Start | Stop | Continue

Detail of my painted mandala

When something is not working, you have to be bold enough to call it quits.

It happened to me this week. I started my daily art works for the year painting vegetables. The plan was to paint a vegetable a day as a series of monthly folded artist books.

I got to day 7 ( Thursday) and realised it wasn’t giving me any joy. I was challenged by trying to be realistic and felt like I had set myself up for failure. I didn’t want to give up on creating each day, but had no Plan B.

Then in the morning I was making a quick 2 minute video of painting a mandala for the last lesson in my Perky Patterns mini course. I realised I enjoyed the process. It felt uplifting.

Of course mandalas are part of a whole spiritual tradition, but I have never drawn one. I had painted little rose windows before but never attempted a mandala.

I thought it was going to be too hard and too precise. Perhaps because I had done my yoga practice that morning I was able to feel emboldened to give it a go and be a bit zen.

Perhaps also because I found that it didn’t have to be perfect. Enough to know that it made me happy and was pleasing to my eyes.

That was when I remembered advice I had read from my mentor and business coach Sigrun who shared a process of start, stop, continue. It was something also echoed in another blog post I read from a fellow business entrepreneur Martin Meitza who early this year helped me set up my online courses.

Sigrun always encourages us to start something, to take action, no matter how imperfect. Getting your work out there and into the world to help others is her mantra. It has certainly helped me be bold and willing to take chances. (She’s holding a 5 day free mini course to Boost Your Business Framework which starts tomorrow.)

So I created my mandala, made my video and thought I would put the little 10x10 image on my wall. It was an AHA moment. I realised that I could stop doing what didn’t work, change direction and continue on in a new, bolder direction using the start -stop-continue process. Brilliant!

I actually have a beautiful mandala book on my bookshelf that I refer to now and again for inspiration. I can see it will become my constant companion this year, helping me achieve Balance in 2021.

The best of a bad bunch - Carrots 1st January 2021.