! At 29% of your biweekly income, on getting to and from work, you may find that you would be farther ahead if you made less money, but worked closer to home. Do the math tonight!

If you have experienced any of these three signs, you may benefit from leaving your terrible job to pursue passions that help you build satisfaction with your life. Life is short, so why not spend it in a better mood?

Thanks for stopping by,

Stephanie

https://youtu.be/JFi9ZJA3uj0

Dreams can tell us a lot about our internal thoughts. There have been times where my dreams revealed concepts to me that I had barely registered in the waking world. I think that there are so many competing priorities in our day while we are awake, that it is now more important than ever to get adequate sleep so that our brains have an opportunity to “catch up”.

In my artistic practice I strive toward trying new things, and toward exploring new concepts. What better way to explore, than to use the inspiration of a dream from the past to express an artistic passion?

If you have never thought about using the events of your dreams to fuel an art project, it is worth a try! In the least, you can check out my…

3 Reasons why painting your dream sequence works

Dreams are personal

Your dreams are the enactment of the thoughts and experiences you have had. Usually dreams are current; their meaning connects to something currently happening in your life. You dream about the things that are pertinent to who you are right now, and so the personalized nature of a dream sequence is really incomparable.

When you use dreams to create art, it will be identifiable in your work.

Dreams contain layers of meaning

Each layer of meaning is a story that can be shared. As you create your artwork, go deeper into the dream. If you dream of certain animals, for instance, there may be a message that your dream is communicating.  Embrace your weirdness and include deep messages in your work. They will lead you to a unique and very creative product.

Pushing your creativity to new limits

Using your dream sequences combines two huge skills: memory and artistic skill. Being able to recall a dream sequence is not easy, and can prove to be nearly impossible at first. However, our brains can be trained over time to improve the ability to recall information. If you are tracking your dreams and want to remember them, assist yourself by keeping a journal near your bed to record things before they wither away.

Your artistic skill will be pushed to its limit because the images contained in your dream sequences may not be the easiest things to represent. Strange things can happen in dreams, and it may be a challenge to accurately represent them in your artistic work.

I often use digital drawings to assist me when I am using my dream sequences as inspiration. This has helped me to communicate diverse concepts in a single drawing. Have you ever tried this? How did it work for you? Please leave your comments in the section below, and thanks for stopping by.

Stephanie

The Pandemic has created many changes in the way we live day to day. In the old days, I would go on long walks downtown and take in the eclectic sights and sounds contained therein. These walks would always result in great exercise, but also to widen my experiences. I always learn something new each day, and the best way for me to accomplish this learning is by exploring.

Exploring a new neighborhood can help you to expand your creativity. When your creativity is expanded, your artistic pursuits will benefit.

Here are my…

3 Reasons Why Visiting a New Neighborhood will Spark Your Creativity

Mental Connections

When you visit a new neighborhood, you are allowing your mind to take inventory of the unfamiliar imagery it is absorbing. During the long walks I would take (in unfamiliar neighborhoods in Hamilton), I would always find myself interested in the architectural features of historical buildings. (Corbels fascinated me particularly, and seemed to be present atop every building in the downtown area). These mental connections would result in inspiration for blog posts, areas of study, and topics of conversation.

New Restaurants

New foods are well known to help form connections in the brain. I love trying new things, especially food! A new restaurant has an ambiance that is fresh and exciting. The waitstaff is new and their performance is almost improvisational. The overall experience is one that will turn the neighborhood that you are exploring into a familiar haunt by the end of the season.

New Scenery

One of the easily overlooked aspects of exploring a new neighborhood is the way in which this new scenery can help you as an artist. As a storyteller, I am well versed in the fact that the best stories come from a mixture of real experience and uncovered desires. In order to weave a believable tale, it is of great value to use settings that are real, and that you have personally visited. The memorization of new environments will help you to easily retrace the physical aspects of a location. Your storytelling will benefit from these ideas, as it adds layers of believe-ablility to your work. The same is also true for creating sketches and drawings: a real setting to base your work on will result in work that has a more authentic feel to it.

Do you have ideas to add to this list? Leave your comments in the section below, and as always, thank you for stopping by.

Stephanie

When you begin to pursue your passions, you may find it difficult to keep thinking of new ideas. You may have aspirations for where you want to end up, but lack strategies for how to build your practice day by day to get that end result.

Remember that the new life you are pursuing will take work. Each day will present new challenges, but it is up to you to push through and continue to work on your passions.

Here are my…

5 ways to Train Your Mind for Imaginative Design and Practices, and to Improve your Skills in your Artistic Practice

Use an inexpensive medium for your sketches and ideas.

My favourite medium for my ideas is to use a very sharp #2 pencil. I find it enjoyable to write down my ideas in a “stream of consciousness” with a pencil (as opposed to using ink).

I will take my pencil and my notepad to a quiet place, and simply write what I am thinking about. It is important to do this without putting too much judgement on yourself. Be open and honest when performing this exercise. When I make errors, or go off track, I can easily erase the pencil mark without much fuss. However, I rarely erase my ideas once they come out of my thoughts.

Read something new every day.

Depending on what you set your goal at, (say 500-1000 words), you can reach this first thing in the morning by checking a news website, or scholarly article. When you set a commitment to read every day, you will surprise yourself by how many new thoughts will emerge into your conscious and subconscious mind.

Say hello and be friendly!

When you are about to leave your house and enter the public sphere, ready yourself by bringing your mood level up and putting a smile on your face. You will be more approachable and it will be easier to obtain the services that you want.

When things go your way, you will feel like accomplishing more things which will in turn help you imagine more positive outcomes. Positive outcomes are the life blood of creativity and imagination, so it is important to see the connection between your outlook and what you hope to achieve in your artistic pursuits.

Focus your mind, then rest your mind.

Depending on what you hope to improve in your skills, it is helpful to focus your mind on related concepts by looking at photos, videos, and reading books. After you have absorbed related media, give your mind a rest. In rest, your mind will organize what you just learned and ideas will begin to flow when you return your mind to those concepts later on.

The rest period is one that many people often overlook because sleeping is an activity that seems to be in decline; however resting your mind can take the form of meditation, sitting quietly for a few minutes without being on your phone, or just going out and watching people in public for a little while.

Exercise and eat healthy!

There is nothing better for your body than to take good care of it. If you want your mind to run a marathon, you had better train it and fuel it properly. Don’t skimp out on the nutrients!

Imagination is not an easy thing to train yourself to develop, but it is possible. It will take time, but the pay off you will gain from conceptualizing unique and novel ideas will be immensely beneficial to the pursuit of your passions, and in furthering your artistic practice.

Do you agree with my list? Leave comments in the section below, and as always thanks for stopping by.

Stephanie

You finally started pursuing your passions. You took the first steps and have plunged into the depths of what is unknown. Now you are free to explore the things you have been only dreaming about up until now.

What really sparks an interest in you is the idea of taking your chosen mediums, and experimenting to find new ways of doing things.

Here are my…

3 Benefits to Experimenting with Your Artistic Practice

1. You discover things you never connected in your mind before.
   Have you ever wondered what happens when you add more water to “this”, or take a piece of sand paper to “that”? Your discovery could open your mind to new possibilities. The same tools that are available to you can have new uses (for new techniques). The tools have not changed. You have.
2. You exercise the part of the brain that allows you to visualize new things.
   A person can train their mind to see solutions to problems by changing their mindset to a positive one. When you focus on positivity, you are telling your mind to pay close attention to methods of improvement. This principle can be extended to teaching your mind when experimenting in your artistic practice.

   Visualization is a skill that can be acquired from thinking of ways to innovate and make life better for yourself. By experimenting with new mediums and with technology, you will be able to visualize the preferred reality to problems that currently exist.

3. You may gain new attention, followers, and new fans of your experimented work.
   People who are familiar with your work will be impressed by your courage to try something new. People who are not familiar with your work may really like your new style, and gain an interest in your work because of it. At the end of the day, your ability to take risks (albeit calculated risks) as an artist will pay off in some way.

Life is an experience that is made up of smaller momentary experiences. Trying new things and challenging yourself to be better than the person you were yesterday is the goal. Pursuing the things that you are passionate about is the best way to accomplish excelling beyond your past self.

Do you agree with my list? Please leave comments in the section below and as always, thanks for stopping by!

Stephanie

We all have people in our lives that propel our mindset to positive heights.

Sometimes it is the offering of helpful advice, a pat on the back for an accomplishment, or even a simple smile with a “thumbs up” to encourage you to keep going. I have people like this in my life, and as a result I always try to be the rainbow in someone else’s cloud. I consider myself to be a cheerleader in the non-traditional sense. I may not have the outfit and pom-poms, but my spirit is one who sees immense value in those around me, and I thrive when I can help bring out the potential in others.

Are you having difficulty figuring out who the cheerleaders are in your life? Take a look at my list to help you understand the difference between the cheerleaders, and the cheerloafters in your life…

Cheerleaders will…

• Ask you questions about your passion projects.
  They ask because they want to stay up to date on your work; and they will ask without YOU having to bring up the topic.
• Will offer to buy or to display your projects.
  They help you promote your passions to the world without asking for anything in return.
• Will tell others about your accomplishments.
  Cheerleaders always have your name on their lips because they enjoy telling their friends about how great you are. These people always recommend you as well.
• Will offer you advice, or materials for your upcoming work.
  Cheerleaders are often thinking about how to help you try new things and deepen your exploration of the pursuit of your passions.
• Will attend your shows or exhibitions.
  Cheerleaders always show up in person. They recognize the importance of being present at your achievements.
• Will say positive things to encourage you.
  Cheerleaders believe in you, so their words will reflect the same.

Cheerloafters will do the opposite of everything listed above and…

• Will never ask about your passion projects, unless you bring up the topic.
• Will make jokes about the people who like your work, or about your projects. They will accomplish this by comparing your passion to things and people that have little value to them.
• Will call you stupid or generally imply that you are foolish for pursuing your passion. This can happen covertly, or in a blunt manner. It will usually occur when many people are around so that they can say it was just “a joke”.
• Will ask you to betray trade secrets or guarded techniques in a clandestine way. They will accomplish this by asking you how you did something in a passive way, as if they don’t care. Meanwhile, they will take the information you provided to make their own version, or simply tell others as if it was their own idea.
• Will ask you this dreaded question: “How much money do you expect to make by doing this?” This question is usually unfair for two reasons:
  • The people who ask this question are rarely responsible for your finances or your survival. It makes no difference to them how much money your passion will make.
  • Placing a financial value on something you have only just begun to explore will weigh heavily on you. It may even make you feel guilty and want to stop pursuing your passion because you begin to call into question the validity of doing something you love that has an unqualified financial validity.

Do you know anyone in your life that falls into the category of a cheerleader or a cheerloafter? What are your examples of people who have helped you find success in your pursuit of you passions? Leave comments below, and thanks for stopping by.Stephanie

If you are like me, the fun of summer weather can be a distraction from wanting to work towards your goals. Finding your motivation is nearly impossible when sobering up after a long weekend of fun in the sun.

Those long weeks of working on your passion projects must not go to waste! There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the light occurs when you finish your project!

Here are my…

4 Quick Tips to Motivate You to Stay Focused and Reach Your Goals

• Remove acquaintances who don’t build you up or add to you life. This includes takers, users, and enemies disguised as friends.
• Learn how to recognize good ideas from bad ones and save your time.
• Plan rewards for yourself to motivate your actions.
• Tell loved ones about important milestones reached- make sure the people you share with are cheerleaders, and not just lumps of coal.

What are ways that you stay motivated to reach your goals? Leave comments below and thanks for stopping by.

Stephanie

Taking the first step to living the life that you want, and pursuing your passions is monumental. The decision is one that asks of you: “Can you sustain these changes? Will you give up and go back to your old way of living?”

These are questions that can keep you awake at night. For me, the best way to get past those moments is to focus on day-to-day tasks. Focusing on keeping the creative juices flowing is what shifts my focus to things that are within my locus of control.

Here are my ideas for how to keep your fresh ideas flowing, so that you can further the continuation of your passion projects:

8 Ways to Keep Ideas Fresh and to Keep Creating

1. Reproduce an old project in a “look how far I’ve come” retrospective work. As an artist you can showcase how well you have improved in your artwork with an update of something completed earlier on in your career. By incorporating your new techniques, you will surprise yourself.
2. Re-post new angles of existing work. The fresh idea is in the perspective provided by taking new photos. Utilizing new media and technology can also help to refresh existing work.
3. Try a new setting for characters in your writing, painting, or illustration. Circumstance change when settings change.
4. Listen to inspirational speakers on Youtube. My recommendations for speakers to watch video of would be: Maya Angelou, or Simon Sinek. Your mind starts collecting new ideas and mixing it with your existing thoughts immediately. Your creativity gets boosted when you expose your mind to new concepts.
5. Read something!
6. Watch a documentary.
7. Follow a person on social media who has views that are the opposite of your own. Read a few posts. If you feel annoyed or angry, then concentrate (with that fire burning) and get those fresh ideas written down!
8. Go outside and rest your mind by trying a new activity. A new flavor of ice cream is my suggestion!

What are ways that you keep ideas fresh when you feel overwhelmed? Leave you comments below, and thank you for stopping by.

Stephanie