Hello Holly

There can be an strong urge pull back when you see yourself getting closer to your goals. Call it self-sabotage or fear of success or fear of the unknown, but it’s a real thing. Created by You. 

Sometimes that thing we say we want to have, or do, or be is terrifying. Especially in this business.Do you want to grow? Then that means you’ll have more work, responsibilities and pressure.

We have to…

So, I've decided to devote the month of April to tuning out all the chatter and tuning in to my own inner voice. How you ask?

The internet is too big sometimes.

There’s about a million articles on how to grow your business, how to market yourself, what to do and how to do it and when to do it and who to do it for or with and why you should do it a certain way.

It’s a bit overwhelming to say the least!Not to mention developing the actual craft of doing whatever it is you’re doing, especially anything digital. There’s …

It's hard to maneuver a slow moving bicycle.

It’s hard to maneuver a slow moving bicycle.  For a while now, I’ve felt like I’ve been peddling very slowly and cautiously in my business. Along the way, trying to avoid any foreseeable pitfalls or getting myself in too deep. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to gain any momentum at all that way.At the beginning of this year, I made a goal to not say “I’m busy” or use “I’m busy” as an excuse not…

January absolutely flew by! I took a good portion of the month off to focus on my husband’s Retirement ceremony and to spend time friends and family who flew in to visit. But man, as soon as the last guest was on the plane on Tuesday, things have already taken off and – somehow– I already have multiple projects in the works. One of the friends who came to visit is a business whiz. He introduced…

Exercising "until I'm done" isn't nearly as effective as "AAAAHHH I ONLY HAVE 30 MIN!"

I feel like it’s a good start to stick to my word on things I say about 2018 – So, here I am. Outlining my goals for 2018 just like I said I would do on Tuesday. Yep, that’s definitely a good start. 

Dive into Passive Income Streams 

– Creative Market has just been sitting there collecting dust since I signed up I don’t even know how long ago. I see people making and selling Really cool stuff on…

How in the world do you visualize something that doesn't exist yet? #2017Reflection

It’s all too easy to forget how far we’ve come when we’re striving for something. It’s even EASIER to do that when there’s no hard and steady target at the end. I’m a big believer in the milestone and accumulative goal strategy. Like a lot of people, it’s very difficult for me to visualize what my ‘ultimate goal’ looks like, or even to verbalize. How in the world do you visualize something that…

How to re-route Obsession for long-term goals.

I recently took some ‘glamour shots’ for my professional profiles thinking it was no big deal – but the feedback was really interesting and spurred on this analysis: It wasn’t until I was around 25ish I started to come in to my own look and just go with it. I realized it was much less dramatic than I thought it would be – actually, downright boring.I was addicted to the struggle, the fear, the…

Notevember is MUCH more challenging for me than Inktober was - Obviously. 

Notevember is MUCH more challenging for me than Inktober was – Obviously. But as usual, even though I’ve fallen far, far, FAR from my goals – just aiming my intention towards a specific direction has brought me a lot of clarity. I’m experimenting with quite a few different shops to see which one has the best user interface + best prices for customers.  Society6, Design By Humans, Teepublic, Red…

NOTEvember 14: Aiming for Anything

Thanks to Inktober, I have a good bit of artwork to use for my tshirt shop! Two uploaded today and they look pretty dang good if I do say so myself. I already have plans for the second round which will feature watercolor elements to these designs.

I’ve noticed that when I’m trying to get one thing done, a whole lot of other things get done in the wake of anticipating that one thing.

Today, I…

NOTEvember 13: 'Spiderlove' series featuring some of the artwork I made during Inktober

There are a Lot of online shop platforms out there.

And I have at least 6 accounts that I can remember : Zazzle, Society6, Design By Humans, Threadless, RedBubble, StoreEnvy, and Etsy.

There’s a lot of questions to ask when publishing to any of these: “What kind of quality is it?” “What’s the community like?” “What’s most popular in these stores?”  “What percentage do I receive?” “What seems to…

NOTEvember 12 : Weekend Bust

I mentioned before that I never get anything done on the weekends. And what do you know? No posts over the weekend. 😃 I didmanage to fulfill my goal of 5 crochet spiders and they turned out quite nice. I’m still tweaking the design a bit since it’s a bit difficult to get them on the pencil. Once I iron out the kinks, maybe they’re something I can sell through my site. …or give away. People…

Well, It's Morning Somewhere.

The downside of eternal optimism is I can rationalize and spin just about anything in a positive way.

For instance, yesterdays goal was “Write in the morning so I would have time to think of/execute a goal”.

It’s 3:30PM now.

My first thought was, “Well, it’s morning Somewhere.”

When you rationalize everything, things get muddled very quickly. So, in my constant effort to clarify myself to myself,…

“Amateurs create work when they feel motivated, but professionals create work on a schedule.” – James Clear

This is the quote I’ve been agonizing about. The words that started this whole obsession with schedules.

I want to create awesome things, but I get so lost in the weeds – and lately, it’s been driving me nuts.

Looking back, I have made a fair amount of improvement as a graphic artist with…

Thanks to a very well timed comment on my last post, I had an epiphany. Sometimes, I get very caught up with how things “should be done” rather than how they actually are in the real world. This idea of a ‘schedule’ has eluded me for so long because I can’t picture it, there’s Way too many details for me to remember and I rarely look at the clock. Truth be told, I knew as I was writing it that…

I start a challenge and something happens to test just how much I'm Really Committed to it.

This happens Every Single Time. I decide to start something new or try to do something – again – and I’m almost instantly hit with a “Commitment Check”. I start a new project/challenge and something happens to test just how much I’m Really Committed to it. I’m pretty sure this is a common thing that happens with everyone so I’ll share my insight on the matter. This is how the pattern of events…

#Notevember 2: #GoalSetting

I have the lifelong habit of biting off more than I can chew. Mom’s gentle warning “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!” was foreshadowing for the rest of my life – my ambition is more than I can physically handle.  So, what then? Do I lower my sights? How can I make things manageable enough to actually complete? “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” My sister said as she was…

Welcome to #Notevember!

Inktober was so much fun and breathed life into the idea of having rituals and routines to make something happen, I decided to follow it up with Notevember.  This is a popular event among writers with a whole bunch of rules and guidelines. As with Inktober, I won’t be following any of them 😃 Instead, my goal is simply write a note every day about things I’d personally like to improve in and how…