As the days draw close to the art show, I’m doing some extra marketing to help promote it. A friend had reminded me of a recent Struthless video which discussed imagining if I failed at something in the future, and it was totally my fault, to analyze what happened.

Given my last post was about worrying about failing at an art show or art business, I figured that I would fail because I didn’t promote it enough. So, I went about doing more promotions.

Why we are always late

The second barrier seems to be doing too much at once. It’s this sense of doing too many things at a time, and doing nothing well. My family members who are consistently late for things seem to have an issue with this. Cramming 4 hours of housework into 1 hour doesn’t actually work, since it takes 4 hours to do. Hence, we are 3 hours late.

A strategy for planning

I have tried to tackle this by thinking of my next appointment, and the amount of time I have until that point. “I have 2 hours. What do I want to do during those two hours?”

This is a great way for me to also think about what is the priority.

Sure, it would be nice to have gold giftwrap purchased for every single big painting someone buys, but I ask then, is this really necessary? Maybe I don’t give this aspiration up yet, but I can do that at a later show.

Setting the priority

Setting priorities are important. It’s focusing on the essential. It helps reduce that “What if?” anxiety that creeps up, thinking of every possible disaster that awaits me for trying. Rather than trying to reduce all that uncertainty that would exhaust me in working out every avenue, I then think: “What is the essential transaction I’m trying to do here? What is needed to make that happen?”

In the art show: this is, showing up with paintings and having a method to receive payment. Have the product, have me, and receive funds.

The Bride’s Overwhelm

This makes me think of a friend who was a bride at a wedding and her absolute overwhelming chaos that she felt on the morning of the wedding day. This seems to be a common experience for brides of too much going on, which requires then wedding planners, bridesmaids, and everyone else to get involved.

I’m not entirely sure if it was helpful to her, but I had told her that all that really needed to have happen was to have her fiancé show up, and she show up at the same spot. That seemed simple enough. The wedding was a fantastic party in the end. I didn’t know whatever went “wrong” on the day of as nothing seemed out of place to me.

“I have 2 hours. What do I want to do during those two hours?”

A question to ask yourself when feeling overwhelmed with activities.

So I have 14 days until my show. What can I do in those 14 days?

The fortune teller that won’t shut up

I have naturally made checklists to soothe that part of me that needs to plan out every avenue of possibility. It works really well as long as I don’t do this to the point of worrying incessantly. Maybe that’s the superpower about having an anxious mind: the double edge sword of being able to imagine and foresee many possibilities. It’s like having a fortune teller that won’t shut up in your head.

That ability to “see the future” lets you imagine a whole ton of bad things that could happen. It could lead to an tachycardia of the mind – a mode where you are stuck in a pattern of unrelenting worry.

Based on the fortune teller’s predictions, you can take action to prevent all those bad things from occurring. This will wear you out though, because she has an unending ticker of new possibilities and disasters that are just waiting to get you.

Focusing instead on the amount of time I have remaining allows that fortune teller to become preoccupied with another task. She needs to figure out what to do within the time constraints. She puts aside her robes and becomes an interim logistics coordinator.

It’s like throwing a rock in a different direction for a guard to get confused and follow that sound. I get to succeed by sneaking by.