Trouble at the Border

I was really impressed with the whole concept of "Trouble at the Border". This is what happens to me all the time. I love being in that field of all possibilities, ideas are so easy! And they feel so hopeful! And then, that gathering of energy to bring an idea into reality. That's exciting and fun... I get all charged up. And then "Bam" all the trouble starts.

I usually can keep an idea going long enough to actually "see" it in the physical. But keeping it alive and growing is a whole other story. I get discouraged, I start to second guess myself. I start thinking of new ideas.

Green Dolphin Studio is a perfect example of this. I worked so hard getting that website done. And I had high hopes for it too. I thought that people would at least go there and buy greeting cards. I thought people would buy prints. I was sure that something would happen. I even thought that the cafe press store would just take off.. the stuff in it is so cool. But then, nobody going to Green Dolphin was buying, and I worked on optimising the site, I submitted the url to various search engines, and then my energy began to fizzle out.

I stopped uploading the remainder of my art... only about half of it is on there. I quit talking it up. I haven't even visited it for months. I started getting other ideas and acting on them... And now I have so many things going on that I don't really have time for the Green Dolphin website.

If I had anticipated and planned for it to unfold that way, I don't know that a lot of things would be different, but I do know that I would feel better about it. And me feeling better about it would probably make it easier for me to go there periodically and putter around.

And it occurs to me that it's my expectations .... that give the illusion of "trouble at the border"... if I had not had the expectations of sales, I would not be disappointed in the website at all. I would think it was just fine, and I would be budgeting time to get it finished up, and I would be working away.... slowly... at getting it advertised in the right places, etc.

I have been having the most fun with my quotes and picture blogs. I haven't had any expectations for them at all. I'm doing them for fun, and people are actually going there. I don't know if it will ever translate into adSense money for me, and while that would be nice, I have no expectations that it will. I think that's one reason why they are fun... I am not putting a lot of pressure on myself that they have to "succeed" ...

So, that's as far as I got, how about you?