GO AHEAD, BREAK IT!

I subscribe to a newsletter from http://www.coachlee.com. Every day I get a “thought” from this website. Usually I don’t have time to read them. But today this headline caught my eye:

Just Because It Breaks, Doesn’t Mean You Broke It

Coach Lee goes on to say, “It can be so frustrating when something breaks while you are using it. The assumption by many is that if it breaks while you were using it, it is your fault. Not true. Timing is everything. When something breaks when you are using it, it is a matter of timing not fault. Things break. Don’t feel bad or guilty if it just happens to break during your time of use.”

It’s funny, but the one thing not addressed in this article is why things break when we use them.

It’s because when they are at rest, there is equilibrium. No energy in, no energy out.  No force.

But when we add energy, we disturb that equilibrium.   Think how a light bulb usually burns out when we turn the light on.   It’s that tiny surge from new energy that causes it to flare out–rarely while it’s burning.

So, too things break when we use them.  Only when we touch it/move it/use it/push it/twist it/pick it up does it fall apart in our hands.

And as I struggle to put together a new model for getting my art out into the world, wondering why everything seemed to go wrong in the first place, I realize this is the answer

Everything went “wrong” because I was doing something.

Everything went “wrong” because I was doing something.

I was making my art.

I was  getting it out into the world.

I was exhibiting it, showing it, selling it, promoting it, writing about it

f I had simply been a little lump, sitting in my studio and doing NOTHING, then NOTHING would have “gone wrong.”

And of course, what exactly went wrong?

The economy soured, massive terrorist attacks paralyzed our country, and our national shopping spree went into lock-down mode. Buyers for craft galleries stopped going to wholesale shows, stopped buying new work, and many even went out of business.

So what did I do wrong?<

Not much.

It wasn’t about me.

I just kept trying the same old things for awhile. And when they worked, I kept doing them.< (My one big retail show, the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s Annual Fair, just got better and better for me.)

When the same old things didn’t work, I tried something new. A new show, more self-promotion, new marketing materials, new work.

Some of it worked, and some of it didn’t. And I’m still in that process of trying something new.

Of course it all “broke” while I was “using it”!<

I was out there with my art, trying to give it everything I had. Taking risks, new ventures, putting every cent I earned back into the business of getting my art out there.

I tried new presentations for my art—framing with glass, framing without glass, smaller work, bigger work, less expensive work, more expensive work.

And of course I made mistakes.

Because, like the old adage says, if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying hard enough.

So no more apologizing from me on not having this all figured out yet. I’m in this for the long haul. It may take me twenty years to be an overnight success.

But when I make it—and there’s no doubt in my mind I will—you will have heard about it from someone who started out just a handful of years before the worst economy in 30 years—and came through the other side.

So go ahead. Make mistakes. Break it!

It means you’re working it.

It means you’re doing something right.