A curious situation

In four years time, with the support of many, many people, I created a Not For Profit organisation from scratch. I did it with the connections I had and I used my natural anal abilities to get it fully established.

Then I burned out, which I thought would never happen.

At the time I thought it would be absolutely dismal to hand off everything and expect it to continue running smoothly. I thought I'd have to do extensive preparations and training and that, even after it all, it would still be unable to go on.

This was quite foolish of me as I was far better at making it sustainable than I first realised or gave myself credit for. I also wasn't giving nearly enough credit to the incredible volunteers that had been supporting it since inception. It was surrounded by a solid group of committed individuals and the hand-off took a few short weeks when I thought it would take months or even years.

Not only was the hand-off successful, but the organisation itself has moved forward with incredible strides, growing into exactly what I hoped for it. It is with a great sense of pride that I see how all the individuals involved have taken it and made it their own. It's become an incredible success and all the more for the fact that I can look at it from afar, know I played a part in it and also know it doesn't need me.

My burn out occurred when I realised the largest cause of my anxiety was the fact that I was spending too much time worrying about everyone around me and not myself. As a very dear and perceptive friend and fellow Yapper said, "It's about time you worked on realising your own dreams instead of realising other peoples dreams."

This has been mentioned before on my blog. It's the reason I write on here and the reason I answer, "I'm an artist and writer," when people ask what it is I do.

But as I've said before, these things take time. Recently I was reading a blog by a fellow artist. She's got an incredible talent with ballpoint pens and her blog has been one of my favourites to follow since I began using Social Media for my career. Her latest entry was about '5-9'ers. The breed of people who work a day job to pay the bills but begin their real work when they come home. I've seen comments on this before from other artists in a similar situation.

Since I began committing myself to my artwork I've been working in the retail world of odd schedules. Towards the end I think I ticked someone off as almost all my shifts became the dreaded 1:30 - 10:00pm...or worse, 5:00 - 10:00pm. At first these shifts drove me nuts because I like to be in bed by 10:30pm and messing with my sleep schedule would often mess with my then fragile state of mind. Of course, when you do what you love and you're good at what you do, your state of mind tends to improve.

I also got really good at waking up at 6:00am, no matter what. I felt fine with this and when I worked at 1:30pm or 5:00pm, it didn't bother me. I spent the entire morning doing my real job. I would paint, sculpt and write in my blog. I'd accomplish loads and head to the retail world, tired, satisfied and with a smile on my face.

I didn't look at the retail experience as a detriment to my abilities as an artist. I didn't care about selling the brand, but I did care about selling myself, which is what I'm doing. I used my customer service as practice to be memorable. At the end of the night I wanted to feel that I'd stuck in a persons mind as being personable, helpful and interesting. I used it as practice to brand myself.

And until I departed to London this was the pattern of my life. Of course I was no longer happy working the retail patterned hours and I was ready to move on. I wouldn't wish to be back there...but now I'm experiencing something new.

My abilities to organise, my knack for working in a charitable organisation and my ability to sell myself have landed me an extended contract at the place I'm currently temping. I should be elated, and in many regards I am. The stability of an income means I can continue my exploration of the UK and the Continent. It means I can buy more art supplies...like the remaining five canvases I need for my Tarot Paintings. It also means I can potentially look at putting some cash aside to use for self-publishing.

But it also means that my day is spent working and my evenings are going to be time allotted to my artwork. It means, when I come home at 5:30pm I've got to try and squeeze making a lunch and preparing for a new work day in around my absolutely unavoidable desire to paint, write or draw.

It's a new experience, most definitely. In the mean time I'm going to keep saying that The Magician is nearly done. I do have another stained glass piece in the works and with cash flow comes the ability to get my work imaged so I'll have more prints available soon. I will also remember that dissatisfaction breeds change and as long as I am always striving for this to be my sustainable form of income I will never allow myself to be lazily content about where I'm employed. There is so much more to life than a paycheque and there's something to be said about doing what you love and doing it wholeheartedly.