Faith Over Fear

Faith Over Fear

I had a motivating conversation over coffee with a friend and fellow creative. We were talking about success and fear and how sometimes we are are own worst enemies. Sometimes…we are afraid to succeed.

Let’s admit one thing: there will always be fear. Maybe you’re afraid of doing a good job on a project. Or maybe you’re afraid of talking about some concerns with a friend. It’s how you deal with that fear that shapes the outcome.

We all have a fear voice and a faith voice. Your fear voice tells you, ‘You’re not good enough; this is going to take time; you’re going to have to learn something new. Just do the bare minimum.’  Your faith voice tells you, ‘You can totally do this. You want a happy client, right? Do the work, give them a little more than they asked for, and make them love you.’

If you change your way of thinking, the good stuff you’re looking for will drive you to succeed. Listen to the faith voice. Focus on the faith voice.

Take Time to Play.

Melissa Carlson Creative illustration with filters

This morning, I took some advice. Instead of jumping right into work, I played for about ten minutes. I opened up my illustration program and found some filters I didn’t know existed. The results were varied: some subtle, some wild. And even though none of the stuff I created is going to show up in my next project, I now know those filters are there to use. Right now, I don’t even know what I’d use them for, but I could imagine creating an interesting background or pattern.

I have a couple subscriptions to online skill sites. You can learn how to build a website, sew a pillowcase, hand-letter a headline. It’s amazing what’s out there. These skill sites come in handy when you need to know how to do something in quick order. Some of the tutorials are better than others; you can tell the folks who took time to practice and have the presentation packaged neatly. I wish I took more time to do these things, but it’s like anything else. You have paying work that has to get done. You have last-minute requests from clients, bills to pay, a house to clean, etc. Play gets put on the back burner. It’s just very refreshing to learn something new.

Take time to play. It’s fun, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s only ten minutes.

 

Simple vs. Piece of Cake

piece of cake

 

‘Simple’ by definition

I was having a glass of wine with my friend, Carolyn, the other night, and we were discussing each other’s work. I said that I’m enjoying creating simple websites. Being an animated person, Carolyn’s face was nothing short of hearing fingernails on a chalk board. ‘Not simple‘, she said. And she immediately looked up the word in her thesaurus app. ‘Clean, uncomplicated, piece of cake’, were several of the more appealing suggestions. Her point: simple can also mean ‘unstudied, vanilla, bare…’, hardly words I would want used to describe my projects!

good ‘Simple’

Just the other day, our college-age daughter needed some money in her account to cover her rent. Usually, I would grumble and drive to her bank and deposit cash. Now, my bank allows me to “send” money to her phone. She receives a text and follows the instructions to direct this electronic deposit into her checking account. This is ‘good simple’.

Email and cloud-based computing mean it isn’t always necessary to send a physical package. It used to be you’d have to set up a meeting with the client every time you wanted to show them something. Now you can create a pdf and send it in an email. Or you share a link to the cloud. I always try to get face-to-face with my clients to nurture the relationship, or to help a project along, but it is wonderful when you can get some quick feedback on an edit. (Clients like it, too.)

All of it this is great. But I’m afraid, from a creative standpoint, expecting things quickly is getting in the way of doing things right.

What people think they need isn’t always what they really need.

I’ve had a few companies say, ‘all we need is a simple website’. What they mean is they need a clean, uncomplicated website, and even with these clean, uncomplicated sites, we also need to brainstorm all the possible functions early, before we start building.

Taking time to step way back and think through a project is important:
– what inspired this project?
– what do you need it to do?
– who will make updates, contribute content?

Take the time to do things right.

Computers have made many parts of our work faster, but the heart and soul of any project depends on investing time early to think things through. Piece of cake, right? All kidding aside, we could all benefit from just slowing things down and doing them right.

My New Love

 

 

WordPress

I love to talk about WordPress because the moment I started learning it I fell in love with it. It was what I had been looking for. My print design days were filled with interesting exploration of color, type, photography, illustration and paper. But I started to realize I was missing out.

Print designer.

I’ve been a print designer since 1987. My first job was for a sweet boutique ad agency in Marion, OH. I made employee number five. In my first week, I designed a logo, created a map for a brochure and typed up proposals. Fast forward to the late 2000’s…

Missing out.

It’s probably 2007 or 2008. I’ve been designing logos, stationery, brochures and just about anything that can be printed since 1987. I’m missing something. Prospective clients call. They need a logo…and a website. ‘I can design your logo. We’ll have to find someone else to do the website’. And…cut. Most small businesses and start ups I talked to wanted to work with one person on their logo and website.

Probably about the same time, I explore WordPress. I see potential but it’s confusing and I’d never consider doing a client website using WordPress. I create a Tumblr blog instead. I read a book a week for a year and talk about it on my blog.

WordPress all grown up.

I start hearing more about WordPress. I look into it. I take an online class. And then another one. It’s better now! WordPress is all grown up! I create my own business site using it. I create sites for my Rotary and Synergist groups.

And I attend my first WordCamp, a three-day $40 (yes, $40) conference with WordPress royalty for presenters. Even breakfast and lunch are covered. I learn so much in one workshop on the first day I admit I would have paid a few hundred dollars for that experience alone. Sticky notes and Sharpie pens are all you need to develop site architecture. It’s so easy. I can see my clients dig it. Every thought gets a sticky note. I rearrange them as people around the table shout out new ideas for pages, posts, categories and calls-to-action. I will never forget that workshop.

Back to what I love.

I create a few sites for paying clients. The ones that work out best are companies with an Information Technology (IT) person on staff. I create the site. They add content and maintain it. I get to worry about the stuff I enjoy: color, type, photography, illustration. My client gets to do press release updates and minor tweaks. You might say I’m missing out on repeat business but what I hope is that they’ll tell their contacts about their experience with me, and I’ll get to keep doing what I love: designing.

 

WordCamp and Kandinsky

    My friend, Mary Kay, and I went to Milwaukee this past weekend for WordCamp. We did blow off the first couple sessions to see Kansinsky’s exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum. I think all we missed at the conference was stuff we already knew, so we were giddy to sneak in some culture. […]

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Everything Goes

    My Aunt was dying. It fell to my Mom and me to go through her things. It was odd while she was still alive. I’d point at something and say, ‘what about this?’. And she would just look at me and shrug. After a while I realized she didn’t really care what happened […]

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Building a Blogging Habit

 

 

Three songs that are important to me:

 

John Denver’s “Take me Home, Country Roads”.

Road trips to Gramma’s. Or the Lake. Or anywhere really. My family liked to sing in the car. We all did. We weren’t bad either! All of us kids have made singing a part of our lives, from church to school to puttin’ it out their during Karaoke at the bowling alley or VFW. John Denver’s songs were always great to sing to…some sweet harmony…easy range…simple lyrics. Feel good music. Reminds me of home and all the adventures we used to go on.

 

Madonna’s “Burnin’ Up”.

1985. Madison, WI. Moving from the dorm into a sublet apartment on the third floor of an old three-story house on E. Johnson. There are yards of fabric pinned to the ceiling. Three of us girls moved in for the summer. Jimmy was the only permanent resident left over from the academic year. He’s gay and he wears O rings up and down one arm. He loves Madonna. And so do I. All of our roommate angst disappears when we put on Madonna. We dance like crazy. This is my favorite Madonna. Lucky Star. Borderline. Holiday. But Burning Up is the song that encapsulates this summer. My boyfriend, now husband, is not a Madonna fan, so I can blast her when I’m with Jimmy. And there’s no threat. I felt free. Sexy. Excited.

 

Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”.

I was never a Pink Floyd fan in high school. When I got to Madison and lived at Sellery Hall Dormitory, I met Dan Carlson. Pink Floyd was probably only second to Led Zeppelin in his music collection. When we first started dating, we would spend a lot of time staring into each other’s eyes, listening to The Wall. When I think of this now, it makes me smile. This song makes me physically relax. It reminds me, too, of the summer after freshman year, when we had to part ways…him off to the Twin Cities and me back to Racine. That was the hardest summer of my life. I still have the boom box my Dad bought me after he picked me up from the dorm. The cassette player doesn’t work anymore, but it does include the port to plug in my iPhone. Now whenever I want to listen to The Wall, I can find it on my iPhone or Dan’s iPad. When I listen to it, I still feel quiet, peaceful, numb.

Voyageur’s National Park, one of my favorite places to visit

 

 

The drive is long but worth it. We unpack the truck and load our things into the cabin. It’s cozy but has everything we need…and nothing more…for the next five days.

The air is clear and cool. It’s the beginning of September, so nights can get downright cold; one year we had planned to camp on an island the entire week, but temperatures were predicted to be in the 20s at night, so we stayed in the hotel instead.

Once the food is unpacked into the fridge, we rig our fishing poles and consider how we’re dressed. We grab a light sweatshirt and a windbreaker/raincoat, a hat and gloves, and we’re on our way.

The boat is stocked with bait, a net, paddles (that will hopefully not be needed), and a small cooler of drinks and snacks. The resort owner confirms we have a full tank of gas; we have our GPS; we’re on our way to explore the open spaces and cozy coves of Voyageur’s National Park, one of my favorite places to visit. The small bays are filled with cattails and lily pads. Eagles soar overhead and occasionally dive for fish, but mostly circle above the trees on the islands.

I don’t really care if I catch a fish, although it’s always more fun if I do. I love the sound of the water lapping against the boat, the occasional fellow fisherman racing past to find the right spot, the heat of the sun on my face, the ice cold beverages, the feeling of wide open space and freedom from “busy-ness”.

Starting my blog challenge

    Here it is. Day one of my blogging. Go. The twist on today’s challenge is that I have to post it to my blog. So when they say, ‘just write and don’t stop until your 20 minutes is up’, I can’t write about just anything. It has to be “clean” and be of […]

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Preparing for Battle

    Monday starts my blogging challenge and I’m swamped with work. I’m not going to worry so much about how great my writing is. I think I’m going to just make myself do these daily assignments but not spend more than 15 minutes doing it. You can do anything for 15 minutes, right?

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