I have many people ask me if I actually do calligraphy everyday for this blog. I do and it comes in stages. There are some days when I create backgrounds, like this one. I splatter paper, use print techniques or play with ink and various paper types not knowing what will be the outcome. There are days when I then pull out the papers – after they are dried – and tinker with turning them into a piece of art. Some calligraphy takes stages and each stage needs to dry. So it is a cyclical process. Each day I also write content. So yes, within the cycles of creating I always have work in various stages of progress and keep the pipeline going in order to never run out.
When I started this daily calligraphy goal, I did not have that process in place. I found myself scrambling too often to create the art, photograph it, write and then publish each day’s post. And when I traveled for work things felt frantic. Whew! It became stressful and weighed on my mind more than I care to mention. I re-evaluated my process and learned that being prepared with options made it all better. Being prepared took away the stress and gave me the power to be fearless.
Imagine if you could be fearless in what you do…just imagine for a moment. No stress to perform, no fear of being inadequate or behind, and no anxiety around hitting your goals. What a great feeling, indeed! When we take the time to prepare, to plan ahead and organize things such that we no longer worry about what comes next, we have the ability to perform fearlessly!
The problem is preparedness is not sexy, or romantic, or even noticed most of the time. Being prepared happens behind the scenes, when we are alone, when we could be doing something else much more fun, We could be relaxing, instead we are preparing. We are making the choice to prepare for the future instead of satisfying the will of the moment. We have experienced that the time spent preparing is an investment in our mental health AND provides a solid foundation for success moving forward. Being able to pivot, change, shift, even totally rearrange things requires that we have taken care of things behind the scenes in order to make the new thing possible. When we forget to prepare we panic and life feels frantic.
Want to eat an elephant, it takes one bite at a time…and a very sharp knife. Someone had to sharpen that knife, get the fork ready, and even find a really big napkin. All of that means being prepared. It isn’t sexy, it isn’t usually noticed, and there are far more interesting things to do than prepare. And yet, when we don’t prepare we end up chasing that elephant and wasting our energy instead of being able to savor each bite.
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