7 Ways to Love Yourself Every Day

PenguinGirl learns about self love and loves herself.

Lately I’m starting to realize that my existence thus far has been a long drawn-out quest for Self-Love. Up until 3 years ago, I didn’t have a clue what Self-Love is, but ever since I found the courage to plunge into my artist dream by organizing my first solo exhibition, I’m learning a little more about how my previous perceptions of Self-Love are far from accurate. It would take another entire blog post to define what Self-Love is and isn’t, and I don’t believe I’m at the right place to shed some light on that at this time. Instead, I’ll share a few of my realisations and ways to show yourself a little love every day!


1) Exercise regularly

I used to tell myself that I’m not an athlete, that I suck at sports, and exercising is something simply not for me. I remember back when I was in secondary school and we had to be tested on our physical fitness and based on their standards I barely passed every single year. I hated it. I hated being the person who comes in last at the end of a 2.4km run. I hated that as much as I tried I couldn’t push myself to be faster or to hang on longer and beat my own personal record (which everyone else was beating easily). To be honest I was quite resigned about the state of my physical fitness and instead of trying to work at it regularly and get better, I told myself I was simply not athletic and will never be that way.

For the past 2 months I’ve been working out an exercise habit (pun intended). I jog about 3-5km twice a week, and I have a routine of strengthening exercises that I get on almost every day. Sure it was tough at first, and in the beginning I could barely do 20 push-ups (with my knees to the ground), but now I can do 50 at one go and I can run 5km without stopping for a little over 30 minutes. It may not seem like much to most people, but for someone who typecast herself as the not-athletic sort and would never be so, it’s definitely been a lifestyle improvement.


2) Follow a healthy diet system that works for your life

From all the dieting fads out there that I’ve attempted and read about, I've learnt one very important thing: If you want to have a healthy diet, it’s really about finding a system that will work for your life. So if you decide to do 5-6 small meals a day but your daily schedule is always irregular and you keep missing your meal times, find another system that complements your schedule. Or if you’re not good with details, then counting calories would be a bad idea. Ultimately you want to find a system that is easy to follow and incorporate in your life, and that will help A LOT with building the discipline you need to sustain it.

For myself, Intermittent Fasting (IF) has been the most effective so far. IF is based on the premise that you go without food for an extended period of time (fasts), such that your body can finish burning off the carbs you’ve accumulated from your meals and start burning your fat reserves. So my eating window is from 10.30am to 8.30pm daily, and during my fasts I drink only water. There are, of course, the occasional days where I catch up with friends over supper or later-at-night drinks but generally I keep this pattern 5-6 days a week. IF works for me because it’s a very easy system to follow, and it has allowed me to curb my bad habit of snacking late at night (which is probably how I’ve gained weight in recent years haha).


3) Do something that tests your limits (ie. outside your comfort zone)

You’ve probably come across this saying: “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Some people may wonder why anyone would want to do that - like isn’t life difficult enough as it is; why add on more stress? However, it's only when you push your limits that you get to see what you are made of. Adversity in life is inevitable, and even if your life is generally smooth sailing, you'll never know what kind of shit will hit your fan. So I believe it's better to intentionally test your limits and rise to the challenge way before life forces you unexpectedly into a chaotic situation.

Earlier this year, as part of a program on leadership, I completed a marathon hike of 46km... TWICE in one weekend. Fortunately for me I had started hiking from an adventure trip in the U.S. I did earlier in 2012, so I was already somewhat physically adapted to walking long distances. Or so I thought. Little did I know that with long distance hikes, it goes beyond testing your physical limits. It reaches a point where getting through it depends on your ability to persevere one painful step at a time, and how you can support your team mates to ensure they get to finish line together with you.


4) Pick up a new skill or hone an existing one

Off a similar vein, learning a new skill not only tests your limits, but also expands your perspectives and general knowledge. As an untrained artist, I've been drawing and painting in my own way, and it's resulted in somewhat of a recognizable style but it has its limits. Hence I decided to really work on my drawing skills and follow a structure as taught by mentor. Since we started 2 months ago, I've finished 3 classic books on drawing and suddenly all the basic principles of drawing which I intuitively somehow knew before just totally made sense.


5) Spend an hour with yourself by yourself every day

When you meet the most awesome boy or the most beautiful girl and they love you back, you want to spend time with them, getting to know them better and connecting with them. Well, your self is no different from your romantic partner; in fact, your self is more important than your partner because partners will inevitably leave you (when the relationship or one of you dies), but you will be with you for the rest of your life. So isn't it worth the investment to spend time connecting with yourself and getting to know yourself better?

I try to incorporate an hour of self-time daily, and I've noticed that on the days I do spend that time, I'm more connected to my larger vision for my life, and clearer about what I need to work on in the short term to better position myself for the long run. Usually I spend the hour journaling for about 30 minutes, which really helps to sort out my thoughts and reflect upon what's going on in my life. The rest of the time I have a chat with myself and make sure I'm clear about my goals, or sometimes I fold in exercise time and go for a jog.


6) Journal first thing when you wake up

When you wake up, your mind is fresh and ready to kick start your day. But many people spend their mornings rushing to get to work, checking their emails or Facebook updates, reading the newspaper.. and basically not making the most of this critical time to set the right tone for the whole day. When you first wake up, your mind has spent the whole sleep time sorting out what happened the day before - your learnings and lessons, your emotional state, and sometimes you get dreams that still linger for a little while. Journaling in the morning helps to align oneself such that all these thoughts can be integrated, in order to bring you clarity for the new day's work according to your bigger goals.

I first came across this concept when I worked through Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way". She called it the Morning Pages, where as creatives we need to spend 20-30 minutes each morning writing at least 3 pages. I've gotten many creative ideas while practicing these Morning Pages, and especially now that I'm getting into the habit of blogging weekly, these journals have been a way to track the current themes in my life and my learnings and realizations. In fact, this blog post was birthed from my recent journaling and recorded realizations.


7) Get enough sleep and make sure you end your day such that you maximize those sleeping hours

I'm not going to say what's "enough" sleep, because that's really up to you to figure out what's enough for you. Only you can know how much energy you need for all your tasks so plan your sleep accordingly to make sure you get through each day in the best possible manner. What I do want to stress is the importance of winding down intentionally. Which means scheduling your sleeping hours just like any other appointment or task in your day and sticking to it. Not only that, it’s also about completing your evening such that when you get into bed, it’s really about lying down, closing your eyes and going to sleep and not to continue working on something until you fall asleep.


So there you have it, some of the ways to love yourself daily such that you can get closer to achieving your goals in life! If you have other suggestions on ways to love yourself, feel free to comment below, or send them to me at penguingirlart@gmail.com. Have a great week everyone, and remember to FLY (First Love Yourself)!
 

Ending the Hunt for Flynn Rider (a.k.a. Mr. Right, the One, etc.)

Up until 2010, my favorite Disney princess was Ariel. From the first time I saw “The Little Mermaid” at age 8, all I wanted was to be a mermaid. Then I found myself in November 2010 at the movie theater at Green Hills Mall in Nashville with Mr. G, my new romance at the time, with whom I was already madly in love for almost the entire year. I hadn’t even heard of the movie we were about to see, but it had been his idea, and I could never say no to him. So “Tangled” began, and little did I know Rapunzel's first song would immediately tug at my heartstrings, and I would identify so much with her, even more so than I did with Ariel. These were the very lines: “Stuck in the same place I’ve always been. And I keep wondering, wondering, wondering and wondering WHEN WILL MY LIFE BEGIN?” There I was at age 27, barely minutes into this children’s movie, and I was fighting back my tears and hoping Mr. G hadn’t noticed.

You see, back then, I looked at my life, and it seemed pretty good. I never had to worry about financial difficulties or physical hardship. I’m in good health, I rarely fall sick, and I could eat a whole lot of junk for days and not worry about my weight. I’m musically talented, I write well, I’m got good grades without really putting in much effort, I’m intelligent enough to carry out a conversation of substance with. And I’ve done a few crazy things most of my ex-schoolmates would never dream of - like attempt an acting career in Singapore during a time when the arts scene didn’t quite exist, like packing my bags and flying alone to Nashville without knowing anyone there, like getting the whole study abroad experience.. Really, my life was pretty good and I had no reason to feel otherwise. But if I were to be really honest, deep down inside, for many many years there had always this nagging feeling I’d ignore, a feeling finally brought to my awareness with a simple question Rapunzel sang on my behalf:

WHEN WILL MY LIFE BEGIN?

3 days ago I read for the first time Shel Silverstein’s book “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O”, which begins: “The missing piece sat alone… waiting for someone to come along and take it somewhere.” And as I flipped the pages, I just kept seeing my own life spelled out and illustrated before my very eyes. And that’s when it hit me that in my world, my life only begins when Flynn Rider breaks into my tower and whisks me away. And by living this way, I’ve remained a lonely missing piece waiting and yearning for something or someone to make me whole. Notice that in the movie, Rapunzel was the one who hoisted herself out of the window and down to the grass below, which meant she could have always left whenever she wanted. What she really lacked was the courage to take that first step (because her “mother” had been filling her head with stories of how the world out there was bad, crazy and scary.. but that’s another blog post for another time). Hence Flynn became her way out, her ticket into the great big scary world. Her ticket into adventure.



Flynn Rider was the boy I “clicked with” when we met at a bus stop in Ang Mo Kio 13 years ago. We spent an entire night at Sentosa wandering the beach, singing our favourite songs, and sharing about our lives, falling for each other within days of our first meeting. (Ironically he’s probably the one most like Flynn because he borrowed a lot of money from me and some of his friends and never returned it). Flynn Rider was also the boy in 2009 who led me to the dance floor at a swing dance party during the last night of a Catholic students’ conference in Orlando, Florida, who continued to dance with me despite my clumsy attempts to keep up, the numerous times I trampled on his green shoes, and my nervous laughter because his face was so close to mine and he was damn cute. We sat at opposite ends on a sofa in the hotel lobby and chatted about anything and everything until the sun came up and we left Orlando and he went to Sao Paolo for a semester. He’s the one I met up with in New York and we spent a night wandering the city and the next evening with his crazy uncle who forgot he was supposed to leave for Ecuador and it was a mad rush to get the family packed and to their flight on time. Shortly before we saw “Tangled”, our whirlwind romance began, and he was adventurous and constantly wanted to explore new places, try new things… but he never brought me along. He started his own business at Coney Island, moved to Ecuador for a few months, even went to Fu Zhou to learn Mandarin, and I was never really a part of his adventures. But Flynn Rider showed up again a few months ago as the guy who came to see my first singer-songwriter showcase at an arts cafe in Singapore, who tried to catch the cockroaches we found in my car later that evening, who took a very-petrified me on his motorbike to get cockroach bait from a supermarket nearby at 3 am that same night, who lay beside me on random patch of grass and shared my love for emo songs until the sky lit up. The one who helped me figure out how to ride a bicycle at 1am on the quiet street outside his home. The one who’s lived in various places all over the world, who’s started a few businesses, the freelancer proficient in music, photography, dance - whose every day was different than the one before. These were the prominent Flynn Riders of my life, the ones I fell hard for and couldn’t forget for a while. The others before and in between consisted of some losers, some jerks and some decent guys who got their heart broken in the end… But one thing is for sure - they were all Flynn Riders at the beginning, until they all turned into Eugene Fitzgeralds (some faster than others), and it was time to let them go.

It became clear - I never saw Eugene for Eugene. I only saw Flynn Rider and the perks that came with that. Being whisked away on exciting adventures, having interesting memories to add to the bank of my rather mundane existence, getting close to something dangerous and feeling more alive as a result. Getting to ride on the back of a motorcycle because I don't dare to ride one myself (I can’t even get past my own fear of riding a bicycle!). Getting to be driven around in a fast flashy loud car because I don't know if I dared to race one myself. Getting to visit far away places and explore off-the-beaten paths with someone fearless because I was afraid I’d get lost, or mugged, or killed if I was alone. Because it’s easier and safer to get through a crazy scary world with someone who knows the way, than to figure it all out on my own.

Flynn Rider doesn’t exist. He’s not real (eh.. besides the fact that he’s a fictional character). He’s simply a made up identity to portray a certain image and reputation for Eugene to survive in his world, not very much different from the various personas we put on to get through our day. So waiting for Flynn to whisk me out of my tower, waiting for him to come along and take me somewhere - is all part of a self-created delusion, a fallacy I started to believe a long time ago that my life can only begin when Flynn appears. But history has shown that even when he does, he eventually and inevitably turns into Eugene anyway. And then what? For most of them I simply walk away and let it go. For the three big Flynns of my life, I've put them on a pedestal, waiting for them to become Flynn again, waiting for them to whisk me away, waiting for my life to begin again, waiting and waiting until it finally becomes painfully clear to me that in their eyes I’ve turned into a Eugene, and eventually, I see that they are nothing more than Eugenes too.

We can’t help who we’re attracted to, and my history has proven time and again that I will continue to hunt for Flynn Riders for a pretty long time.. unless something changes in a profound way. It goes to show that the heart of the matter lies not with the Flynn Riders or Eugene Fitzgeralds or Aladdins or Prince Erics or [insert other Disney characters or whatever name pleases you] of the world, but the real issue can only be resolved within ourselves. We get attracted to whatever it is we feel or think we need in order to feel whole and complete and that we’re someone worth loving. So what then needs to change such that I’d no longer need Flynn Riders to qualify my existence? What do I really need to let go of? Who do I need to become such that I wouldn’t need another person to fill the Flynn-shaped hole inside? If there’s one thing I’m finally understanding about self love, it’s about becoming the very thing you feel that you’re missing in your life, like the missing piece lifting and pulling itself and plopping and repeating that over and over again until it shaped itself into something whole and complete on its own.

So WHEN WILL MY LIFE BEGIN?

It begins when I end the hunt for Flynn Rider, and start becoming the equivalent of that for myself. Name pending and suggestions are welcomed.

PenguinGirl learns about self love and loves herself.

Realizations from a Recent Rendezvous with a Roach

A few hazy evenings ago I got home and went straight to my Macbook Pro in my bedroom to put down some thoughts from a sudden inspiration. I was barely five minutes into my writing, when I heard some scraping sounds behind me, and I turned just in time to see some creepy crawly slip behind one of my paintings on the wall. I decided to leave it alone, thinking I had some time before it came out and I could always get to it later. Then the damn thing came crawling out and it was a f—king HUGE ASS COCKROACH. Literally I was like, OMG OMG WTF WTF OMG OMG WTF…

And to make matters worse… just like the penguins I create in their lovely world in the sky… it liked to FLY!!! ARGH!! I hate cockroaches, and I’m kinda scared of them (probably from the childhood trauma when I was 6 and one sprinted literally across my bed WHILE I WAS IN IT…), and as long as they stay away from me, I’m totally cool. But when it’s fluttering around my room, landing on my stuff, taunting me with its giant twitching feelers, there isn’t much else I can do except squeal in terror and attempt to nuke it with a whole lot of F bombs. Which clearly didn’t work.

Anyway, my brother happened to pass by my room at the time, so he got a roll of newspaper, and before he proceeded on my behalf to whack the bejeezus out of the little devil, I quickly closed the wardrobe door that was kept open by a jacket that needed to be dry-cleaned from 6 months ago. The newspaper attacks started from the top of the white cabinet where I kept some books and other trinkets from traveling, where my Tennessee license plate was displayed together with a Statue of Liberty and a pig with sunglasses, both made from those stress ball kind of material. Together with a Coca Cola football from almost 20 years ago, these items ended up on the floor as my heroic bro removed them to gain access to the monster, and as he whacked at it, there was a little poof of a dust storm.

The cockroach flew across the room to the chest of drawers outside my bathroom, where I had hung a t-shirt and running shorts on one of the handles. It hid between the shirt and the drawer, and after Aaron moved the shirt, the terror ended up on the floor behind extra bottles of liquid Dove and Pantene, and under the drawers. I grabbed my flashlight and followed it under my table, which housed a basket of scented candles I was never going to use and some paintings in an ArtFriend plastic bag that was disintegrating. This was when Aaron seized the opportunity of the space beneath the table to destroy our common enemy (whacking it a few times more than necessary), and it received a watery farewell down the toilet. *insert MAJOR SIGH OF RELIEF*

I wish I had documented the process (like the social media pro that I am, ahem ahem) to better illustrate this little story, but this post really isn’t about the victory over that nasty nasty thing. That really wouldn’t be all that interesting because I’m sure you’ve got your own heroic tales of taking down this vile creature, perhaps even more entertaining than mine. But as I looked over the aftermath of our victory - the stuff strewn on the floor, the dust under the chest of drawers and on top of the cabinet, the hoarder’s paradise beneath my table… the one thought I had was: Why do I have to many things? How did I come to have so many things? And why are they still here?

And that’s just what the eye can see. What I normally pretend not to notice is the wardrobe filled with clothes I don’t wear, the cabinet filled with trinkets that have no use, the junk in the drawers I tell myself I'll use someday, the box full of old journals and stories I wrote from the first half of my life, old photographs from late-teen-early-adult years, old letters from friendships exist now only on Facebook, a bagful of stuffed toys, and earlier artworks and song lyrics that were messy and awkward and abandoned halfway - all signs of a life spend accumulating unused things and unfinished projects. Signs of a half-lived life, halfway gone, and still half-fucked. And if I were to die tomorrow (which, let’s face it, is a very real possibility), who would I leave behind to deal with this mess, and what can they do with it but to get rid of it anyway?

It was ultra clear to me - I can't LIVE like this. I can’t LIVE knowing that someone else would have to clean up after my messes, to continue to pretend that it doesn’t happen, to lead a life filled with unimportant things, unfinished work and half-arsed efforts. The real battles cannot be fought when there are all these incompletions and clutter in the way, all merely distractions, excuses, and self-created obstacles to keep me from what really matters, to keep me from fighting the good fight. And perhaps right now my good fight is about these things, to sort out the messiness of my existence, to cut out the fluff and get to the core of what’s real and what’s truly important.

In the words of one of my literary heroes, Paulo Coelho: "It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

So what do we really need to let go of? Why do we continue to attach ourselves to things that only clutter our worlds and hold us back from our truth? Why does the mess exist in the first place? And even after we declutter and sort things out, how many times would we have to continue this work before the mess is finally gone?

I’m still searching for my answers, and I may never know all of them in this lifetime, but one thing is for sure, I definitely need to de-hoard and declutter, so that at the very least, if I were to encounter a cockroach in my room again, there will be fewer places to hide, and I increase my chances of winning the fight.

Studio of Self-Love

Photo contributed by Michael Tan.

Recently I was one of 10 artists selected to participate in the Noise Festival Singapore 2015, as part of an installation showcase called Studio of Wonders. The artists and I set up our respective little cubicles along the theme of "Curiosities" - essentially creating a studio space based on what inspires us and our art.

Well, initially I was gonna write about setting up the installation, post some pictures, the usual stuff, but an unexpected comment on my Instagram post about my Studio of Wonders changed the course of my writing:

(Read what's circled in ORANGE).

Screenshot of my Instagram post and the comments from a follower.

So I got this comment from @katybobsyouraunty and turns out she thought that this was an area of my studio! My initial thought to that was... Haha I wish!! ... because the space I created looks pretty darn awesome, a far cry from my real-life studio. (It's a mess, and very cluttered, and needs a long overdue spring-cleaning LOL..)

And that was when it hit me - why doesn't my actual studio look like this?

I had spent a month creating the design for this installation, creating new artworks for it, carefully measuring and planning, sketching when I have pockets of time, painting late into the night (as I currently work full-time). Then on a Monday evening, after 9.5 hours at the day job, I spent 3 hours to put this space together, agonizing over whether I should change my original plan, whether the paintings can be seen from the holes... And then ALL OF IT is sealed behind a wall with some tiny holes for people to peek into, and it's quite ironic that I invested much time and energy into this because no one actually gets to see the full extent of what I've created. And that's assuming they're intrigued enough to peek into the holes to begin with. Which again begs the question -

Why did I put in that much effort to create this studio-for-show than the real one in which I work from and look at every single day?

Well, for me, it's a really simple answer. Because besides myself, nobody is there to look at it, so there really isn't a need to beautify it, to care for it, to make it worth spending time in. It's serves its basic purpose as a space I work in, as a space to contain all my art-related stuff and clutter, and that's all I need from it, or so I believe. But tell me that a gallery owner might possibly stop by and take a look, and watch me scramble to fix it up and make it beautiful.

And really, when I faced up to it, it really isn't about the studio. It's a reflection of my own life, and how I love myself. How much time do I really invest into myself, to do something that's purely just for me? To do something that's not about impressing someone else, or living up to a society's expectations. To do something that's important to me simply because it is important to me (whether I'm aware of it it or not), and because I'm worth the investment of my own time, energy and effort.

I know a single mom who took on a 5-week project to redo her master bedroom because it reminded her too much of her failed marriage. It was one of the most difficult things she had to do, because there were always seemingly more important things than her project, like caring for her son, running errands, working over-time... but she stuck to her commitment to herself, and transformed the entire room within 4 weeks. And she felt happier, felt more connected to herself, and it improved her interactions with others, and especially with her son.

We live in a world filled with busy-ness, taking on various commitments to the people or causes that matter to us, constantly running and striving for success in various forms, but what is all of that really for? Who are you trying to impress? What are you really working towards? And if none of your answers is for yourself, your own happiness, or your own growth, then it really begs the question - how are you loving the most important person in the world - YOU?

So I'm about to jump into what's perhaps one of the more confronting projects of my life - to actually turn my real studio in a Studio of Wonders. It's something I've been thinking about ever since the space was created almost 2 years ago, but I never got down to it. I'll be sharing more on that later, so stay tuned for updates, and I hope this inspires you to create something for yourself simply because it just makes you happier. :)

Here are some pictures from setting up on Monday, 14 September 2015. And also pictures of my completed Studio of Wonders. Before it got walled up :(

The exhibition runs from 16 September - 11 October.

View from the top on Setup Day, 16 Sept 2015. That's outside my Studio of Wonders, scratching my head.

The original plan was to have the Penguin piece in the center.

Dream Tree Totem all setup!

Finished Studio of Wonders!

With sketches on the left wall...

And the Dream Tree Totem and more sketches on the right wall!

Closer view of what's on the table...

7 Tips for the Aspiring Artist

It's been almost 2.5 years since my first self-run solo exhibition in 2013, which brought me from an aspiring artist to a professional one within 2 months. Despite my initial success, I've had many struggles in the past 28 months (mostly within myself), and am still rather clueless about how to run a business of selling my art. That's gonna be a work in progress for a while (more on that next time), but for now, here are 7 things I've learnt that need to be done consistently if you really want to become a professional artist.

1) Meet people.

Make it a habit to meet people. It’s not that difficult - one easy way is to join Meetup and attend events that interest you. People on Meetup want to meet you too, and can be just as shy sometimes. You’ll never know who you’ll meet! One of my clients was someone I met through Meetup and a year later, she commissioned me to paint a mural for her restaurant. So set a target to meet a certain number of strangers every week or “network” for a certain number of hours. You’ll also need to create a system to keep track of all your new friends and their information.



2) Support local arts events and local creatives.

Attend their art show openings, join communities (both online and in person) and participate in their discussions, projects and activities. Make friends, support one another, be open to collaboration opportunities. Create your own creative events and invite these artistic friends! Ask to be an event organizer in a creative Meetup group. Or just put together your own event and invite your friends and new contacts to attend. There are always creatives out there who are looking for something interesting to get into.


3) Step out of your head.

Stay connected to the world around you, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s okay to shut off once in a while, but don’t get too comfortable being there. Take a walk when you’re feeling cluttered. Journal out your thoughts and feelings. Follow up with a new friend and catch up over coffee. Spend time with your family.


4) Share your work.

Share on social media. Send images, video clips or mp3s to your close friends. Post your images in forums to ask for feedback. Share the stories and the ideas you have. You’ll never know who may find your work and fall in love with it. Share it even when it’s still in progress. Share consistently and at least once a day. It can be scary to share your work or your process, and most creatives are rather private individuals, but when you’re new, sharing your work is the only way to know how the world responds to it.


5) If you don’t know something, do your own research.

Ask people. Post on forums. Create surveys. Go out into the world and get your answers. Answers don’t come from being in your own head, or listening to your own assumptions. Talk to other creatives with more experience. This isn’t about taking what you find as the “right” answer; rather, it’s about gathering data so you can create a bigger overview of things or a reality check for yourself.


6) Be yourself in your art.

Work with what you have and what you already do well in. Have faith that there is someone out there who will love your work, even when you don’t think it’s good. Yes, technical quality and skills are important, but the people who truly fall in love with your art are going to fall in love with who you are as expressed in your work. And chances are they will be similar to you. Your art is just as unique as you are, and no one can ever replicate that in the exact same way. So embrace your art for what it is, embrace yourself for who you are, and work at both every single day.


7) Start now.

Procrastination takes you in the opposite direction of your dreams. Start NOW. Even if you have other commitments and can only put in 30 minutes a day. Even if you think you need to get more training first. Even if you feel that you’re not ready. Just get started. Ask yourself, if not now, then when? Don’t wait for tomorrow because you can never be sure what it brings. All we really have is this moment, and whether you like it or not, your life is happening right now.