Work-Life Balance

Work-Life Balance is bad advice for the successful

We have been hearing a lot lately about a work-life balance and advice against burnout. We are being told to enjoy life and not get too stressed.

For an artist who wants to be successful and ditch the job they don’t want, this is terrible advice.

If you are someone who wants to get ahead and make huge strides forward this year, then you want to have a work-life imbalance. You want your work to dominate. The people who are living as full-time artists enjoying constant shows, and sales, and becoming known are the artists who have been labeled as workaholics. 

They hear the advice, “You better slow down, you might burn out.” Or they are asked, “Can’t you just be satisfied with what you have?”

The people who burn out are the people who work a job every day of their lives that doesn’t line up with their purpose or destiny.

They have to show up to a job that they don’t care too much about, count the hours down, and wish they were home in their studio. Working overtime, learning, growing, improving your art skills, meeting new people, and contacting potential people you can do business with will never burn you out.

The only time I felt some burnout was when I was doing something that didn't pertain to my destiny.

Running hard after your success isn’t about greed, it’s about purpose. 

It’s about your why.

Successful people who are going somewhere will never be the people who are trying to warn you or tell you to slow down.

If you want this year to be the year you get free of your job and go full-time, the year you sell more paintings than you created last year, or the year you grow so much you don’t even recognize yourself next December, then be a relentless doer and don’t stop.

You can do much more than you think. It requires staying focused, painting two more hours than you planned, waking up two hours earlier than you used to.

Your glorious work imbalance should be full of things that terrify you like reaching out to potential clients, or applying for shows you think you aren’t good enough for, going to a social event you know wealthy people will be and introducing yourself.

How will you ever reach your dreams without the hard work—without the work-life imbalance?

If you do it long enough without quitting, work no longer feels like work. 

Every day feels like a Saturday and you would rather paint or build your business or talk about your business or meet new people or clean your studio or make a new video than just about anything else. When you travel, you will be “working.” When you go out to dinner, you are networking. All of your leisure and family time and work time become one thing.

Instead of hearing, “You sure work a lot,” you will start hearing, “Do you ever work?”

It’s pretty much a rule that whatever you hear the world say, do the opposite. When you hear work-life balance, ask why there is a separation.