Now

Garth Beyer

is always the best time to start.

There’s a wonderful reminder that I’ve worked up to counter the most common reason to not start now: you’re already behind.

I call it the One Bite Away reminder.

Imagine you start a diet (maybe you are currently on one) and things are going great. You’ve lost a few pounds, built some muscle, and even feel better. But then you begin snacking over the weekend.

Now you’re behind.

And since you’re behind, you might as well toss the diet plan. You messed up. You failed. Forget it. Maybe next year. Maybe in the summer. Maybe when you get enough motivation to ask someone to do it with you. Maybe when you build up to it again. Maybe when you get your feelings hurt.

Why we don’t realize that being slightly behind is a lot better than continuously getting further behind, I don’t know.

What I do know is that when you are behind, you’re only One Bite Away from getting back on the diet, back in the groove, back in the zone.

Seems pretty simple when you put it that way doesn’t it? One bite – not one hundred bites, not a week behind, not five pounds. One bite.

That’s how it is with any “diet.”

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Beat Yourself Up. You’re Just One Bite Away

Garth E. Beyer

Two-Pronged Tactic To Change

Garth Beyer

To change your life in whichever way you want, you have to change your thinking, your view, your thoughts, your mind – change what you think. You have to change what you see, and the quickest way to do that is also the fastest thing you can do: change what you think.

With hundreds of thousands of thoughts every day, changing your mental pictures isn’t difficult. I always take respite in knowing that the single most sure way to stop any negative feelings is to stop thinking about what is causing those feelings.

  • To change what happens on the outside, just change what happens on the inside.

The second tine in the two-pronged attack is the real battle: changing our actions to reflect our thinking.

If I am feeling lonely (everyone is) and I start thinking about hanging out with friends, the change in thought and feelings are only temporary. I have to then perform praxis. I have to do the action which is the result.

Praxis is about boldness and boldness is the willingness to initiate action without guarantee of results. And you can’t be bold until you come to terms mentally.

  • “What we do comes out of who we believe we are.” – Rob Bell

 

Stay Positive & The Two-Pronged Attack Is Actually A Cycle

Garth E. Beyer

If Shipping Is An Event

Garth Beyer

If shipping is an event for you, you’re not doing it like an artist.

Events are for gatherings, huge interactions, and personal conversations with someone willing to contribute as much, if not more than you.

Events are for seminars and being the star of a publicized interview about your latest art.

Events have less to do with consistency, and more to do with the spontaneity of acknowledgment.

The actual shipping of your art is a habit, not an event. It’s meant to be a constant and predictably unpredictable action. Risk, over and over and over again leads to success. Risk once in a while just keeps you alive while you stand still.

 

Stay Positive & Make Your Art Into Your Sweet Disposition

Garth E. Beyer

Have You Noticed (How Weird You Are)

Garth Beyer

Have you noticed it has now become easier to sell your dreams, your art, your little crafts people used to make fun of you for making. (By the way, applause to you for sticking through that.)

Have you noticed that people and yourself, have become more attracted to odd creations?

Rarely does anyone go into a store looking to find the most normal, unbiased, non-judgemental, gray blob of an object. No. You go in there looking for the bold, the interesting, the downright weird.

Shopping in its entirety has morphed into an art show.

So what’s your weird and where can I find it?

 

Stay Positive & Careful What Art You Search For

Garth E. Beyer

How You Deliver

Garth Beyer

It’s not so much what you deliver. Getting caught up in that is a losing battle.

But, how you deliver matters a ton.

Do you make a phone call, respond to email, or knock on their door?

Does the Chef making your sushi work behind a wall or can you watch her create your meal?

Does the painter let you watch what he can do while he works or does he push you away and tell you he will be done in 4 hours, to come back then?

Does the student use a Powerpoint or her own voice, limbs, and energy?

Post industrialization, it’s not a matter of seeing to believe, it’s downright a desire to see all we can see. This makes how you deliver an extreme importance.

 

Stay Positive & Over Deliver

Garth E. Beyer

Showing Up

Garth Beyer

People are naturally inclined to show up, to listen or to read when doing so will teach them how to react in similar situations.

Why listen to music? To relate and be given answers on how to act or think when certain things occur. Why read blogs? The same. Why watch soap opera’s or How I Met Your Mother? The same.

But, also notice that more people watch HIMYM than the Soaps. Why? Because it provides more relatable answers and responses that one can use in real life.

The trick to connecting, to building a tribe or to getting followers isn’t really a trick at all. It’s about creating a program where if something turns up in their life, they would know what to do about it.

 

Stay Positive & Start Getting People To Show Up

Garth E. Beyer