Valuable Insights from My Early Business Mistakes

Hello, my creative art loving friends!   October is my 7th anniversary since the start of Beverly Gurganus Fine Art.  Wow, what an amazing journey of learning and growing!

Today, I want to dive deeper into some practical steps and personal reflections based on my early business mistakes and how I overcame them. These strategies have not only transformed my artistic journey but have also given me a greater appreciation for you, my community.  

 

1. Protecting Creative Time:

One of my pivotal realizations was that if we don't value our work, nobody else will.  The time we have to create is gold and we need to treat it as such.  To give my time and art the value it deserved, I took a few important steps:

• Setting boundaries to protect my time for creating by silencing my phone with the focus feature, and limiting social media to specific times during the workday, often early in the morning or evenings.
• Recognizing that my work is a vulnerable gift from my heart to share.

By doing these things, I began to place a real and well-deserved value on my work.  Be intentional with your time and set realistic boundaries to allow for quality time for your creating.

 

2. Discovering My Inspirations: Allowing myself the freedom to explore what inspires me has been eye-opening.  By stepping away from the endless scroll of others' work and immersed myself in what truly inspired me has shown me that my inspiration comes from nature, faith, and family.  I silenced the external voices to listen to my own. Daily painting challenges has been a wonderful way to learn and find my artistic voice. This process involves playing with color palettes, textures, and styles, which has led to a deeper understanding of the art I want to create.

When looking for inspiration, put the screen down and surround yourself with things or places that you connect with and feel joy.  Get out in nature, climb a mountain, breathe in the salt air, smell a flower, eat your favorite treat or get messy creating just for the fun of it because it is in these moments you will begin to hear your own voice.

 

3. Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: Imposter syndrome is a real struggle for all of us whether we are a creative or work in the corporate world.  We live in a world of social media where we fall into a comparison trap that has us feeling less than the perceived life of another.  What has helped me kick the imposter syndrome out the door? I've found the source of strength in my faith. Knowing that my gift of art was given to me by my creator for a purpose—to love and serve others—has given me confidence in my role as an artist. 

4. Serving and Connecting with Subscribers: Connecting with our subscribers is a vital part of nurturing our community and showing our appreciation for them. I've been working on being more consistent with emails, providing weekly updates on studio activities, new product launches, and/or exclusive discounts. You will never go wrong by making serving others a higher priority than selling.

 

By sharing these insights and strategies, I hope to help you not only on your creative journey, but also on all new adventures you may be embarking on.  Protecting your creative time to grow and discover, will also help you find your voice so with confidence you will be able to share boldly with the world, and welcome with open arms your wonderful community. 

Let's continue to spread joy and inspiration with the world!