Snowbunny

Posts Tagged ‘goals’

Your enemy is expectation. Your ally is detachment

Today is going to be a fun one I think- I get to work at the gallery tonight, and Winterskol is going on in town (I will post photos of the snow-sculptures in a few hours). Last night was my first night out with a new Aspen friend C-dog (names withheld because, i dunno). She’s a fun girl- sporty and casual and easy to hang with. We got a few beers at Bad Billy’s which is just sort of a local watering hole/sports pub. I got to watch the Phoenix’s on TV a bit- there’s just something sexy about Steve Nash. Oh, and I sold another painting yesterday- I’m more than halfway to my monthly quota- I really want to bust the doors off that sucker!

Some text communique put me in a VERY bad mood all evening last night actually. I don’t want to go into the details, but basically I felt mislead/ganged up on/taken advantage of/made a fool of. I guess it’ll all get “talked out” this week… however I feel I’ve been shown again to really not put tons of trust in just anyone…. I tend to get enthusiastic about people quickly… I love life and I’m just a cheerleader in general… but I set myself up for disappointment by doing that sometimes. You gotta give people time to show you what they’re made of. I’m still waiting to see.

I was just reading a little bit of the first chapter of a book called “The Magician’s Way” which features a story about an “intuitive golf teacher”. This golf teacher came into the gallery yesterday with another repeat client. Both men are spirited, flirty, and funny.

Anyways, the golf teacher became my facebook friend on the spot, and I checked his profile out today which led to reading this chapter on him teaching a very frustrated man a new way of playing golf… which is also a metaphor for how to tackle life. It’s all about “focus on the target; stop rationalizing every detail of your swing”… not focusing on yourself and shifting the focus to the target. Seems easy enough- and common sense.

It’s actually interesting because last night we were playing shuffleboard at Bad Billys. I kept lobbing the disks into the gutter or whizzing them off the end, until it occurred to me to quit focusing on how to push the thing and start focusing on where I wanted to land. Actually, that’s exactly the lesson the Golf Teacher gives this man in the book- somewhat of a crazy coincidence that I experienced that last night before reading this today. Anyways, as soon as I started intently focusing on landing my disk in the “4″ section… it started happening IMMEDIATELY. I lobbed 2 in there and we WON!

Reading this chapter about this golf lesson, my mind keeps drifting back to my experience in Los Angeles and where I am today, and how what he’s telling the student in the story could apply to me. When I see the Golf Teacher again, and we inevitably get in some conversation about what we’ve been up to… what do I say? Whenever I tell people I left LA i feel a little bothersome tug inside… I don’t want them to think it was too hard for me, or that I quit. I left because something settled inside of me and I changed. But I just had an epiphany after reading this paragraph in the book where the student is struggling with hitting the golf ball through two branches on a tree (the target):

“The problem is you’re too attached to the outcome. Your mind is making it a matter of life and death. It’s like you’ll only imagine it if you know for certain that it can happen. That means you’re still inside the swing circle trying to control it. You have to get out of the swing circle and out to the target. You can’t do that if you’ve got a big investment in the outcome. Your trouble is that you have a fear of failure. Let go of whether it will happen or not. Rememebr, it’s just a game, and the game isn’t about a good result or a bad result, the game is in imagining the ball doing what you want it to do. Play that game- the imagination game”

“Your enemy is expectation. Your ally is detachment. The game isn’t the process, the game is the dream.”

When I was in LA, “making it” became a life or death goal. When I first moved to NY, I was just starting out and reveling in my new environment, and anything seemed possible, and good things and progress came easily. Upon landing in LA, immediately I started to fill with doubts and negativity. I felt I was too old and racing against the clock. I “didn’t know” if I was pretty enough, talented enough, smart enough. I was awash in self-criticism and worry. Some good things definitely came my way- I did try to work hard, but I also just got knotted up in fear of failure and expectations and doubt and fear and anger. Being an actress felt like a shizzy chore instead of a dream… and my energy levels and optimism were really down the drain by the time I found myself living in a crappy apartment in the Valley dead broke.

Much like the golfing lesson… I was so wrapped up in examining myself, I lost sight of the target. I didn’t even have a target besides keeping my head just above water, and that is all I kept doing. I didn’t believe deep down that I could do it. Also, succeeding at it was too important and too wrapped up in my ego.

When I decided to move out of LA, life started getting better FAST. Saying “f*ck it” to the seemingly impossible goal of being an actress… a goal which didn’t even seem appealing anymore… was greatly liberating. And I guess it’s because I stopped making it life or death- it was no longer tied to my ego, and therefore of so much less consequence. The opportunity to life and work in Aspen materialized, and I was able to pull myself out of my blahness and take the chance and come out here.

I have been happier than I’ve felt in a long time since moving out here. I look forward to working at the gallery every day, and I’ve already sold $12K of art in the first week. I think part of that happiness is I”m not super-analyzing whether or not I CAN do it… I just do it because I enjoy it. I didn’t have any expectations coming out here- it’s like looking at a snowy white wall… a blank canvas. I don’t feel like I have to fill it up. I don’t feel like I have to do anything. What a GREAT feeling. And since I started feeling that way, more money has been coming in, and waking up every day has felt better.

I don’t know that I am ready to claim any big targets yet… my current thought is “I am going to sell $25k of art his month… yes i am”. Yes, that’s a goal, but I don’t want to get too attached to it and make it life or death. Still mastering this zen-ness. But anyway, at least I now understand a bit better what was going on with me in LA, and why I don’t regret having experienced it or moving on from it a single bit.