Category: FEU Training Blog

When the great explorers like Captain Cook, Sir Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong set off to chart new territories, in some cases they had nothing to guide them but the stars, and in Neil Armstrong’s case, he was flying straight at those! What they did have was clear objectives - find new land, climb Everest, or walk on the moon.

In spite of all the current innovations, there is still no technology like Satnav or GPS for navigating the future. Not yet anyway. We still have to find our own ways to identify what it is we care about enough, to aim for in life.

This blog is the second in a series of three. The first one guided you through establishing where you are now. This one is going to cover where you want to go. The third blog will set out how you can make robust plans to get there.

What do you want?

If you are clear about where you’re headed, then that’s great, just make sure that you state it in a positive way. Always state goals in terms of what you do want, not what you don’t.

One of the problems when people wish to give up smoking or lose weight is, they state their goal in negative terms like: “I want to stop smoking,” or “I want to lose 10 pounds.” This doesn’t give them anything to aim for. It really is like jumping into a taxi and saying: “I don’t want to be here!”

You really can’t strive for less of something. You have to state it in terms of what you do want, for example, “I’d like to fit into size X clothes,” or, “I’d like to book a holiday with the money I used to spend on cigarettes.”

For some people, ‘what do you want’, is a tough question. If you are not sure what you want, then maybe you need to start by thinking about what you don’t want. Then you can work out what has to be present to make sure you avoid those things!

Always state your destination in the positive. I’m not sure Christopher Columbus would have got that far had he tried to organise his charts for ‘anywhere but here’!

How will you know you have it?

A great way to really fine tune your destination is to ask what the evidence will be that you have actually arrived:

• What will you see around you?
• Who else will be there?
• What sort of environment are you in?
• What sounds are you hearing?
• What does it feel like?
• How will someone else know you have got there?
• What will they see you doing?
• What changes in you will they be aware of?

If you don’t take the time to work this out, how will you recognise when you get your goals. You could end up continually striving, perhaps beyond the point at which you were happy.

When do you want it?

Not all goals are absolutes, such as climbing Everest. Some involve being more assertive or energetic. So look at what you want, and in each instance, ask yourself when do you want it? Also, where, when and with whom do you not want it?

For example, you might want to have more energy, be someone who gets things done and brushes aside obstacles. This may be great to have at work but do you want to be like this all the time, even for those romantic dates relaxing with your partner?

Is it a good fit for you?

Sometimes we think we want something, or have been told by friends and family for so long that we want it, we daren’t admit we no longer do. Thing is, if you don’t really want it yourself, you will quietly and subconsciously self-sabotage to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Sometimes we lack belief in ourselves or in our right to go for big dreams. As Martha Graeme, dancer and choreographer said:

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. "

Often, we worry that achieving our dreams will have a negative impact on other important areas of our lives. Will we lose friends? Will our relationships survive? Will we still be ourselves?

Take a moment to ask yourself:

• What would happen if I get this?
• How would it change my life?
• Is there anything I would lose if I get this?

Step into the life you want, imagine you have got there. Immerse yourself in this daydream as if everything you ever hoped for has happened. Now ask yourself:

• Does this life match the person I am deep down?
• Is this exactly where I want to be?

If you come across any issues or concerns about your chosen path, you need to do something about them. If you tried this imaginary future on and didn’t feel comfortable, what needs to change?

If you are worried you might lose important relationships, ask yourself how that could happen? See if there are steps you can take to protect those relationships, in as far as you can. Check in again to see if you now feel more comfortable.

Keep refining your goals until you know this is what you want, and feel excited about getting there.

Who’s driving the bus?

Finally, are all the goals you are setting within your control? There is no point in setting goals for your future that you can’t initiate or maintain.

You need to be able to drive this bus, steer this ship, point this rocket, so you can alter course when you decide.

So grab the wheel and enjoy being the great explorer of your own future.

Ever heard the old joke, when a woman asks an old man for directions to the local theatre? He looks at her for a long moment and says: “Well, I wouldn’t start from here!”

Funny thing is, people often make decisions or judgement calls in their businesses without actually knowing where ‘here’ is!

While summer can be very busy for many of us, it is also a time when lots of us have some down time and get the opportunity to do some thinking and assessment. With this in mind it’s an excellent time to find some quiet space, grab a pen and paper and start to jot down all your achievements over the last 12 months - and I mean everything!

How far have you come?

Get out old diaries/action points/work lists and go through them. You may be surprised how much you have done that you’ve forgotten about. I’m not just talking about work but any activities where you acquired skills and made contacts. Perhaps you helped a friend out or got roped into some unexpected experience. What did you gain from it? Include interesting things you tried, even if you felt they weren’t successful, because you will now have information and insights into another area.

Gather up all this information and give yourself a pat on the back for all you have achieved, worked around and/or overcome. Remember where you were at the beginning of that time and recognise what you have learned and how far you have travelled in the last 12 months. Take some time to appreciate your own efforts and achievements.

Throwing out the trash

Now take time to check out the things that didn’t go so well. Maybe have a list headed ‘lessons learnt’.

Look at any negative experiences or ones that didn’t go to plan, recognise what you’ve learned and how valuable that information is to you now. Think about what you could do differently in a similar situation in the future, then, let it go. Don’t waste any more time or emotional energy thinking about it. Take the useful stuff, then send the rest of the experience to your mental trash file, then empty it! It is not useful or helpful to keep raking over the bad stuff for no reason other than personal torture. So don’t do it!

Show me the money!

Get your accounts up to date. Make summaries of your income over the last three years along the lines of:

• Amount earned per month
• Proportion earned on core work
• Proportion earned on ‘work to eat’ activities.

Look at your outgoings and assess them along the lines of:

• Business expenses
• Personal development
• Living expenses
• Luxuries

If you have ever done any analysis of how you spend your time, split that into similar categories. If you have not done this, it’s really useful to do now, so you can track how you spend your time over a month, to assess your actual productivity.

Lay this information out in an ‘easy to see’ summary. See if there are any patterns that might needed changing. For example, maybe you have been caught out financially every year by a particularly fallow month. Having this knowledge can help you to make plans and take extra steps to find suitable work in advance. Or you could plan to take a holiday then, getting extra work lined up for the month before or after.

Some work might be in the ‘work to eat’ category, but is easy to do, and takes care of all your living expenses. In which case, how can you fit this around work you prefer to do?

Seeing your finances set out like this can make things that need to be addressed obvious.

• Where do you spend your time, compared to what generates the majority of your income?
• Could you make economies on your business expenses?
• Have the decisions you have been making strategic or knee jerk?

What needs to change?

Finally, it’s time to work out what it is you want. Maybe you are happy with the status quo, if not what would you like to change? Here are some questions to help you work this out:

• Is there work you want but aren’t getting because you need skills or experience?
• Do you need more down time?
• Do you need more money?
• Do you want more work in a specific area?
• Do you need to make better contacts?
• What do you want more of?
• What do you want less of?

Take time to answer these questions carefully. This will give you a set of challenges to start the next part of this process.

So when you start to look for direction in your business, you will know exactly what your starting point is and this will make it easier to head in the right direction and make the most use of your time.

Watch out for the next blog, which will take you through the next step in the process!

It’s crucial to show prospective clients what you have to offer. However, again and again in our workshops, it is clear that many freelances are not marketing themselves well – often because they are not fitting in the time (amongst the many other tasks in our working day) to do so.

As I mentioned in blog 1 this month, the cycle of freelancing is constant and a regular review of your marketing activities and actions to develop new work leads is very much part of that cycle if you are to maintain career success.

Effective marketing tools

Like any business, you’ll benefit from establishing a marketing plan - it doesn't have to be complicated. Your overall strategy should ensure that you use the most effective tools that are available to you. Reviewing what you're doing on a regular basis and adapting accordingly will help:

1. Make a list of the marketing tools you are using currently, e.g., cold calls, social media and networking
2. Decide how you can improve those tools, e.g., schedule in specific time for cold calls, get on Linked In and attend at least one networking event per month
3. Decide which tools work best for you and those that you can get rid of for the moment - it's important to use your resources efficiently, e.g., the networking events that I have been attending are fruitless so  perhaps it's better to concentrate my efforts on social media and try to arrange one-to-one meetings instead
4. Make a list of the tools that you think you should develop - perhaps you've heard about something specific that is working for other freelances, e.g., Twitter
5. Make an action plan to amend your marketing tools over a given time period, e.g., three months (remember you'll need to fit this in with your other work so be realistic)
6. Review the results of what you are doing to see which ones are working the best for you and so on...

Some popular marketing methods that many freelances find successful include:

Maintaining contacts – most freelances would put this at the top or very near the top of their list. It is crucial to keep up with your previous contacts and to continue to cultivate them. It’s far harder to get back in touch with a contact if you have not been in touch for a long time, so get into the habit of making regular contact. For example, a regular quick email just to remind them you are around.

CVs – ensure they are always focused to client needs. Emphasise the skills and experience that are most wanted for a particular occasion. Freelances should have various versions of their CV available, depending on what you want to sell/promote.

Cold calling – not a favourite task for many people but it is important to make new contacts that offer new avenues of work. Put some time in to research who you should target and what you can offer them. Try to find something specific from your work that would most grab their attention.

Website  - keep it looking fresh and up-to-date. Otherwise, it may act against your interests if a client checks you out and sees that your last news entry or blog was three months ago.

Networking events – these can be great opportunities for making contacts. To make the most of them, set yourself some goals beforehand, e.g., to meet three people before you leave.

Social media – as a marketing tool, social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked In is becoming an increasingly important way to communicate with target audiences and shouldn’t be ignored as a marketing tool.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of free marketing workshops around the country this autumn. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

 

One of the ongoing challenges that freelances face is adapting their skills and learning new ones to ensure that we can fulfil the skills demand of our clients on an ongoing basis.

We need to identify which new skills are needed, source the best place to learn these and usually pay for training. All a pretty big ask when we are also busy working, managing our careers, and looking for the next job or contract.

Given that we will need to develop our skills at some point or another, it's important that we invest our resources wisely to avoid choosing the wrong training and wasting valuable resources. Considering the following will help:

What upskilling/new skills do you need?

Here, it’s important to think about the skills that will help you get new work in the future. This means understanding client needs in the short- and long-term so that your work remains marketable in a fiercely competitive environment.

In some cases, your aim will be to consolidate and build on existing skills and experience. For example, you may be a novelist who wants to try screenwriting and needs a good quality short course. Or, you may be a performer who needs more voice training as you want to move into voiceovers. At other times, you will be looking to diversify your career portfolio and perhaps create a totally new string to your bow - which may take longer.

Finding the right training for you

Whatever your training/learning needs are, there are a lot of providers out there in the creative professional world and not all are of a high quality. So, once you know what you want to learn, ask around your networks and colleagues for advice and opinions on what provider is best. Ask providers plenty of questions about course content and the expected learning outcomes. Also, see if you can talk to people who have already participated in their training.

Evaluating cost

In rare instances, you might be able to source free training, e.g., FEU Training is able to offer free opportunities to members this year because we have been successful in obtaining funding. This won’t last for much longer, so do make the most of it.

However, you will most likely need to pay for training too. To avoid wasting money, do the research beforehand to ensure that the price of training is cost-effective and helps you get the results you want.

Always ask providers if there is any funding/bursary attached to their courses. You never know, you might qualify for a discount. If you do have to pay the full cost of what you consider to be the best training, you will need to budget for this. Remember, professional training/upskilling is a legitimate tax deductible expense.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of free skills development workshops around the country this year. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

Working in the creative fields, on a range of projects, can be a truly exciting way to earn a living. Freelances by nature are go-getters, risk-takers, flexible and adaptable. Otherwise we would all have settled for a steady office job. But freelance success means being able to work the ‘cycle of freelancing’, that is, that continuous process of:

• looking for work
• getting new work
• keeping an eye on future work possibilities.

This can seem like a massive task - completing a variety of different work assignments as well as looking for new work certainly takes some organisation and juggling. However, if you get to grips with how best to work that cycle, your chances of work continuity in the short- and long-term will be much improved.

Freelance careers are organic

One way of looking at this cycle is to think about how our freelance careers have developed and will do so in the future. It might be helpful to think of our freelance lives as constantly in movement; dynamic, evolving, living and (hopefully) growing.

In essence, this means we never stand still too long because we need to think how to move forward. This means building on current markets and clients as well as thinking beyond that. In the current and foreseeable economic climate, we may need to think about diversifying and trying out new, albeit related work, in addition to our core ‘offering’.

To improve our chances of success, it is important that we have knowledge of both existing markets/clients as well as look into new potential areas of work.

Past and current clients/markets

If you have been freelancing for a while, you will already have your own known markets and clients. It is very important to keep these ‘warm’ at all times, e.g., even if you’re not working for a particular client currently but you’ve had a successful relationship in the past, you need to ensure that you keep in contact so that they think of you when new work comes up.

This seems like common sense and good freelance business practice. But so many freelances I have worked with fail to do this. Many say that they have let old contacts/clients slip and then, after a length of time, feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to get back in touch. This is understandable in one way but, in another, it just doesn’t make sense. If you have worked with someone and you know that you did a good job, there is no reason to let discomfort or embarrassment get in the way of potential future work.

Your previous clients, assuming that are still in the same business, will always require reliable, talented freelances so do keep in touch. You have nothing to lose and to ignore them is to potentially lessen your chances of staying in work.

Potential clients/markets

To ensure work doesn’t dry up, it’s also important to continuously look for new clients to pitch to. This might be in the same field as you currently work in or, with some lateral thinking, other fields that might require your skills.

You will need to research potential new markets and clients and how best to sell your skills and experience to develop new lines of work.

Opening up new markets and opportunities should be just as much of your the cycle as staying with the tried and tested. Going back to the notion of our freelance careers as organic, this means always seeking out new opportunities and keeping the cycle of freelancing moving forward.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of workshops (free to members) around the country this autumn. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

Over the last three blogs, I’ve talked about making good plans, staying motivated and developing resilience. There’s another important aspect to consider - making sure you enjoy the journey!

Sometimes we reach our goals and find out they’re not all they were cracked up to be. If we enjoyed getting there, there may be some disappointment, but we’re not likely to mind too much. We just have to move on to the next best alternative.

If, however, you’ve spent years struggling single-mindedly towards your goal, hating every moment, saying no to every personal pleasure that was not directly related to your target, losing contact with friends and family on the way, how do you think it would feel in these circumstances to get there and not be enamoured with your destination? Pretty disappointing and demotivating to say the least…

How do you make sure you have fun along the way?

Watch where you put your focus

When something goes wrong, do you focus on how awful this thing is, or do you start working out what you can do about it?

When we see an erupting volcano reported on TV, some people see disaster, others beauty, some just roll up their sleeves and go see if they can help clear up! To remain focused and optimistic, it’s important to recognise that where you put your attention is a choice.

There’s a great example of a positive focus in Dumb and Dumber. Jim Carey’s character asks the gorgeous Mary what their chances are of having a relationship. She says one in a million, he responds delightedly: “So there’s a chance!”

Not that I am suggesting blind optimism, but it illustrates the point. He could have collapsed wailing: “What’s wrong with me? Am I unattractive? Am I a bad person?” But he chose to see and focus on the positive point in the situation.

Embrace the value of things going wrong

When you have a horrendous experience on holiday, isn’t that the bit you dine out on for years? So called ‘bad’ experiences are the stuff that makes life interesting. Can you imagine spending 80 odd years on this planet, and nothing bad ever happening?

Think of all the great life lessons you wouldn’t have got because you were never forced to reassess or review your chosen path, never encountered any obstacles?

Can you imagine how boring that would be? Personally, most of my funny stories come from unsuccessful or embarrassing experiences. If I’d never had them, I’d be pretty quiet at dinner parties. OK, I know some people would see that as an advantage, but I wouldn’t undo a single disaster in my life. Every one has made me stronger, even the really awful ones.

Being able to see the funny side of a situation is a powerful tool to help you move on from it. As Richard Bandler, one of the co-developers of NLP says, “People tell me one day I’ll look back and laugh at this, and I say, why wait?”

Think about the meanings you apply to events

When something goes wrong, do you think: “Oh well, better luck next time,” or do you think: “They all hate me, I’m useless!”

It’s the way we interpret an event that allows us to deal with it positively or negatively. We lose our power when we interpret bad things as personally targeted, or blame our ability or even personality for it. Often when we do this we are applying an assumed knowledge or understanding we can’t possibly have.

Instead, we could use our intelligence and powers of analysis, our creativity even, to identify alternative options and opportunities to move forward.

As Shakespeare puts it: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Making yourself personally responsible for every bad event in your life is not helpful. Also, you just don’t have that much power.

Admitting responsibility where it’s appropriate (and learning from mistakes) and taking responsibility for what you do next though is a way of claiming the power you do have.

In The Experiments with Derren Brown, there is an episode about luck. In it, Brown demonstrates how much we influence our ‘luck’ by our expectations. People who saw themselves as lucky, immediately spotted money dropped on the ground while people who saw themselves as unlucky, walked straight past it.

The show demonstrates beautifully that if we expect bad things to happen, we will interpret anything that happens in a negative way. If we expect good things to happen, we will look hard for the benefits of a situation, even when this is a challenge. Either way, we’ll prove ourselves right!

If your natural preference is to look for the down side, then form a new habit, where you always look for an upside. There always is one. This may feel like a chore to start with, but once it’s established, you’ll do it without thinking.

Remain flexibly optimistic

Making goals is like setting a compass. It tells us what direction we’re headed in. If we come across a mountain or big lake, we work around it, then continue on our way in the same general direction. In life, those mountains and lakes will be unforeseen opportunities and calamities.

We can’t control the wider world. We can’t make people hire, love, or treat us with respect. We absolutely can control how we respond and react to each and every event.

So set your compass, pack your sense of humour and head on out there. Be confident that things will all work out just fine and make sure you have a great time in the process.

According to Wikipedia, “Psychological resilience is an individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity.”  There are many other articles on the web explaining the key aspects of resilience, such as optimism, feeling in control, adept social skills, flexibility, problem solving ability and positive values.

For me, when I think of resilience, I remember the Weebles, a toy from my childhood. If you’ve never heard of this, take my word for it, a whole generation on hearing the name, will burst into the, “Weeble’s wobble but they don’t fall down,” song. Sad but true.

You can hold a Weeble flat on its side and it will bounce straight back up when you let it go. Some people do this too. Take Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa. After spending 27 of his prime years in jail, he came out and continued to work against apartheid with more compassion, wisdom and determination than ever - definitely a human Weeble in my book.

We’re not born with a fixed quota of resilience. Like every other skill, it can be learnt. Setbacks come in all shapes and sizes: missed opportunities, mistakes, bad decisions, personal problems and human tragedies. Most of these happen to all of us at some point. It’s how we react that makes the difference.

How can we learn to be more resilient?

To develop resilience, I suggest using these three key steps:

1. Detach any inappropriate meaning you have applied to the event/s

One of the most important aspects of how we deal with a crisis is not what has happened but what meaning we apply to it. For example, losing a job might result in reduced income, more free time and some new information about what that client did and didn’t want. It doesn’t change who they are or many other aspects of your life.

However, if you apply meanings to it such as: “I’m useless”, “They hate me”, “My life is ruined”, the event can become a catastrophe rather than a surmountable set back. It’s important to recognise what the real effects of the external event are rather than take it to the dizzy heights of ruining your life – a state of mind not a fact of reality.

Instead, take a step back and look for facts and evidence. Keep your finger off the play button of your own mental disaster movie! What does it mean? It means you have lost this job and now you need to do something about finding the next one.

It’s important to put this event in the context of your life. Take a moment to get in touch with all those areas that have gone well and are still in good shape, e.g., relationships, family, health etc. So whatever happens is only part of the picture not your entire existence.

2. Consider what you can learn from what has happened

The most useful activity now is to understand what happened so that you can learn from it. This is not an opportunity to feel bad about set backs or mistakes. Mistakes are an integral part of learning. None of us learned to walk without falling down a few times. In fact, we learn more from our mistakes than we do from doing things perfectly. So really, this is an opportunity! Now what is needed is information:

• What else was going on that influenced this decision?
• What part did you play?
• If you received negative feedback, was it justified?
• How is this situation perceived by someone who’s opinion you rate?
• What could you have done differently?
• What lessons can you learn from this?
• What can be salvaged, if anything, from the situation?
• How was this experience useful to you?

Once you have answered all of the above, you can put whatever has occurred into perspective, and into the past, and move onto making decisions about your next steps.

3. Identify what actions you are going you take next

Resilience is getting up again and taking action after a setback. I love the Japanese saying: “Fall down 7 times, get up 8.” Now, it is the time to look into the future, make or amend your existing plans, and do something. If you are not sure what to do, do anything. If that doesn’t work, do something else. This is the time to focus on what you can do.

Resilient people have an optimistic belief that somehow things are going to work out fine. Not necessarily how they envisage them now, but fine. This is a powerful belief because it makes everything bearable - no matter how bad it is, it’s only temporary. Just like being rolled onto your side if you are a Weeble!

All together now, sing… “Weeble’s wobble but they don’t fall down!”

Ever had a really great plan, clear goals, and actions so obvious it didn’t seem possible to fail… and yet somehow, nothing got done?

Having a fantastic plan but no motivation is like having a brand spanking new Ferrari, but no petrol. Nice to look at, but it’s going no-where!

So how do you find the motivation to act? One way is to take your plan, pull out your most important goal and ‘chunk it up and down’.

To explain what I mean, imagine your goal is a tree in a forest. If you consider that tree in isolation, you’ll notice that it’s an upright structure with branches and leaves, producing food (and oxygen) by photosynthesis from carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water.

To chunk that up, imagine floating up above that tree, and seeing it in the context of the forest it’s part of. Chunk up again, and see that forest in the context of the countryside it’s in - how it supports animals and other plant life.

Chunk up again, and you’ll understand the role that tree and its forest plays in the ecosystem of the planet, regulating oxygen, CO₂ levels and the global climate. When you chunk anything up like this, you get a completely new perspective. You understand where it fits in, and how it contributes to the overall picture.

Similarly, when you chunk your goal up, you can change your perspective of it stratospherically. You can recognise how that goal fits into your life and your world, and how it plays a significant part in your personal ecosystem.

When you do this, you not only understand your goal’s importance, you feel highly motivated to take the necessary action to make it happen. You fill your emotional fuel tank.

To do this with your goal, consider your most important goal and ask yourself: “If I achieved this, what would it give me?” Take the answer to this and ask yourself: “If I achieved that, what would it give me?”

Keep going with the same question until you can’t take it any further, until the answer is a gesture, a word or a value. When you get there, you will have discovered what this goal means to you - why it matters and why you are doing it.

Now go back to your original goal to see if your feelings about it have changed. Sometimes, this process makes you feel instantly more motivated to make it happen, sometimes you recognise that your goal needs to change. If this is the case, amend your goal, and chunk it up in its new form - all the way to the top.

Once you have found the source of your fuel/motivation, how do you start to pump it around the system to get your engine really motoring?

If we go back to our tree, we need to chunk down now. What could stop this tree from doing its job? To achieve it’s goals, our tree needs to grow tall enough to get it’s share of the sunlight and it needs to sink it’s roots deep enough to get a good supply of water and nutrients, even in drought. It needs to overcome all of the obstacles that might get in it’s way to make sure that it stays standing, to do it’s job for itself, the forest, the landscape, and ultimately the globe.

To chunk down your goal, ask yourself: “What stops me?” Then take whatever the answer is to this and ask: “What would I like instead?” Then ask: “What stops me doing that? Then ask: “What would I like instead?”

Keep going until you reach a point when there are no obstacles. You have then found your starting point.

An example of this might be:

• What stops me? – lack of confidence
• What would I like instead? – to be more confident
• What stops me? –  constantly questioning myself and my abilities
• What would I like instead? – to support myself by telling myself I’ve done well
• What stops me? – nothing apart from lack of practise.

The action point here would be to start working out ways to support yourself more and criticise yourself less. When you start to take action on this, you will have the confidence to take the next steps.

Think of it as a ladder of opportunity that you are trying to find the right point to step on. Once you identify this, you just need to step on and you’re on your way. It’s hard to take action if you don’t chunk down to a manageable level.

If, at any point, you find you’re not making enough headway, then park up, take the goal you are currently working on, and chunk it up and down by way of a car service. Do this whenever you need to.

OK, so you have fuelled up your Ferrari by chunking up to what the purpose and point of it all is for you. You have also checked the tyre pressures, charged the battery and filled the windscreen wash. You are ready to jump in, and see what this engine can do!

Enjoy the open road ahead!

By life coach Muriel McClymont

If we want to achieve our dreams, being optimistic is important but it's not quite enough. If we look at our idols and think, “I could do that,” but take no action to achieve whatever it is, we’re unlikely to get very far.

To give yourself the best chance of making your dreams come true, you need to be optimistic but you also need a plan. Or as comedian Rowan Atkinson in Black Adder says, “a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.”  Well… perhaps not that cunning.

Seriously though, your dreams will remain in the realm of fantasy, if you don’t take the time to put a plan together. An effective plan includes:

• Goals, objectives and targets that excite you
• Motivation to do what it takes
• Resilience to keep trying when there are setbacks
• Means to measure and assess and reward your progress
• Flexibility to make any necessary adjustments
• Deadlines
• Hard work
• Optimism

Goals and motivation

First of all, if you are going to spend time and energy chasing your goals, it’s worth making sure that you really want them. Find somewhere comfortable, sit down, and imagine having all your plans work out just the way you always wanted. Now take a moment to ask yourself these questions:

• What’s it like?
• What’s great about it?
• What are you enjoying?
• What have you had to give up or lose to get there?
• Is there anything you don’t like about it?

It’s essential to ask these questions because, if you charge boldly ahead, harbouring secret fears, for example, none of your friends will love you anymore if you get where you’re aiming for, you’ll sabotage yourself (probably subconsciously) to avoid arriving at your destination and having to deal with imagined negative consequences.

It’s also essential to ensure that your goals are really what you want rather than those that others want for you or those that you think you should want.

Motivation comes from being sure about the path you are on and being eager to do what it takes to get there.

Once you’ve clarified your dreams and ensured that they are truly meaningful to you, it will be easier to set clear, achievable goals and milestones. The specific actions you need to take will almost write themselves!

Resilience

Resilience comes when you understand it’s not personal. All criticism is invaluable feedback and enables you to do better next time.

You stay resilient and motivated by nurturing your passion and keeping in touch with what inspires you. Find ways to remind yourself why you are on this track, and why you care about it so much.

Measurement and reward

As management consultant Peter Druker said: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” There are all sorts of things you can start to measure including the amount earned doing what you love, number of days per month/year doing what you love, number of followers on twitter, number of good contacts in the industry, number of invitation, etc, etc.

You need to keep track of where you have been and where you are going, so you can recognise and appreciate your progress. Then, instead of comparing yourself to the best in the business and coming up short each time, you can compare where you are now to where you were six months ago, and celebrate your progress.

If you need some help planning or feel there is never enough time, check out this link, where coach and entrepreneur Scott Dinsmore explains his five step planning process.

Flexibility

Your plan is not something you follow blindly. Consider all feedback. Assess where it has come from, how much you rate the people giving it, how often you have heard the same things. Then use your own criteria to evaluate it, and, if it has merit, adjust your plan accordingly.

Keep close tabs on your progress, check out why you aren’t making the necessary headway. If there is a good reason, fine, keep monitoring, if not then it’s important to try something else, not just keep banging away with the same strategies that are not working.

Hard work and optimism

Finally the key success factor in any good plan is the persistent hard work and optimism that this plan can and will succeed. It’s the combination of this optimism and taking practical steps to make it happen that make this optimism realistic.

Your plan doesn’t have to be as cunning as Black Adder’s, but you definitely need to have one.

 

Twitter Foundations

Many people are not maximising the potential of Twitter to market their work because they don’t understand how to engage their audience/s and create two-way communication.

This series of four posts aims to help you do this with Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Email - to identify your audience/s and encourage them to look at what you are tweeting and to actively respond.

This first post is about untangling and quantifying your Twitter network. Whether you are an Equity, NUJ, Writers’ Guild or MU member, your networks and audiences will have a similar makeup including:

• Friends
• Fellow Professionals
• Previous employers
• Potential employers
• Influencing Professionals
• Venues
• Companies
• Festivals
• Events

As we’re talking about using Twitter professionally here, your family is best looked after on Facebook through your personal profile. This isn't to say family can't follow you beyond Facebook activities but I feel I have to separate the conversations. Facebook is a unique audience space in my opinion and this will feature in post 2.

In any relationship reciprocal sentiment or potential mutual benefit is essential, e.g., do we have something in common/is there something that we need from each other? So, when you’re developing your Twitter audience, consider:

• What is the nature of the relationship being cultured?
• What is the expectation of the relationship, e.g., obtaining paid work?
• What do you need to say that’s of interest to the audience?

What makes up your Twitter network?

Apart from the cascading stream of updates that make up your timeline, your Twitter profile provides several metrics to help evaluate the development to your account. Twitter gives a number of ‘Tweets’ you have posted to date, (see above screenshot left to right) Following (the people you’re following) and Followers (the people who follow you).

In audience and engagement terms the accounts you are ‘Following’ are those posting Twitter updates you can see in your timeline and Followers are accounts receiving your updates, hopefully listening to what you have to say. The Venn diagram where Following intersect Followers is the game. So how can you culture an active presence with realistic results to help you professionally?

Is the feeling mutual?

The count Twitter fails to provide is 'mutual friends' or 'reciprocal followers', i.e., who do you follow who also follows you in return? This is the foundation of Direct Messaging. The ability to message another Twitter account directly is the key to creating and pursuing opportunities in the off-line world.

All projects even those in the seed phase are never harmed by a presence. It is a commitment to the idea once it takes shape. An avatar, web friendly name and a concise
160-character biography is a great foundation of any project. It's a manifestation of concept.

As an example, CansChat is an idea from March 2012. It has had no promotion. As you can see it has a small following (the 95 followers) and follows 109 in the hope of making mutual and information rich connections.

To build my Twitter networks I use several tools to understand how they are developing and growing.

With CansChat (see above screenshot), I’d started by following Twitter accounts mentioning "stage manager" “Stagemanagement” and "backstage" in their profiles and recent tweets using Twitter's native search facility.

Follow Tool app answers the questions: Who in my ‘Followers’ do I follow, who reciprocates and who is not following me? These figures are in contrast to the CansChat profile screenshot above.

• Followers I don't follow = 19
• Users not following me back = 33
• Followers I follow back = 76

There are 76 accounts who I can direct message.
There are 19 accounts following CansChat who CansChat does not follow back. They receive CansChat tweets but CansChat does not see theirs, The total Audience is 95

How do you decide who to friend and who to follow and who to connect with and who to keep as audience? Not every follower is going have the potential to provide momentum to your projects or avenues to work. In general a low follow count with a high following count indicates a potential authority. For example, @BBCBreaking and @BBCNews

These are trustworthy sources providing current affairs news updates. Both accounts are unlikely to follow you. @BBCNews is following correspondents, programmes and other BBC news content Twitter accounts. The people who @BBCNews follows (88) is worth a look and a source of developing your Twitter account for potentially more personal and informed news and media contacts to influence your off-line career. This is especially poignant for journalists and writers.

Evaluating your sources of industry opportunities on Twitter

Take CastingCallPro, a well known online service with a Twitter presence.

(screenshot profile used by permission)

I think actors should consider following this account. It has an audience of 18,870 and listens to 9,533 accounts. It tweets about acting jobs and there are lots of accounts listening. The figure we don't see is how many of those following the @castingcallpro account is being followed back? The elusive mutual Venn diagram mentioned earlier.

Using friendorfollow.com it shows @CastingCallPro has 5,186 engaged followers.

Who CastingCallPro is following is an insight in to who it wants to listen to and engage with. You may find accounts you want to follow too.

This leaves 4,365 that don't receive CCP tweets. This figure requires awareness to effectively use Twitter as a professional tool and make it work for you.

Summary

Referring back to the list I gave earlier:

• Friends
• Fellow Professionals
• Previous employers
• Potential employers
• Influencing Professionals
• Venues
• Companies
• Festivals
• Events

Consider your Twitter engagement intentions:
Who are you following?
Who is following you back?

Identify your "not following you back" count using friendorfollow.com and assess whether you should unfollow them by asking yourself if they are a source of useful or interesting information.

If you want to look further into your Twitter audience, I’d recommend Social Bro, Tweetreach, FlockofBirds and Twitter