Lateral Thinking to Earn Cash

How many times have you sighed with despair at your bank statement because not enough money is coming in from your main creative job? How many times have you also had little wacky ideas that you have brushed aside as, “silly” or, “too distracting”?

I’m going to suggest you recall these little ideas and put them into perspective - then a little time spent on thinking of things you haven’t thought about before.

The most effective way to do this is with a kind of mind map – this can be fun and most revealing!

Start with a small circle in the centre of a piece of A4 paper. In the centre of this circle write, “Ways to Earn Cash around {my Creative Job}”. Then proceed with adding arms that hold ideas, which then split again into related ideas and so on.

It’s a brain drain first, then the details can be added on further stems.

To find an online resource to further help you with this, try Tony Buzan's site.

Brighten up your page with colours and symbols too :)
To help convince you, I already know of people who do reviews, make key rings, small prints, CD covers, teach, coach, and take photos, to supplement their professional artist’s income. I can also vouch for the unexpected joy and satisfaction that is possible by spending a bit of time away from the easel / computer/ sewing machine / craft table etc. Sometimes we get too close to our work, and this is ideal to make you take a break, but still earn some money.

Let your brain run away with you and get creative with new ideas. When you have written it down, get researching on the net for what you might need. For example, you may be surprised to know that you can make 100 fridge magnets for £39 (sterling). Selling them at £2 for example would be a profit of £160. At your exhibition, local craft shop, online shop etc. selling these could quickly earn you extra income. Another much more lucrative example would be giving demonstrations or running workshops – you can earn several hundred pounds a day! We all have skills we should make the most of besides our creative job.

Good luck and I wish you all the best with your ideas.

Above photograph and contents © 2008 Deborah Eileen Burrow

Being Resourceful

Last time we looked at the definition and personal perception of success. This time I’m going to talk about resources and how important it is to our journey.

The successful creative person is reliant on a pool of resources. These will be wide and varied, including inner resources of talent, determination and discipline, and external resources of tutors, family and internet. Wherever you are in your life, you will always have resources to draw upon. Sometimes these will be obvious and sometimes they’ll be ones you hadn’t considered before. In order to get in touch with all of the resources available, try out this exercise to bring them together. This will be eye-opening and also useful for future reference.

Using a spider diagram, or in a list, write down the resources available in your life. Consider the following life areas where those resources might be:

• Health & Fitness
• Home & Family
• Career / Work / Business
• Wealth
• Relationships / Romance
• Friends
• Leisure
• Spiritual

Once you have completed this exercise, which may incidentally take one or more sittings, go through your groups of resources to highlight the most important. There will be one or two major resources that are critical to your success and enjoyment of your creative pursuit. To give these major ones priority, write them out on a card and pin them to your dreamboard, or notice board. They will help you continue your journey with peace of mind, and will be there when you’re faced with a challenge and need to know where to go for advice. A visual reminder of your resources will always help you feel supported and connected. Perhaps you could extend this to adding photographs – people, places, books, computer etc etc. Be as creative as you want!

All the best with getting creatively resourceful. :)

Above painting: Permanent Bright Connections © 2008 Deborah Eileen Burrow

Next time I'll be looking at practical issues of earning cash while working on your bigger projects...

Overcoming Avoidance

Creative Avoidance is a normal part of the creative person’s life. It presents itself in many ways, and until we get to know ourselves well in the creative process, we may not recognise it very well as it can be quite subtle! Mostly though, we can identify our avoidance tactics by realising that we haven’t got on with our project as we planned and we can’t see a good reason why.

But it’s ok because once we are aware of our tactics, we can choose to say no to them, and get on with our plan. By the way, these tactics can range from re-sharpening your entire colour pencil set to taking up a job you said you’d never do!

This main thing to remember is that avoidance in creativity exists, and we should allow it to exist because from time to time you will be able to analyse it to find out what exactly you are avoiding. That reason could be anything from boredom to a particularly difficult problem. Once the self awareness is switched on, you can take steps to resolve the avoidance issue. Things that help are:

• Patience with yourself
• Allowing, not forcing the project to grow
• Nurturing your creative side
• Keeping attentive to your environment
• Keeping in touch with other creative people
• Understanding your personal concept of success
• Allowing yourself free time
• Walking through the experience
• Feeling the fear and doing it anyway
  

Whatever happens, be resourceful so that you can find solutions to problems at every stage. Often the life of a creative person can be isolating and it’s important to remain connected to the community of your speciality. Remember, most of all, we all have the answers to our difficulties at our fingertips and it’s up to us to choose the path of solution. Working SMART (previous blog) will help you to self-coach your way to the answers and method to achieve your goal.

Good luck, and I'll see you in 2 weeks, where we'll tackle a tricky subject - the perception of success.