As a free lance artist, there are a lot of things that we have to do on our own. We create, make, post, reach out, submit, invoice, etc. I can go on and on with that list because there really are so many tasks that need to be done on a daily basis to keep your business up and running. And some of those things are scary and can fill us with so much anxiety that we put them off until they are a just a speck of a goal that once was.

One of the things that I was most nervous about this last year was reaching out to agents to seek representation. Reaching out to potential clients, companies, agents, or whatever else it may be, is difficult because we are really making ourselves completely vulnerable when doing so. We are putting ourselves out there and there’s a very significant chance (or so we feel) that we will be completely rejected. That thought leads into the next horrible series of self doubt that we inflict upon ourselves. – ‘I’m not good enough!’ ‘They won’t like my work!’ ‘I’m too old/young!’ ‘I don’t have enough experience!’ ‘I’ll never be as good as ….!’

But the thing is, we will never know if we never try.

I started to apply my usual ‘Methods of Getting Things Done’ to these scary tasks. Before the Pandemic, I was so busy that I literally scheduled everything, because if I didn’t, something would be missed. I’d forget, put things off, or just procrastinate because I’d say ‘I’ll get to it later’. Well later came and went and those things that weren’t scheduled never got done – UNTIL, I actually scheduled them :).

So, I scheduled several days – spread out over a few weeks to do everything I needed to make this happen. I scheduled a full day to research Licensing Agents, Half a day to find the submission info of the Agencies I wanted to apply to, Half a day to write the email draft, then a FULL DAY to send out to 10 agents.

With everything scheduled, It was all systematic. Alarm goes off, I get to work. No hesitating, no uncertainty. I just did what I said I was going to do. And ya know what? It worked!! It worked perfectly and when I was done sending those 10 emails I had such an amazing sense of accomplishment!!! And…I signed with my Agent!! Double Win.

Whatever it is you are afraid to do, remember that the fear is just in your head. It’s an abstract. Get your calendar out, schedule it and mark it in BOLD, set an ALARM, give yourself a REMINDER the day before, and most importantly…STICK TO IT.

You can check out my little video blurb about this every subject on my Goodies Page. Sometimes it’s nice to hear it as well :)