Sunday ☕ : It’s Dream Time

Sketchbook on my lap and watercolors in hand, I’m trying to capture the vibrant pink clouds as the rising sun bounces off their otherwise purple shadows. I’m trying to learn to paint the feel, not just the scene. I think that’s a lifetime goal. Then again, sometimes I forget the goals that are important to me, and then I forget to pursue them.

A Basket of Dreams

Imagine for a moment that you have a basket sitting there in your kitchen. Beside it are some note cards. Every time you have an idea, or a dream about doing something, you write it down on a note card and throw it into the basket.

In my case, I have a document open on my desktop. It’s the basket that all my ideas go into. I have 30 ideas a day, and every one goes in my basket.

Lots of Pitches

My team will tell you that I’ve been known to drive them a little bit crazy. I’ll have an idea, send an e-mail throwing it to the team, and expect them to do it. The problem is that I keep throwing fastballs. They probably get 50 a year, maybe more. They have to catch them, then decide what to do with them next. Do they start working on them, sit on them, or delay them?

Driving them Crazy

They’ve come to realize I’ll throw them a ball, they’ll start working on it, and then a month later, I’ll not even remember throwing it at them or it will no longer be important to me. It’s a giant waste of resources. But when things are working well, they’ll throw them in their basket, then hold a priority meeting with me. “Boss, we’ve got 56 things in the basket. Let's go through them and decide their priority.” This is how a well-oiled machine works. In the past, I’d ask why something wasn’t done and they would tell me, “Because we’re working on this other project.” No human alive could accomplish it all.

So is this something you should do?

Let me ask you some questions.

What are your five most important priorities to get done before your life ends?
What are five places you want to visit before you die?
What are five things you’ve always wanted to do but have not yet done?
What are the biggest goals of your life? Your career?

If you can’t answer these questions, you need to consider a basket and priorities. Include your family too, so they can live the family dreams.

There are a few important steps I think most of us should take.

We need a dream basket.
About this time of year, we need to pick up the basket, pull everything out of it, and ask the following:
Is this item still important to me?
If so, is it important to me this year?
Anything important this year needs to be given a priority: No. 1, No. 2, etc.
Anything big for next year or a few years down the road, you need to ask: “Do I need to be working on it this year?” Some things take years.
These priority items need to be your goals. Ideally you should have goals by category...
spiritual goals, physical goals (weight, diet, workout), mental goals (learning, growing), travel goals, financial goals, etc.
Start making a plan now, so you hit the ground running. If you wait till January, you’ll miss the first-quarter goals.

A Giant Mistake

Have you ever been so busy that you don’t have time to work on something that is important to you?

Last year I was so insanely busy that I did not go through my bucket, I did not set my goals, and I did not follow my regular routine. As a result I lacked focus, and because I had no goals, I did not hit them. But I’m sure I didn’t hit them because I didn’t set them. It’s too unstructured for me.

The Big Powwow

Most years I get my key executives together in a room, and we pound out our priorities and goals for the year. It takes about three days. But we were so busy last year, we did not do it. Therefore I feel like we just drifted this year.

I’ve discovered that success isn’t about a ton of goals, it's about one big goal and two smaller ones. Once you knock those out, you can add others. We try to have three goals per quarter, no more.

This year my basket goals are being set, and in a couple of weeks, several of my team will gather for a full week and we will walk away with a budget, our company and department goals, our new initiatives, and our targets. And I’ll also do the same for my personal goals. When you’re shooting into the air, you never know if you hit a target.

I’m so embarrassed that I missed this, and I feel like I threw the year away. Don’t let it happen to you.

Your Mission

You need this, whether you’re on your own, running a business, or running your life or your family. If you don’t set goals, you probably will miss out on the things you want to get done in life. Life goes by quickly. You need to hold yourself accountable to those goals and not let yourself off the hook. Even if you can’t afford them, you need to find a way. You always can. That’s why planning is important.

Staying on Track

Goals are useless unless they are top of mind and in your face at least weekly. If you stay focused on them, you stand a higher chance of hitting them. If you never look at them and forget about them, I guarantee you’ll miss them. So get busy!

PS: Monumental Growth

One year I was hurting. I felt my painting ability was suffering, and I wasn’t getting better. So I sat down and made two goals. One was to be better at landscape painting, and one was to be better at portrait painting. I then made a plan, followed my plan, and I actually made more progress in one year than any year before that.

Starting on Tuesday, I’m helping others around the world achieve their painting goals with my online conference REALISM LIVE. I have about 22 top master artists teaching for four days, and people attending from over 20 countries. Thousands have attended this event. It is, I believe, the fastest way to make great progress, because you are immersed for four days. Then of course you have to apply yourself and practice what we’ve taught you. We’re teaching portraits, figures, drawing, painting, still life, landscape painting, and more. There is time to join by going to www.realismlive.com. But do it before the price increase tonight at midnight. I have a guarantee: If you attend, and don’t feel as though you got enough value on day one for the entire fee, let us know by the end of day one and we’ll refund your money. Join us, even if you think you can’t paint. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

PS 2:
I’m doing a new artists’ retreat in St Augustine, FL, in February. It's called WINTER ESCAPE (“Escape to Sunny Florida from the Snow and Ice”). It’s already 50% sold out, and I think it could be sold out before Christmas. You can learn more at www.winterartescape.com.

Who Is This Guy Eric Rhoads?

Eric is the founder and publisher of PleinAir magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine (both on newsstands nationally), author and host six of Art Marketing instructional videos and has a blog on Art Marketing, and is author of the Amazon best seller Make More Money Selling Your Art. He produces newsletters American Watercolor, Fine Art Today, Plein Air Today and RealismToday, Creator of; The Plein Air Convention, The Plein Air Salon $30,000 Art Competition, The Figurative Art Convention & Expo, Plein Air Live, Realism Live and Watercolor Live Virtual art conferences. Art instruction video with Paint Tube.TV (art instruction on Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV) and host of several painting retreats: Fall Color Week, Paint Adirondacks and PaintRussia, plus an annual collector Fine Art Trip, Rhoads hosts a daily art broadcast on Youtube and Facebook (search Streamline Art Video). He is a plein air , landscape and portrait painter with works at Castle Gallery. He is also heavily involved in the radio industry as founder of Radio Ink, as well as Radio and Television Business Report, the Radio Ink Forecast Conference, Podcast Business Journal, and the Radio Ink Hispanic Radio Conference. He is the author of a best-selling book on the History of radio; Blast From the Past: A Pictorial History of Radio's First 75 Years. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his bride Laurie and they are the parents of triplets. Learn more at EricRhoads.com or see Everything We Do.