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breakTHROUGHArts Thanks to all who have passed breakTHROUGHArts on to other artists! To share this newsletter with friends who want more creativity in their lives, use your e-mail Forward button. To subscribe or schedule your complimentary coaching hour click: connect@dianereardon.com..
July
2005
Contents
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New
Telecoaching Group!
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”If you’re gonna grow, you gotta molt.. As crabs outgrow their
shells, they bust their britches and crawl backwards out of the
split seam. You gotta climb out of your shell and build a new
one.”
~ Dolores at the Monterey Aquarium |
II. Energy Management: Translations from the Psych
Research Lab, the Board Room and the Shrink’s Couch
Unvoiced beliefs and self-talk
Just as those unseen physical changes can lead to growth that seems sudden, our unvoiced beliefs can have long-range effects, and are a major factor in the confidence we have in ourselves and our work. “Messy people are creative people.” This was the belief that my college roommate and I shared as, living away from home, we saved our artistically curled orange rind.
Many years later, I no longer like quite so much mess, but appreciate that I unconsciously chose that particular phrase to live by. I work with enough creative people who feel bad about their messes. They don’t feel bad because their mess is inhibiting their work; they feel bad because they adopted a piece of self-talk, sometimes seemingly by chance, that said, in effect, messy people are bad people. Phrases like “Finish what you start.” And “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” You probably have a few of your own. Sometimes they just keep erupting in your head like a CD with a glitch; one client calls this “splatterchatter” to help her recognize it more quickly and turn down the volume.
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When a great moment knocks on the door it very often is no louder
than beating of your heart.” ~ Pasternak |
One school of psychotherapy focuses on bringing these beliefs to the surface, learning to recognize them as self-talk, and then rewriting them. Such ‘cognitive-behavioral’ approaches tease out the inaccuracies in our repeated thought patterns so we can create more accurate self-talk.
Even though my early self-talk was inaccurate (Alas, not all messy
people are creative people!), it did protect me from the depressive
impact of the opposite: Messy people just aren’t as good as the
non-messy ones. Building confidence in yourself as an artist often is
helped by taking inventory of our self-talk and using the tools (see
below) of cognitive-behavioral approaches to make the beliefs we feed
ourselves more nourishing.
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III. Friends in Print: When you feel like reading
Burns, David. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. 1999. Burns is one of the main translators of cognitive behavior therapy for the pop-psych market and does a serviceable job of it. His list of the 10 most common fallacies in our beliefs and self-talk has become the most commonly used. Here it is: all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filtering, discounting the positive, jumping to conclusions, magnification, emotional reasoning, “shoulds”, labeling, and personalization and blame. Whew!
Vitali, Julius. The Artist’s Guide to Marketing and Self-Promotion. 2003.
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“Some people make things happen, Some wait for them to happen, And others wonder what has happened.” ~ Nina FitzPatrick |
Artists’
self confidence is often in jeopardy when they set out to get their
work into the world. Vitali’s revised guide now includes how to use
both the internet and digital photography to successfully promote
your work.
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IV. Creative Links
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/action_kids_art/112444
This site-page offers suggestions to build kids’ confidence in
making art, especially drawing. Good ideas for adults, too.
www.snac.ucla.edu/pages/Resources/Handouts/HOSelfTalk.pdf
Here is another list of how beliefs can be inaccurate and lead to a
negative self-image. Although the examples are related to diet and
exercise rather than art, they help make it clear how negative
thinking can sabotage confidence.
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V. Coaching Opportunities
New Telecoaching Group:
Building Confidence In and Out of the Studio.
Six one-hour telegroup sessions.
Wednesday mornings at 9 PST, beginning September 7th.
Build confidence in yourself, your goals, strengths, and styles with
the support of a coach and a group. The group telephone format is one
of the most affordable ways add creativity coaching to your life. The
fees are lower than individual sessions and you never have to get out
of your pajamas.
Sign up before July 31st for a 15% discount.
Click here for details.
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VI. Newsletter Info
E-mail changes.
To change your e-mail address, subscribe, or unsubscribe please e-mail
connect@dianereardon.com.
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of approved senders.
This material is included on the breakTHROUGH Creativity
Coaching website (www.dianereardon.com).
All material is copyrighted ©, 30 June 2005, Diane Reardon. All rights
reserved. Visit the website for back issues and details on
scheduling a complimentary one-hour
coaching session.
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