Internal struggles are something every artist is familiar with. The vulnerability, the expectations of clients, the scrutiny, the pressure, and the negative self-talk can be overwhelming. So how do we handle those struggles when they arise?

Hi, this is Matt Stagliano and thanks for being

part of the artists Forge. We're a community of creatives who

help each other think like an artist. By discussing creativity

as a process instead of a skill or a talent. We believe everyone

has what it takes to create something amazing. We just need

some encouragement and inspiration along the way. What

you're about to hear is a live recording of one of our daily

discussions on the clubhouse app. If you like what you hear,

I encourage you to join our private Facebook group, or visit

us on the web at the artist forged calm. Now on to the show.

Welcome to morning walk and photo talk with the

artists Forge. So glad to have you here with us on this

beautiful morning. Hopefully, it's beautiful, where you're at.

And hopefully you're already having a great day. And

hopefully joining us this morning is making your day even

better. Alright, so yesterday, we had a comfy morning

conversation, just a chance to chat about whatever popped up.

So that hopefully we would be relaxed and prepared for the

rest of this week, which is going to be a little bit more

intense as we take our previous week's conversation about how we

deal with conflict and confrontation. And we move that

into internal conflict and confrontations that we have with

ourselves, about the things that we struggle with. And of course,

that encompasses a plethora of experience everything from

things like fear to self sabotage, our internal

narratives, what our mindsets are, if we have imposter

syndrome. If we're perfectionist, there's just a

host of potential things that artists particularly struggle

with, in a big way. Because we are often competing in a

marketplace, where the quality of our output is a big part of

our ability to compete, which means there are constant

struggles around things like our own self image, and competition.

It's it can be really difficult on our egos to do that. And add

to that for many of us trying to make a living, the fact that we

don't necessarily want to be business people, some of us but

we don't have a really another option. If this is a career path

that we want for ourselves, we need to learn to be good and to

excel at skills that aren't necessarily our favorite things.

If you're like me, running the business aspect is not your

favorite part. I'm an idea person and I want to make

things, I'm really great at coming up with plans and really

bad at executing them. So also, I know it may seem like

organization is a strong point, it is not. This is why my desk

is covered in sticky notes. And I have calendars and whiteboards

and everything all around, my husband looks at all of my all

of my things and still can't quite believe that I cannot

manage to do simple things like make sure I call the heating and

cooling folks. So they come out and winterize our swamp cooler.

So it can be a struggle. And it can lead to a lot of questioning

yourself and doubting yourself and fighting with things. And

not even all of that will come from our career. Some of that

will be a holdover from other experiences in our lives, maybe

childhood or other things we've gone through that have kind of

built a internal monologue on repeat, that is not the most

beneficial to us. You know, sometimes those are things

around money. So this week, what I really want to do is begin by

hearing from y'all. What are some of the things that you

internally struggle with? And how can we tackle those things.

And of course, we'll start today with the folks up on the panel.

But I want you to think in terms of the fights that you have with

yourself. The times when you either have self sabotage or

you've noticed when I come up against these kinds of

struggles, I compare myself to other people and I can't seem to

force myself to get out of that pattern and back to a healthy

place. Or these kinds of thoughts stop me from taking

risks when I know that's what I need to move my business forward

or I can't sell because every time I try to make a sale, I

hear this voice in my head telling me that nobody is going

to spend that kind of money. There are all kinds of internal

conflicts that we can have. So be thinking of those. That's

going to be the conversation for today. And I do have to let

everybody know it is my my middle kiddo is going back to

regular school today, which is for the is the first time since

the pandemic started. And so I do have to go in and drop him

off and on I'll be I'll be leaving maybe a little bit

early. So just to just be prepared for that this morning.

But in the meantime, I want to hear from you guys. What's the

deal, y'all? What are we struggling with today? That way

we can kind of plan the rest of the week, and maybe a few of the

topics

we want to make sure.

Is everything in acceptable?

Yes, but it requires example. Um,

I mean, I can go so back and forth, like, I'm

either ultimate badass, and nothing can stop me, or

absolutely overwhelmed with self doubt. And I suck at time

management, I always suck in time management doesn't matter

how I feel about anything else always suck and time management.

And focus is a big struggle. For me. I mentioned a while ago, I

don't remember what we were talking about. But I'm, like

really wanting to have control of my environment. And when

there's variables that I can't necessarily control, like things

like children and having to abide by other people's

schedules. It just wrecks my mindset. And it makes working

and focusing and really being 100% invested in the work at a

certain time really difficult. And oh, man, I feel like the

list can go on and on. But those are a couple examples. To get us

started on everything.

Yeah, okay. I definitely I mean, I'm there

with you on those. So being able to control our environment.

Obviously, sometimes that's an external trouble struggle, but

ends up having internal issues, right. Because once once that

environment has changed, or the schedule is different, we find

ourselves unable to force ourselves to make that work. So

I think there's definitely an aspect there that we can look

at, of how we can potentially reframe or change things so that

when we are forced out of our, our comfortable routines, we can

still function. So that's definitely something to add to

the list. I noticed Juliet had her hand raised, so would love

to hear from you. What are you struggling with Miss lady? What

are some of your

good morning, everything that Becca just said, including

that I was on a roll with work already. And I got a text from

my daughter who can't function at school without her

headphones, you know, it just like, Yeah, but my but my

example is actually I was thinking about it and took big

action yesterday after hearing you, which is that I have a

studio in town. And it's and I haven't put a sign up yet. My

designer made it and then I was like, Okay, I think it's really

beautiful. But why is my name so big? You know, it's just like,

it's just so I just can really laugh at myself. Because I know,

I've been this is like a dream come true. And yet, I'm like,

want to hide under my

Oh, boy, Man, that sounds familiar. Okay, so let's

see if we can figure out what the heart of that one is.

Because there's lots of potential reasons we might come

up to the thing that we're dreaming of doing and go oh, no,

and then not, not take the steps to complete it. So do you think

that comes from, you know, the the fear of finally starting to

realize your goals only to maybe find that it's not everything

you've dreamed? Or potentially the fear of failure? Or like

what do you think is is making you want to hide from taking

those final steps to announce to the world? Here I am. Yeah, just

that part about being going public? You know, and just

the, you know, I know, I'm not gonna hear about anyone who

might be bad talking me or Who does she think she is? Or any of

that kind of stuff? It's just Yes, some, some low grade, I

guess it's not low grade, is there's some fear about that.

And because I have, because it's a functioning studio, anyone who

calls I just bring them there. And so I'm just sort of doing it

under the radar. But, um, so yeah, this the being public

things feels like the most, you know, just being more on stage

feel. That's how it feels.

Right? And so there's, there's definitely a

vulnerability there, right. And an expectations you know, once

people know your business is there, all of a sudden you're

subject to these expectations, and it feels like everything you

do now is open to the scrutiny of all these people who were.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know for me, and you can tell me if this

is not the case for you, but it's certainly something we can

kind of add into our Our snowball that we're making right

now, I know the case for me is also, I am always afraid of

committing. Because I know that once I let it be known that I've

committed to something, I know I have to do the thing, and I am.

Now I can fail, right like, so if I didn't tell anybody, like I

told you guys I was, I've been being encouraged by the amazing

folks here to try my hand and see if I could get into a TED

talk, or a TEDx talk, I should say. And so I, I committed that

I would put in the application this month. And once you do

that, and once you let people know, I mean, once everybody

knows, then you can fail by not doing the thing. And so coming

up against that consequence. Plus, once you're committed to a

thing, it's about to change your life a little bit like I know,

committing to doing that, oh, right moment, I was going to be

writing a book all this month, and having to take and put aside

everything else. And once you're like, I'm going to do it all of

a sudden, everything changes. And I don't know that I love

that always. I've always hesitate right on the edge of

jumping off for a really long time. So you'll have to tell me

if any of that sounds familiar to you? Because if it does it,

definitely.

Oh, sure. Like, I

feel like now it's time to perform, you know, better get

more regular on my Instagram. And you know, if it's really

happening, let's show that it's happening. For sure. All that

stuff. Yep.

Dance monkey. Feels. Okay, absolutely. So

that's definitely stuff that we can look at this week. sissala.

I know, you had your hand up as well. So what are some of the

Hi, Nicole. I think my biggest struggle is fear of

success, actually, you guys touched a little bit upon it, I

have an intense fear of success, because that means that there's

going to be more expectations. And I can't cruise as much as I

like to do. It's also has something to do with. I know

failure, failure is comfortable. Failure is familiar. Success, on

the other hand, is an unknown. It's this big thing that are

looming out there in the horizon. And I know that I want

it. And I know that I deserve it. But I also know that I don't

know exactly what it looks like. And I know that, once I'm there,

I probably have to take a deep, hard look at myself and learn

how to not be a master procrastinator and learn how to

be consistent or just outsource everything that isn't creative.

So yeah, that's my fear.

I'm so glad you shared that. And I think you

really touched on something there that's important for us to

think about when we look at internal conflict is you don't

know what success looks like. And I do think that a big part

of these internal struggles are us constantly looking to fall

back into our comfort zone. Even if it's not ideal for us, even

if the results of the comfort zone is like not everything we

want in the world. God, we want to get back there so bad. And

our brains are like, Hey, we know where we're safe, man stop

taking these chances of us getting hurt.

Absolutely. And I think actually, there's like, primal

instinct to it. As far as I know, it's something to do with

fight or flight mode. It's safe to be what way are we know,

like, unknown is scary and potentially dangerous.

Yeah, 100% even. And it's it's crazy. Even when

the situation that we're in is not beneficial, even when the

situation that we're in is actually deleterious for us. We

still require some kind of impetus to push us out of that

situation, simply because we know we were alive. And we were

we're we're familiar and that familiarity is safer than all of

the potential outcomes we could imagine. That could be way

worse, especially the higher you climb, the farther you have to

fall right and knowing that there's always going to be some

level of fear involved. Exactly. Yep, I feel you're there.

Alright, guys. So we have we've got some fear of success to talk

about. We've got comfort zones to talk about. We've got

vulnerability on a large scale that we're looking at, as well

as those things those habits and narratives we have built in.

Once we step outside of it, we find it really, really difficult

to function. So we've got a few things already that we can look

at this week as anybody else in the audience today. And you're

you're having some internal conflict or some things that you

struggle with yourself. that you would love to hear maybe some

ways that we can tackle it or even if we can just explore what

that means and what it looks like. So we can try to move on

from there, feel free to raise your hand and would love to hear

what you're struggling with. So we can all attack it together

this week. Anybody else feel free to raise your hand. I want

to make sure that we get some time I know folks are at work.

And so of course, you always have the option of sharing this

in the Facebook group as well. Stacey, I see your handle grab,

yeah. And then when you share yours, I'm gonna go ahead and go

grab the face. So

okay, I'm driving. So I hope you can hear me all right.

It might sound silly, but I actually really struggle with

speaking up for myself. And I just spent a couple of days at

our state fall convention and talking to some people about

trying to get my business going, because now I had to get a job

job. And I really don't like having a job job. And I'm also

sharing a studio with somebody and I had my one session in the

studio this month, and I got there and there was just like,

the place was trashed, with like newborn stuff, and I was like

doing a sale and trying to shoot a senior. And she's taken over

like 90% of the space. And I'm really happy that she's working

a lot. But I've crammed into this one corner now. And I'm

paying half the rent. And I'm really struggling to say

anything, but I need to because I need to be able to set up my

space to work. And I don't know why I can stand up for everybody

else. But I'm dealing with that right?

Yes, that sounds familiar. I know a lot of

people. I know a lot of people can commiserate with you there.

And so if we take that and break that apart a little bit. Do you

think if you were to examine it that it comes from I mean, there

obviously could be many potential things we could be

looking at. I'm not really worth somebody taking the trouble of

standing up for including myself. That could be I don't

like having people mad at me or upset with me, I'm a people

pleaser, I need them to like me. And this is a potential

confrontation that i i that may result in tension that I don't

want to have like, and usually there's multiple things there.

But when you look at that, can you pick out anything in

particular, that might really be the kind of the heart of not

being able to stand up for yourself?

I mean, I've looked at it a little bit with my

therapist. And it's a feeling of undeserving, and you know, she's

there more, so it's fine. And I don't want to rock the boat. And

I don't want to Yeah, I don't want to upset anybody. But then

there's another part of me that's like screaming inside.

Like, why is your exercise bike in the middle of the studio

today?

I guess because I'm not there. I'm not high volume. And so I

feel like I don't want to inconvenience her because she's

the one who's there all the time. That that's silly.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I mean, of

course she's capable of using the space and then putting

things away. I mean, of course she's capable of. So that, you

know, yeah, so Okay. feelings of unworthiness are 100%, something

that will stop us from standing up for ourselves when we should

be. And then having that exacerbated, you're obviously

looking at the situation and trying to find ways to justify

not stepping forward so that you don't have to take that chance.

So that is certainly something we should be looking at this

week. You know, as we were talking about external conflicts

and confrontations last week, we mostly talked about the things

that we can do in order to prepare ourselves to set the

situation up so that when we have that confrontation, it goes

well, but we didn't talk a whole lot, which is why this week, I

think is so important. We didn't talk a whole lot about what's

going on internally, what might stop us from being able to take

those steps and move forward effectively. So learning how to

be an advocate for ourselves, I think, is definitely something

we should look at. And also just something to keep in mind.

Because I do this as well. Sometimes, when we don't when we

decide not to have those confrontations or not Not to let

somebody know what we need from them, we are blocking them from

the ability to do something good for us. And I know it's a weird

way to think of it. Because so often, what we feel like we're

doing is imposing on people showing up and being needy and

imposing on people, when what we're actually doing is giving

them the chance to participate in a relationship, because our

relationships are give and take, and they're there. There's

something that each person has to contribute to. And what stems

from that contribution is a stronger bond and a better

relationship and a healthier thing for all of us to

interpret, for all of us to participate in. And the wild

thing is that if we are participating in a relationship

where we're only ever taking, that's not good for us, we need

to be making those compromises for somebody else, in order to

feel like we have poured into that relationship. And when we

don't allow other people to do that for us, we don't allow them

to meet our needs, we don't allow them that participation in

a big way, we're stealing something from them too, which

isn't something that we always think about. So as we get into

this discussion that this week, maybe that's something for us to

keep in mind, the fact that when we advocate for ourselves, not

only are we being a good example, for the folks that are

around us, because likely there are times in their lives when

they don't advocate for themselves as well, and seeing

somebody stand up and say, hey, you know, here's what's going

on, I really need to have this talk, I would appreciate it if

then hopefully, they'll feel empowered to be able to do the

same thing for themselves. But we're also allowing them to show

up for us. And if somebody were to say to me, my relationship

with you would be better if, and that gives me the opportunity to

show up on your behalf. And I appreciate that. So just

something I think for us to keep in mind as we tackle this,

because it's really, really difficult sometimes to be our

own advocate. So that's 100%, an internal conflict that we should

be looking at. Alright, y'all, anybody else have anything, now

is the time to raise your hand, we're going to start moving into

the topic of conversation for today. Becca was the first

person to raise her hand. So I think we're going to start

there. And be thinking about how you respond when the environment

that you've built for yourself falls out of whack. What's going

on in our head, that stops us from being able to produce being

able to work being able to get things done, there's something

going on internally there. So Becca, maybe you can kind of

expound on that just a little bit. So we get kind of a good

base point to start, so that we know what apparently the dog

doesn't know who his people are anymore. You come down the

stairs, and he's like, who are you? Yeah, maybe you can expand

on that a little bit. So that we have kind of a good basis to

start tackling what's going on internally

when are invited. Yeah, I mean it's like, I can't

just force myself to do things, and maybe it's some combination

of all the many things that have been mentioned too, like fear of

success, or you know, like, I don't know, just not getting out

of my own way. Kind of like, just because something happens.

Doesn't mean it needs to, like completely disrupt whatever else

I'm doing, like it's so stupid. I don't know, I just I I

obviously can't control everything all the time. And

there's certainly times where I love to kind of fly by the seat

of my pants. And you know, I love the candid nature of

certain situations, like you know, when you're on when you're

on set, right? Like, that is a totally different environment

than like having a computer and having to retouch or you know,

having to make a painting or having to respond to emails or

whatever like it's completely dysfunctional to think that I'm

never going to have distractions the phone's never going to ring

my kids are never going to you know, show up and start yanking

on my sleeve and mommy, mommy mommy or, you know, whatever or

you something annoying will happen and like completely

upturned my day I don't know it's really dumb. And I don't

know how to get over.

It's not dumb. It's not dumb. But I'm gonna I'm

gonna push into this a little bit just to try to pull out more

information. So when this happen Is this a distraction comes

along or something out of the ordinary or something, you know,

shows up that removes you from your normal routine. And all of

a sudden, everything has to stop like, well, now it's ruined kind

of thing, or is something?

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely like that, like I

definitely am. Unfortunately, the victim of inspiration more

often than not, which is great sometimes when it's going well.

But other times, it's when that flow is interrupted, that it's

like, oh, well, I just can't get back into work mode. So I'm

going to go, you know, I don't know gum Doom, scroll through

Facebook for 20 minutes, and then I'll feel better. But then

20 minutes is two hours. And I completely, there's no reason I

should do that. Like, getting back into that that zone is like

really, really tough. I think a lot of it just comes down to

like, being distractible and not being able to focus, which might

be something a lot deeper. But yeah, it's just I, it's like,

oh, well, my moods been ruined. So let's just make it worse by

not.

And then not being productive, and then all of a

sudden feeling bad about ourselves because we weren't

productive and we weren't capable. And you fall into the,

the, all of the kind of all that negative self talk that just

seems to reinforce the fact that you're not capable of doing

things. And yeah, it becomes a big mental mess.

That is exactly it.

Yep. Yes.

Okay. So this is I empathize with you here really,

really deeply. Because as anybody who has had to write as

part of their living will know, it is impossible to write when

you're distracted. I can, I can talk and paint, I can talk and

sketch, I can talk and edit a photo, I cannot talk and write

at the same time because I have to be able to hear my internal

voice and having somebody my kids constantly interrupting

that. Oh, it's so frustrating. And it's really difficult.

You're 100%, right, for us to get into those flow states where

we feel like things are happening, and we're moving on

the inspiration we have, and we're confident and we're

competent, like that is a place that you have to fight to get

into. And once it's taken from you, it's even worse, like it's

even worse, trying to get back into it. So I think there's a

couple things that we can look at. First, you're right, there's

it's always worth considering whether there's something deeper

going on. Whether there's, you know, like attention span issues

that are happening. And

I, one, obviously, sometimes this is a physical thing. But

there are other times when this is literally a result of having

programmed ourselves to have a five second attention span by

constantly switching our attention between the

notification we just got on our phone and the message that we

got and somebody called and somebody knocked and, and, you

know, they've been looking at this as something that actually

has long term deleterious effects on our ability to focus.

So the first thing I think, is that you're absolutely right, we

have to start by controlling our environment as far as we can, by

turning off notifications, by not having an app on our phone,

by making sure we're logged out of things or etc, etc. There's a

lot of different things that we can do to try to have an

environmental control. But of course, there's going to be

things like kids or emergencies or other stuff that just will

pop up that does need to be dealt with. So when that

happens, how do we handle those things? And from my experience,

one of the things that has been successful is I give myself a

reset button. And I do this with my dog. And this is gonna sound

weird, but I'll try to explain it as best I can. So my dog

Hurley, we got him right before the quarantine happened. In

2020. We got him right before Christmas, he was so cute and

small. And we were just starting to introduce him to other dogs

and strangers when we ended up on lockdown. And so he's a COVID

puppy, which means he's really dog reactive. When he sees other

dogs. He's like, Oh, no danger. And so taking him for a walk is

really difficult. One of the things that I started doing with

him is breaking that habit by anytime he starts to pull or

lunge or he starts we call it he's hunting like he's looking

for dogs and yards or anything to react to. I stopped walking

immediately. And I've taught him that that means he needs to turn

around and come back and he'll he'll come and he'll Syd, and

then we don't start going again until he makes eye contact,

voluntary eye contact with me, he will sit there the whole time

until he looks up at me. And we have eye contact. And I know

that he's now paying attention to me. And once he does that, it

breaks that cycle of, ooh, somebody's going to get us where

a danger got to be on the hunt. It breaks that cycle and allows

him to move into the walk now with a refreshed mental state.

And I have to do this for myself as well. And usually, I'll do it

by going for a walk. It's almost like a palate cleanser, after

you know smelling too many things or eating really, you

know, things that are really flavorful or whatever. It's

almost like, it's, it's building a new habit into the routine, so

that if something happens, I go for a walk, I'm by myself, I

think through where I was at before. For me most of the time,

this is thinking through, like the plot what's happening with

the characters, whatever's going on. So I can get myself back

into that state without the distractions of, you know,

phone, or Facebook or whatever is around. And then when I come

back, I'm prepared to get back down to work. So I know we've

talked about habit loops before. But if you haven't heard this,

basically, a habit is an activity that is repeated so

many times that it goes on autopilot, and it will almost

always begin with a trigger. And usually that trigger is

something we don't even realize. So if you are a smoker or you

know a smoker, probably you'll realize that they will always

have a cigarette after they've eaten, or with a cup of coffee,

or when they're stressed, they're just certain things that

happen that will trigger that habit loop. And for us, if we

have allowed ourselves. When something happens that comes

along to interrupt our flow, or our day, that kills our buzz, or

whatever

we immediately go looking for because you're in a really

fantastic dopamine state. While that's happening, while you're

in flow, you go along looking for something to replace that.

And so the habit is then to open up Facebook, or to check your

messages are to pull up your emails or whatever, which of

course, then makes it a lot more difficult to get back into that

state. So if you can build yourself a habit trigger, that

is like a palette cleanse that is something that gives you a

chance to kind of refresh so that you can start again, well,

that might be a really great thing to consider. Just to build

that into the way that you work. So kiddo shows up, need

something gets at you. ruins everything. Children ruin

everything. Just kidding. You know, I love my kids. But I

mean, sometimes it feels that way. Right? So what is something

maybe that you can build into the day, so that it can help to

kind of reset things. And that could be like making a cup of

tea? Or, you know, going for a walk around the block or

whatever. I mean, there's a million things to potentially

choose from, but that might be an external way to force some

internal results. Does anybody else have any experience with

that? And anything that they do to kind of help mitigate? What's

going on?

No, maybe not. Becca, it's just you and me.

on the Hot Mess Express

I would drive the struggle bus up to the press and

then climb on. So I mean, does that sound at all like, familiar

or maybe something you think is worth trying in those

situations?

Yeah, yeah. And habit building is like something

I just in general, like have never been good at and I feel

like I can read every inspirational book and like make

every you know schedule and like alarm system, like try to get

myself into creating good habits. And I just, I don't know

something doesn't click in my brain for that particular skill

set. And I try still trying to keep trying but um, yeah, one of

one of those things that I'm just still on the struggle bus

about um, but yeah, I think maybe maybe after if you break

it down a little bit, it's more kind of getting into that flow

state from the get go. Yeah, kind of might be where my

struggle is. Yeah,

and I mean, I think I think the trick with at least

that I have noticed and I know I've talked about my, my journey

with fitness. I know I've talked about that before, but one of

the things that I really noticed heavily is if I am trying to

force myself to build a habit around something I don't like

doing. The chances of me actually following through are

like slim to none. I may get myself into it for a few days.

While that mode Motivation lasts, like, you know, you

mentioned reading motivational books, and you have all this

inspiration and you're like, Ooh, I'm gonna do the thing. But

when it's something you just inherently don't like, trying to

force yourself to like, is really freakin difficult and

just adds a whole nother layer of this probably isn't going to

happen to the equation. So I've noticed that if I can build that

habit around something I actually do enjoy. Like, if I

can say for sure, you know what, when this happens, I'm just

going to stop, go downstairs and make myself a cup of tea. Take a

minute just to chill and really be present in the process of

making the tea. I know that sounds weird, hang in there and

explain this even more, then I'm going to be in a much better

headspace. I'm not going to have any more of the irritation of

not being in the flow state where I was like really working

well and enjoying myself, I'm not going to be mad at the

distraction, because I just did an action that I actually really

enjoy. So one of the things I've always really appreciated about

traditional Japanese culture, is the fact that they take everyday

things and turn them almost into ceremonies. And this does a few

things for you. When you take an action and you turn it into a

ceremony, you're telling yourself number one that this

thing is important, this thing that it's connected to is

important. You're also slowing yourself down and forcing

yourself to be present in the action itself. So what I mean by

this is, I have got when I make tea, I have a couple of parts of

the making tea that I really enjoy. One of them is the tea

pot itself. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but hang in with

me. The teapot is just beautiful. It's just as

beautiful. lucru said teapot, it's blue. It's gorgeous. It

looks like it belongs in like a fairytale farmhouse somewhere.

And I have a little honey plot a little honey jar. That's like

the avatar for all honey jars. It's what every honey jar has

always longed to be, it's just cute and fat, and it's got to be

on it. And it's yellow. And it has a cute little lid. And it's

so cute, that there is inherent joy for me just in using these

things. When I see them, I love them, I'm excited to use them

using them makes me happy. So when I'm making the tea, I have

turned it into a kind of a ceremony I have this really

beautiful loose leaf robust tea that is called Apple empanada.

It's locally made, it smells fantastic. I take that time when

I hit my water, I use a cup I really love, I slow down a lot

and I just allow the process and I make the process something I

just really enjoy doing. So in a way I'm rewarding myself with

something that I like to get myself back on the path that I

want to be on. And it's not forcing myself to go to the gym,

right it is actually doing something I really enjoy where I

can be present. And then that all of a sudden becomes the

habit loop trigger instead of forcing myself to do something I

don't like then the habit becomes really, really easy to

build. So I hope I hope that that makes sense.

I like that you sort of lead with the tying it

to something you appreciate. Hang on one second, I'm going to

make a really loud noise. Sorry, my microwaves being crazy pants.

Um, one of the things that I do when I'm building habits that I

don't necessarily love. And this is for anybody who is motivated

by money, make it expensive. Whatever the habit is somehow

figure out a way to make it expensive. Whether it like for

me right now I invested in this like coaching program, and I

knew that if it wasn't going to hurt my bank account to pay for

it, that I wouldn't do it. But I'd be like no, because I can

work on autopilot and survive and just stay right here. But if

I make hurt like oh, this is this is gonna cost a lot of

money. Oh, this already is costing a lot of well by God,

I'm going to show up and I'm going to fill out that fucking

spreadsheet every goddamn day, do the things to build the

habits that I know I need to build in order to grow to the

next level in the business. If it's the gym, like choose the

expensive one with people you enjoy being around. If it is, I

don't know. Like I want to pick up reading every day like Okay,

so if I'm going to read maybe I'm going to pay for a

subscription to somebody who's going to send me books every

month and like you know whatever because I I know that I am

motivated by money, like the loss of it as well as the game.

So if I'm building habits, I'm anything that I can do to make

that habit worthwhile for me, I'm going to make sure that it

costs me

something. So that makes perfect sense of having

something either expensive or something beautiful. Nicole

until you talked about, about your tea pot, and your cup and

your honey pot and everything like that I and how you needed

it to be beautiful, I realized, I do the same thing with

journals, like, Okay, I need, I need to either journal or write

down notes for my business or whatnot. So I need these

journals to be freaking magnificent. So I go on Etsy,

and I buy the most amazing journals. And I'm like, I gotta

have these I want I can't just sit there, they need to be used.

So I'm going to write in them. Sorry. So that that what you

said there actually made a lot of sense. And I realized that do

the same things. And finding, like finding things that we

love. And appreciate just like from that childish, pure, giddy

joy is like, Oh, I love this teacup. Oh, I love this

notebook. Actually just bought a beautiful mark. Same reason.

Yeah, it's wild, it doesn't seem like that should be

a thing, right? But when we think about it all the way, it

makes perfect sense that it would be difficult to force

ourselves to do things that we don't love. Like, why would I

torture myself that way? Why would I go to the gym and run on

a treadmill? When I could be climbing a rock wall? Like, why

would I do that to myself, right. And so for me, that

method of exercise, it's not hard for me to make that into a

habit. In fact, it will do it all by itself, because I enjoy

the process so much. And even though the process of making the

tea is not the process of getting back into the flow

state, what happens is, that process of making the tea

becomes the habit trigger for the next thing, which is moving

forward with a clear head. And when you do that trigger, that

habit loop trigger, your brain will automatically start moving

toward the next step in the habit loop. If you have ever

driven yourself to work, when you meant to go to the store,

you will know what that looks like your brain goes, Oh, we

grabbed our keys we put on our shoes we got in the car, we're

going to work. And so you'll just start driving there without

even realizing you're doing it. And your brain wants to complete

that habit loop. Real real badly. It is built into your

basal ganglia, which is a part of your brain that you don't

have conscious access to. Even if you were to have an accident

where parts of your brain were damaged, those habits would

still complete themselves. So it's a really wild part of our

physiology of our brains. But having something you enjoy be

the trigger of the habit, man, that just makes the whole

process way, way easier. And it seems silly that a beautiful

piece of crockery should be such a thing. But it really is a

thing just like your your gorgeous journals. And now I I'm

just about done. I I've been keeping a journal since I was

13. So I'm just about done with the one I have now I need to

replace it. And now you've got me wondering like, the one I

have now is very Persian inspired. It looks like an

illuminated manuscript. It's really beautiful. So now I gotta

get on Etsy and get myself.

Alright, they're already they're already

journals. And now I have a stack of like at gajillion journals

that are all half finished, because then I get a new one.

And I'm like, oh, but this one's pretty. I'll start here and this

one will be for work.

Or I'll cheat myself to viewtiful journal and then I'll

actually do

that's my conversation.

Yes, right. Make it expensive, right. Like get

yourself a gorgeous one. You can't ignore it. Lindsay, I see.

I'm seeing that your hand is up and I'm not sure. For some

reason it wouldn't let me click on you. But I am I am trying to

bring you up. So yes, as we Okay, so for maybe some reason

your hand it accidentally got clicked, but that's okay. So

yeah, maybe part of the trick of this whole process is an

external one to get an internal result. But there really, I

mean, if we dig, there's always the potential that there's

something internal going on, in addition to the fact of Getting

those distractions that kind of pull us out of our, our flow. Do

you ever notice, Becca, the things that you say to yourself

when that happens? Like, do you have any kind of internal

narrative that accompanies these things? Do you say to yourself

Great, now, I'm never going to be able to finish this? Or, of

course, this would happen, right? At this point. Now I

can't or whatever, like, Do you have any internal stuff going

on? That maybe contributes to not being able to get back

there? Hello, voice

inside my head. Yeah, you You nailed it, at least a

good chunk of it? Totally. Um, yeah, I get incredibly

frustrated. And I

hit that point of like, well, I might as well just

not even do it. I might as well just refund their money, because

it's never gonna get done. Or, you know, this is like, whatever

bullshit, I can tell myself. That's completely negative.

untrue. I do.

Yep, there's a reason I know what you're

thinking. We might be long distance sharing the same brain.

So yeah, I think I think that is kind of the completion. Oh,

sorry, I just got a text. I'm sure that was probably loud. So

I think that's kind of the completion. Like when we, when

we look at things that happen in these circumstances, we've got

two things that are going on, we have like the physical

manifestation of what's ever going on, and then we've have

our internal dialogue about what's going on. Or I should

say, monologue, hopefully, we're not having a dialogue. If we

are, we need to have a chat about that, and find out who

else is in your brain. Um, I've think I've got like five people

in my brain. So probably, I actually am having an internal

dialogue. But anyway. So we have the thing that happens, right?

Like, we have the trigger, we have the kid who shows up, or

the client who calls or something that happens that

pulls us away from whatever we're doing. And then we have

our internal response to that we have, of course, this would

happen, and I'm never gonna finish this. And, you know, all

I needed was just five minutes of silence, or whatever it is

these really natural and understandable reactions to some

kind of stimulus. But what we have to keep in mind is what we

tell ourselves about what happens is really going to

determine what we do next. And if my response is, okay,

clearly, I needed a break. Now, I'm just going to go for a walk,

I like going for a walk, I like being outside, I want the sun on

my face. So that's a good thing. For me, I like being out in

nature, I can tell myself that if that happens, going for a

walk around the block is a great thing. Like, okay, cool, I'll be

an end, if I believe that I can get back into that space. If I

believe I can be like, I got this. No problem, I'm gonna go

for a walk and get some sun on my face gonna come back and make

this should happen? Or if my answer is now I get to go make

tea, like, there's a whole different physical and emotional

state that you're in all of the sudden. And granted, that's not

going to come naturally, right? Our natural inclination is

always going to be to fall back down to the level of our comfort

zone. And if we are used to talking shit to ourselves about

ourselves, that's exactly what we're going to do. I know this

son, sorry, my teenager is giving me signals like I'm not

paying attention to the clock. If we're automatically going to

want to fall back into that space, it is a difficult

process. And it takes effort to change those internal

narratives. But once we recognize they're there, and we

know what we're saying to ourselves, it becomes an

entirely different ballgame to go, Okay, now that I know I do

that to myself, I'm going to catch it. When I hear myself go,

oh, great, Everything's ruined. I'm going to respond to myself.

No, I've proven with a long track record. Every time this

happens, I still get things done. I just need a break. I'm

going to go do something I enjoy. But I'm going to set a

timer. That way, I make sure I'm back here to get started. And

it's a process and it's effort. But if you can make it a process

you enjoy the results are going to be entirely different. So as

we near the end of the hour, I want to get any final thoughts

from everybody. If you've experienced the same thing that

Becca and I go through, where this process of being

interrupted becomes incredibly difficult and frustrating, makes

getting back to work really hard. triggers all of these

negative thoughts about yourself and what you can do and what

you're capable of makes it difficult to get back to work to

be productive, all those things. Would love to hear from you.

What do you do that works? Or what are your thoughts on this

issue in general, and then we'll close up. And we'll take

everything we talked about today, these different things,

this fear of success, this perfectionism, this

vulnerability of having everybody know what you're about

to do when you hang up your, your business sign all of those

things, and we will discuss them during this week. But for now,

anybody have any experiences like Becca?

Well, for me, it's more comment on what you've just

said. It's about negative self talk. And I think we highly

underestimate how much negative self talk goes on on a day to

day basis for ourselves. And it's just, it's not just in the,

oh, no, I'm a failure. It's having negative statements. I

think the power of language is so incredibly important. And we

tend to forget about it. So instead of saying, Hey, I'm a

freaking failure today, you say, Okay, I just need to nurture

myself a little bit more, what is it that I actually need? Like

you said, Nicole, check in with yourself and have a conversation

and be curious about what's going on inside of you. Instead

of just jumping to the default of, I'm a failure, or I'm lazy,

that's my negative self talk. I'm lazy. Oh, what else goes on,

but like, quit the negative statements, and try to rework

them in a positive way. Stop yourself, as you said, Nicole,

and try to be a little more graceful towards yourself. I

think that one has been a who made a huge difference in my

life, of how I beat myself up, I don't do it as much anymore

because of change of language around what I do and how I do

it.

The mother, Can people hear me? We can hear. Okay,

thank you. Yeah, I'm about to drop the kid off at school. So

looks like I'll be able to be here for the whole time, as long

as you don't mind car noise. But I think that that's so wise to

sulla. And also, something that you said, reminded me of our

friend Jonas, and I think it might have been a little while

since he's been here with us. But one of the things he said,

that has stuck with me for a long time, is that often our

responses to things, particularly if our responses

are negative, often means we have a need somewhere that's not

being met. And I think that's, you know, like when you said,

when we check in with ourselves, that's a really good question

for us to ask ourselves is, is there a need that's not being

met in this situation? And so my response is a negative one,

like, is there a possibility that what I need from somebody

is affirmation, or help, or a reminder that I've been in this

situation before and come through it, okay. Like, there

may be some need there that is not getting met. And if we can

pinpoint it, then that may be kind of the key to making sure

that the situation does not evolve that way, the next time.

So maybe something also to think about there. Any other final

thoughts, guys, as we draw,

I just want to say I really appreciate looking at, like, for

me, I know, it's pure luxury at this point that my kids are out

of the house from seven to three. But when I get a call,

and someone's sick or so and I've just like on a roll it just

I'm still like, I know, I'm okay, I'm gonna be in a great

mood by the time I get to the school and pick them up, or you

know, but right now, I mean, I'm still when I'm sitting at my

desk, and I'm in my house by myself, I will still yell, I

will give myself permission to just exert whatever needs to

happen. And then I really appreciate what you said. And

just like, like that, I'm going to create an opportunity to you

in that break in that stopping in that pause of the day to do

something nice for myself, and just like step back, and then go

take care of the child or whatever else has to happen.

Yeah, I love that Juliet. And I agree, I think it's definitely

really important for us. The last thing we want to do is try

to smash our emotions, right? You're right, we do need to give

ourselves the freedom to express what we're feeling. And I think

the trick to that is to recognize that emotions, the

actual emotion itself doesn't actually last very long, but we

tend to cling to them and feed them. We take that momentary

frustration that actually only physiologically lasts about four

seconds, and we feed it right and we continue that that

negative self talk that feeds that emotion and continues to

make things worse. So the trick is definitely give ourselves

that permission, because we don't want to be bottling up our

feelings. So feel what we're feeling. And then like you said,

you know, change the script, change the narrative, give

yourself that self care, that moment to reset. So that the

emotion actually, it goes, it happens, we get clear that we

get it out. And then we change what we say to ourselves after

that. So we're not just stewing and continuing to chew that

emotion until it makes everything else worse. So I

think that's a really, really important thing for us to

recognize, when we're in these situations that are just super

frustrating. Alright, anybody else, as we close in on our

final two minutes,

I'm gonna have to sit with this, this ritual

thought for a while and kind of stew on it. Because I think that

I actually kind of ritualize my work in itself. And so that when

there's an interruption to that particular ritual, that's where

my frustration stems from, perhaps I'm going to think about

how to either rebuild the ritual itself, or add something new to

it. Yeah, I mean, I mean, just kind of as a side tangent on

that idea of, you know, ceremony rituals, very interesting to me,

in general, like, I really love the idea of kind of humanism or

humanistic paganism, which is where the the person and the

human is divine, rather than anything supernatural, that's

why you see the similar kinds of ceremony and ritual and, you

know, making tasks into something greater than just

tasks all over the world, right. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit with

that one and see how I can adapt a little bit better.

I think that's a really great insight to notice about

yourself. And something the rest of us can probably use to look

at our lives as well. Because there's a really good chance

that we're not only kind of ritualizing, things like our

work, but we may also be ritualizing things like our

negative or negative responses. And, and in a way, that can

become a foil in and of itself. And if we can add the, if we can

add, like you said, if you can just change the ritual, or add

something new to the ritual, then obviously, you know that

that alters the whole experience. So absolutely

something to think about. And I recognize that this particular

issue is not going to resonate with every single person, you

may not be the person who suffers this, you may be the

person who, when the distraction come up, comes along, you're

like, yes, it's a chance for me to recoup for a second before I

get back. But for those of us who do, I hope this conversation

was helpful. It's also really important to remember and I just

want to say, one more time, in case you haven't been here, when

we said it, nobody on this panel is a psychiatrist or a

psychologist, we're just talking about our own experiences, what

we have found that works, and throwing out ideas that you can

consider, but it is always always, always the best. If you

can get advice from a therapist from, you know, from the people

that are licensed to be able to look at your life and give you

the best possible advice. This is all for, for learning and

considerations. So you have to take this thing and think about

it critically and do with it what you will. But these are our

experiences. And these are the things that have worked for us

are just the things that we think are worth considering. So

give it a good look, see if it's something that will fit you. For

the rest of the week, we're going to be talking about other

kinds of internal conflicts that we have, from the things that

have already been brought up by the amazing vulnerable members

of this group. Like the difficulty of knowing that once

you announce yourself, you have to live up to outside

expectations, that fear of failure and knowing how far you

have to fall when you've climbed all the way to the top, the

difficulty of reaching your goals and then asking yourself

now what the struggle of being able to stand up for yourself,

of being able to be just to be there for you. of comparison of

perfectionism of all the things as artists and people and

business persons that we struggle with. We're going to be

digging as much as we can into those things this week and

seeing how we can, how we can handle them. So be thinking

about that today. If you've got something you want to bring up.

Don't be afraid to bring that up in the Facebook group as well.

The link is up there at the top. And I hope this was a really

helpful conversation today at least give you some things to

think about and some things you can do. Hopefully we will see

you bright and early tomorrow morning at 7am. Mountain

Standard Time at 6am for the West Coast 9am for the East

Coast. I really hope that we will see you then in the

meantime, go make something amazing Have a fantastic day and

thanks again for listening to this live clubhouse

discussion moderated by all of us at the artist Forge. We hope

you found the information useful and that it helps you gain a

little bit of insight as to how you work on your craft. For more

episodes, please join us each weekday on clubhouse or visit

the artists forge.com Go make something incredible