These three mistakes are holding your career back. The crazy thing is that you might not know that you are actually making them. I had the pleasure of talking to Heidi Luerra CEO of RAW Artists all about this subject. 
Heidi is a creative herself with over a decade of experience. Heidi’s work with Raw Artists has helped her to see the mistakes that hold creatives back. In the podcast we talk about ways that you can avoid these mistakes yourself. The good news is that they are easy to fix!
Why these mistakes hold you back
When you start to build your career as a creative, you might not think about yourself as a business. You are so caught up in the creation of your work that you don’t have time to do the branding, business marketing and everything else you need to get your work out there. You don’t realise that these mistakes are holding your career back.
Focussing on the creative work only, is a shortcut to earning no money. In order for you to get your work out there you need to start thinking of yourself as a brand.
Heidi describes branding as everything that you do towards your business. Branding includes the way that you answer emails, and the way that you present yourself to new clients. This isn’t often something that creatives think about.
The other thing to think about is goal setting. Now you might have been getting goal setting wrong! Goal setting is more than thinking about what you want, you actually have to plan for it. In the podcast Heidi shares a special way that she sets goals for the year ahead.
Goal setting for the year
- Take yourself off somewhere quiet.
- Close your eyes and ask yourself what you want.
- Allow your mind to come up with the answer without forcing it.
- Listen to all of the things that come up, some of them might surprise you.
- Next ask yourself why you want them. Really drill down into the reason why. Is it for more exposure, to sell your book or get more clients.
- The last part is all about planning. Get your diary out for the year ahead and plot out when you want to achieve those goals.
- Put deadlines down- a big red dot is what Heidi uses.
- Next work backwards from the red dot and break the goal down into bite size chunks. We call these mini goals. These are the small wins along that way, that are going to help you achieve the big goals.
- Write down review times, so that you can look back and see if you need more help, finance or other help to achieve them.
Heidi has written a book all about how to avoid these mistakes as you build your career as a creative. It is called The Work Of Art: A No-Nonsense Field Guide For Creative Entrepreneurs and you can get a copy here: Buy the book
To help you get going to avoid the 3 mistakes yourself, there is a free workbook for you to download.
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