You don’t have to manage, $fund$, program, execute, market your creative project alone.
I fully believe that success is letting the experts make the expert decisions/plans/programs for me where I am decidedly not the expert.
For example: when I trained for the New York City Marathon in 2014, I started out all alone. I scoured the internet for training plans that matched my woeful inexperience, and tried to map out how many days I *felt like* running. At the same time, I scoured the internet for weightloss plans, because I knew I had to lose some weight if I were to try and conquer running 26.2 miles, and began to eat a diet of salads, light breakfasts, no snacks, etc.
It’s no surprise I got injured. I was literally running all over the place, running myself and my body into the ground. Part of my internet scouring though, was that I found a blog of someone who documented their first NYC Marathon and I was hooked to their writing style, and read through her months of training, and noticed something starkly different between her experience and my experience: she had hired an expert–a running coach. I thought, “how cute.” And kept reading, trying to figure out how to have my first experience be as great as hers. It took a few weeks (I’m very lucky it only took that long!) for me to realize that I could have a similar success story!
I could hire someone to take the weight off of trying to figure out something I know nothing about (or certainly not enough–I had run several half marathons, double-digit 10k’s before I decided to take on the marathon).
I could hire someone to do the tough thinking about how far to run, and when. That meant all I had to do was “simply” put on my shoes and show up to the run.
And most importantly: I had someone to talk to about successes and failures, and someone could adjust the plan based on where I was on any particular day. This was huge. Part of the injury happened because I didn’t know that I shouldn’t go from 0 to 5 miles in a week. But I did because I knew that on Saturday my internet-prescribed run called for 5 miles. My running coach incremented my runs at a healthier pace, and when I told her that I was still recovering from X long run, she would dial it down for a few days.
Eventually, I took this momentum of having a running coach, and hired a nutritionist. I was on a roll. I didn’t have to do any of this alone, even though most believe running is a solitary sport. Just like we believe starting “our own” business, or creative project must be done alone. The nutritionist told me that I was actually restricting my diet too much, and that I could eat more and still lose weight (WHO KNEW??) so I decided of course, she knew better than I, and I enjoyed adding in foods, the right kind of foods to fuel my 16, and 18, and 20 mile runs. And get this: she had run the marathon, too! So that meant, I got expert, expert advice and we’d pull out the map of the route, and I’d learn when to take in the # of electrolytes or how much water or how much calories to keep me from hitting THE WALL (which is the point in which your body says: no more. we can’t take no more. and most people hit it at 20 miles and struggle to the end of the marathon).
I’m happy to report I did not hit THE WALL. I made my way to the finish line with a little sprint at the end. With my team behind me.
You can sprint to the finish line of some of your personal creative projects’ goals by putting the right people on your team.
It’s with this energy that Red Olive Creative Consulting launched the Monthly Mentor program. We want to be on your team! Let us help you $fund$ your creative project or get your organization to new $fundraising$ heights.
