Shoot for the stars
Last week I already had it with the failure. I love to learn and I fail with great reluctance. The two of them are constantly fighting and I always have to convince myself not to give in.
I was getting emotional today on the phone with my mother and she said: you are really philosophical.
Yes! That’s right. Philosophy has always dealt with the big questions and has even raised these questions in the first place, so that people become aware.
Our conversation was about setting goals. Set yourself big goals, she said. Good mother, who says such a thing! It reminded me of that Google investigation (sorry, I can’t remember the exact source right now):
Set goals. Let 50% of your goals be so big that 50% of them will fail.
Isn’t that crazy? How big is your error tolerance? How do you deal with the fact that 50% of all your projects fail? When 50% of all the pictures you paint are for the trash can? In an interview I heard another comparison: In baseball a player becomes a star if he manages to hit 3 out of 10 balls. That’s a 70% error rate.
That’s when I woke up.
We don’t even dare to set goals anymore because we have become “realists”. We only aim for realistic goals.
We don’t dare to set big goals because we are afraid of not reaching them and then being disappointed. I have a person in my circle of acquaintances who says: “I have stopped dreaming, then I cannot be disappointed. That’s depressing. The would-be spiritualists can be very bad, because they call it “non-attachment”. They no longer dare to desire anything. But that´s another topic.
This 50 % rule completely overrides that.
Anyway, I find it incredibly exciting that the sciences are increasingly focusing on the soft, creative abilities. The author Daniel Pink thinks that artists are the new thinkers of the digital age. Everything else can either be automated or outsourced. Only creative thinking cannot.
Do you set yourself goals?
If so, do you write them down?
Do you have heart’s desires that feel too big to ever be realizable?
Have you ever given them room?
You know, “wishing” and “setting goals” is about a feeling of anticipation.
That’s actually the trick. The anticipation creates a different chemistry in your head and that makes you act differently. This in turn makes reaching your goal or taking advantage of happy opportunities more likely.
What does this have to do with painting and art?
What creative wishes do you have that you would like to realize?
An exhibition in the Moma? Or in the Centre Pompidou?
A publication in a designer magazine like AD?
An art sponsorship award? An artist scholarship?
What is your goal with your art?
Let me know! I would be thrilled to hear from you.
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