Go To Work To Spread Joy and The Maserati Will Show Up!!!
“Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing.
And never do it for the money. Don’t go to work to
make money: go to work to spread joy. See ye first the
kingdom of Heaven, and the Maserati will get here
when it’s supposed to.”
~ Marianne Williamson
Dear Creative Friends,
I love this quote by Marianne Williamson on doing what you love and the Maserati will follow! So many us have been convinced by what we see others doing around us that we can’t do what we love. Somehow we think to make money, we have to compromise on doing the creative work that lights us up. Instead, do the work we THINK others want!!
Mode Personelle copyright Carla Coulson
I have learnt that the more you go to work to spread joy, the bigger chance you have of the Maserati showing up (that’s of course if Maserati’s are your thing). You can compromise and go against what your heart wants to do and make money and you can do what makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning and make money. Here’s the difference, one is done with grace, ease and joy and the other one is an energetic uphill battle.
So many creatives have swallowed the story that to make money we need to do what ‘everyone wants’ and not what we want. Well here’s the news, most people don’t know what they want till they see it. So often it takes us to have the courage to put the work out into the world that we want to do so that like minded folk can find it and fall in love with it.
Copyright Carla Coulson
Linda Karlsson copyright Carla Coulson
One of the amazing things that happens when you do the work you love and share it, is that you attract your ideal client. Yes, by you creating the work that only you can do the people that are attracted to it get you, get your vision and want what you are having. You don’t need to change who you are, you don’t need to change your style or vision and you don’t need to convince anyone of anything. Oh and you are literally so excited about what you do and create you want to shout it from the highest mountain.. Match made in heaven!!! And massive bonus, you find your people, now that’s something to celebrate.
Linda Karlsson copyright Carla Coulson
So my lovelies if you would like to throw your camera out the window, put your paint brush down, walk away from the graphic work you are creating, here are some of my tips to get you back on the creative love train like I did when creating my portfolio.
What’s You Biggest Vision?
It would often take me to look backwards to when I started out in photography, when I had no constraints or to my biggest heros in photography or sometimes out of my field, to see how they dared to live their creative dream and how they could inspire me to live mine.
One of the things that really distinguishes you from your competition is your creative eye and voice and what you have to offer. The wedding industry is a classic where you flick from one photographer to another and you can hardly tell them apart. So the less that you are offering is ‘cookie cut’, the better for you.
Your clients will want to work with you because they have fallen in love with your work and it won’t come down to price. It will come down to your unique vision and they want to be a part of that.
I would ask you where you are you on the path of 1-10 of how much are you in love with what you are doing currently. If you are a 5 and under you might need to look close at what you are doing and re-envision it. It may need daring to go back to the drawing board.
If you are at a 6 and over it may need tweaking. You might like to take some time to remember why you got into your chosen field and what lit you up at the beginning of your love affair with it.
In the following exercises I am going to encourage you to reach for your greatest creative vision and start there. If you are excited and in love with what you are putting out into the world and add structures to support it, it will almost sell itself!!
Let’s see where you are currently on your path:
1. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your current portfolio of work as the work you have always dreamed of doing?
2. What type of work are you currently doing that exhausts, frustrates or causes problems for you? What would you be willing to let go of or how can you modify it to bring you joy? What are the pain points?
3. If you had an endless budget and incredible skills what work would you do? How would it make you feel to wake up every day and do this? Get into to detail, imagine the places you would work, the clients you would work with, the work you would create. Write a short free-flowing text on what you are seeing.
4. What comes easily to you and what would you consider your natural gifts? Such as working with children, getting people to relax, working with light etc.
5. Are you regularly complimented on something that you take for granted but others seem to find attractive or powerful? It could be personally or about your photography.
6. Who Inspires you? Who’s work makes your heart sing. What is it that moves you about their work?
7. In your career or life what has been the work that you have loved and enjoyed the most, paid or unpaid? That made you smile with pride and earned the respect you want? Who were you working with? Write a short text on your learnings.
8. Take the work you are most passionate about that you have created and make sure you can see it. Write a short text on why? What made you proud of this?
9. After doing the above exercises pinpoint what you need to do to get out of your creative rut. What could you tweak to re-envision what you do and move forward with clarity, joy and love?
I hope this little bit of advice has helped and kick starts your creativity and reminds you that your work is unique, beautiful and only you can do it. Do you, it’s always easier than trying to do something outside yourself!!!
Love to hear your view in the comments section and I will get back to you with any advice I can share.
Wishing you love, light, and creativity,
Carla x

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