Archives: Goals

After the travails of the last three weeks ((detailed in 3 posts on my Journal Blog here, here and http://www.olilewington.co.uk/smilethroughit/2011/05/31/the-sage-concluded/)), it’s time to get back to the business of blogging and creating top-quality content for all my readers again.

To that end, a very useful little initiative popped up in my Google Reader RSS feed this morning – The Domino Project‘s #Trust30 initiative, based around their new release Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

#Trust30 is a month-long commitment to create something new every day for 30 days, whether it’s blogging, writing, painting, filmmaking or anything in between. The aim is simple to create.

I’m committed, are you? If you’ll be taking part, leave us a link to your site in the comments so we can all help to hold each other accountable.

Many of us have had a taste of success. Some of us dine on it frequently, for others it’s a rare treat. What it does is to help us all feel like we’re doing what we should be in life.

Too often, though, we define ourselves by how we feel. We even decline things by saying, “I just don’t feel like it today” – we put so much stock in feelings that we don’t stop to look at what and who we actually are.

This quote got me thinking:

It’s not about feeling like a filmmaker, it’s about being a filmmaker.

Drake Doremus, The Wrap

Doremus is talking about filmmaking and how it’s better to shoot for a lower target budget in order to be able to make films as opposed to holding out for the mega-budget and never actually making anything. It’s also about how the trappings of a “big” production don’t make the film, it’s the kit, the crew and the cast who make a film what it is.

It’s time for us all to stop chasing the “feel” and start “being” what we want to be – filmmakers, entrepreneurs, writers, artists; we all have goals and we all want to achieve them, but if we set about doing the things we need to do to get there, no matter what, we’ll arrive and find success much quicker than doing all the things that make us “feel” like we think we ought to.

I’ve been so bogged down in various admin- and office-based tasks in the last week or so ((not least the highly successful launch of the Indie Film Hub)) that my creativity has taken a bit of a dip.

Yesterday, however, I scouting the location for a promo shoot with the client and talked through the various bits and pieces we needed to get organised. By going through the creative process again, my creative brain has reawakened and hit the ground running will full force.

Unfortunately, it seems as though I have far too many ideas for the amount of time I have on my hands, which means my desk is now positively littered with scraps of paper with my mind-overspill all over them.

This is why it’s so important for anyone dealing with creativity in their job (which, frankly, should be everyone) to have pads and post-its around to keep track of all those great ideas that pop up. Don’t rely on your over-extended internal memory banks to keep tabs on everything for you.

Inspiration comes from many quarters all around us. Sometimes it’s something we see, sometimes something we here. A lot of times for me it’s things I read.

I’ve written previously about Seth Godin and his new book ‘Poke the Box’. After reading the free eBook SXSW Pokes, I immediately downloaded the Kindle version of the full book and read it quicker than I’ve read most things before.

Poke The Box is all about starting, initiating, changing the status quo without fear of failure. Reading it struck a chord with me. Not only had I decided to give up fear for lent, but I was also living a more fearless life, committing myself to things and driving myself forward in several areas of my life, albeit slowly.

While going through my RSS feed one day, I wondered if it wouldn’t be nicer to have a single place on the ‘net that collects all of the best content, particularly for filmmakers. There’s Hollywood Wiretap – a great site for news on big studio movies – but nothing really similar for blog posts and articles that are aimed at, written by and for the benefit of independent filmmakers.

TheIndieFilmHub.com was born in mere moments and, no sooner had the idea come to me than I had set about making it happen. This project, which launched yesterday, is my poke at the box, my attempt to get something shipped when other projects and ideas have been stagnating or not progressing as quickly as I’d have liked.

The Indie Film Hub is a place indie filmmakers can go to find the best, most useful, most relevant and entertaining content on the web, all personally curated. Every post on the site is hand-picked by a real, genuine human being – no bots, no aggregators, no automation whatsoever.

I hope, in time, it will become a great resource for filmmakers and be the first stop on their hunt for content. But if not, at least I started something. At least I poked the box.

When it comes to living your life creatively, you – the artist, the filmmaker, the writer – are the single most important person in your world.

By setting out to impress other people, we are doomed to following the path of what we *think* people want to see, only ever re-creating things that have gone down well before or that we are pretty sure will be swallowed without too much sugar on the spoon  ((apologies to Mary Poppins fans)).

The only person we as artists need to satisfy, impress or please is ourselves. By creating honest work, true to our core sensibilities and interests, we create personal work that carries a stamp of authenticity that will carry it onto a higher plane.

That’s not to say what works for us will sell like wildfire, will be the next break-out success or even make an impact. But all of those things are far more likely to happen if we start with the most important person in mind.

*Special thanks to Lucas McNelly on Twitter for inspiring this post.

Even after my apologetic post last week, I was unable to return to the flow of posting daily.

Instead, I’ve been having something of a break to focus on developing other things, including a programme of motivational speeches and presentations to help re-engergise and re-focus businesses, upping my programme at the gym in preparation for the 3 Peaks Challenge and working towards the launch of my new website theindiefilmhub.com – a content curation site for independent filmmakers, now just 5 days away from launch.

Although I’ve previously suggested that breaking your routine in blogging – whether about your film, your business or your personal life – can be punished with a significant drop in your readership, sometimes it’s good to take a break for a while.

Taking a break doesn’t have to mean not doing anything at all ((although we all know the times when that’s precisely what we need!)), it’s simply about re-focusing, allowing yourself to be immersed in a different project, a different goal or even a different world.

The old cliché goes that a change is as good as a rest. Remember, clichés are generally only clichés because they’re true.

My regular schedule of blog updates has been interrupted this week.  I’m ashamed to admit I’ve neglected the blog in deference to other things.

I was going to post a list of reasons why I’ve been a little lax since the weekend, but rapidly realised that work commitments, the beta-testing and site building of the new website and writing the eBook were nothing but excuses. I could and should have made time for the blog, just as I’m doing now.

There’s a lesson in this for all of us, especially in this time-pressured world many of us inhabit: excuses are exactly what they say on the tin – an explanation offered to justify or obtain forgiveness ((according to TheFreeDictionary.com)) – and we don’t need forgiveness, we just need to do what we’ve said we will.

Whether it’s through workload, procrastination or fear of over-committing, we all make excuses for the things we can’t do. The answer is to stop making excuses, stop asking for forgiveness and just do them. You’ll soon find it’s far quicker and easier to get things done than it is to run around seeking forgiveness for not doing them.

As a happy by-product, you’ll also be far more organised, far more productive and be seen as far more reliable. No need for excuses.

What have you been making excuses about this week? When are you going to set things right on them?

Struggle with getting down to work some days? Most days? Every day?

If you’re trying to think creatively and get yourself into the right mood, but can’t seem to settle your brain to the task in hand, you need to create yourself an inspiration pathway.

IP’s (as I like to call them ((since it takes too long to type inspiration pathway every time)) ) are a form of hypnotic process that allows you to reach the right state of flow to achieve your creative goals.

We all recognise the feeling: when you’re reading the blog of an inspirational online mentor (Tim Ferriss, for me); listening to that track that gives you goosebumps; sitting in that perfect spot that fills you with feelings of limitless ability and peacefulness. The trick is to find a way to tap into that feeling and apply it to your work routine.

By recreating that feeling of invincibility – of total creative power and freedom – you can access the flow state that will see you glide through the challenges that face you over the next couple of hours, or the ten pages, or that sales call to your dream client.

If you’re trigger is musical, so much the better – just hit ‘Play’ and take yourself there. For other triggers, find a way to access them each and every day when you sit at your desk to get cracking.  Bookmark a favourite post or posts, stimulate your sense and psych yourself into inspiring yourself to make the most of your day.

Inspire yourself and you’ll reach new heights you never imagined.

What lights your inspiration candle? How do you help yourself reach a state of flow when you sit down to work in the morning (or afternoon, or whenever you do your best work)?

It’s a very badly hidden secret that I’m a loyal supporter and devotee of Seth Godin, the man I can most single-handedly credit with re-energising me in my low moments and helping me believe that anything is possible.

Never more so than with the latest free eBook from his Domino Project publishing company. Not only is it a great example of using something you give away for free (the ‘SXSW Pokes‘ eBook) to promote something you’re selling (the full-length ‘Poke the Box‘ book and eBook), it’s also full of stories that help you realise that anything really is possible.

The single most important element of SXSW Pokes is that it’s not just a few people telling stories that make you think, “Well, I could have done that if I’d thought of it first,” but instead contains 50 stories from people who make you think, “If they can do that with their lives, just think what I could do with mine.”

I cannot stress just how important I think this book is for anyone to read. Go get it.

If you are the only one getting in your own way of going after your dreams, stop and realize that you are the last person who should be doing that!

C. C. Chapman, SXSW Pokes

What’s your lifelong dream? As you step out to make it real, reach out to someone you’d like to know and emulate. That one phone call may change your life forever!

Sandy Harper, SXSW Pokes

The initiative I took for myself will always remind me that I’m teh one driving this train, and that I’m accountable to ther person in the mirror most of all.

Amber Naslund, SXSW Pokes

You’re right, you can’t actually make ‘The Hobbit’ as your next film, but you can learn a huge amount about creating and nurturing your audience from the get-go from Peter Jackson‘s latest adventure in Middle Earth.

Yesterday, production began on the two-film adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkein book and no sooner had the press release hit the wires than Peter Jackson himself had launched his new Facebook Page. Yes, it’s a personal one, but you can be sure that it’s going to be used almost solely to promote his current flick up until its release in 2012.

This early-bird establishing of connection and communication with the audience (which is something PJ excelled at with both ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and his 2005 ‘King Kong’ remake) is crucial for filmmakers across the budget range.

While Jackson and the Hobbit team may be walking into an audience of millions of eager fans across the world and you may be staring at an audience of less-than-eager family members at the start of your journey, focusing on and starting your social media and marketing efforts from Day 1 is a key principle in audience building for independent filmmakers.

Just ask your friendly local PMD, a post title created by Jon Reiss and being exemplified by the sterling work of Adam Daniel Mezei over at pmdforhire.com – creating your film with your audience in mind is crucial to your success and the more (and earlier) you can connect with them, the more successful you will be.