In her book “When remarkable women lead”, Joanna Barsh did research with women in the Fortune-500 to discover their secrets. She found five aspects that reinforce each other. They can be placed in any possible order.
One of the five aspects is meaning. It’s about knowing or discovering what your meaning is, what the meaning is of your work, your carreer. Women more than men look for meaning in their work. And I think that this is also true for most artists. They funcion better if they have a purpose in what they do. So it’s important to discover what you really want.
One way to find out is, in dreaming. How would an ideal day for you look like? What would you do, and with whom? And, just as important: who is your dream-customer? That might sound like a strange concept, but think of it. How should your dream-customer find you, if you don’t even know show you really would want to work for? Judith Webber writes about it in her (Dutch) book “Laat jezelf zien”. Knowing who your dream-customer is, can help you attract them. For artists this also means thinking about the ideal people to play with, the ideal manager, agent etc.
And if you know what your personal purpose is, what your meaning is in life and work, you can use that to formulate your mission, you guiding through your live and work, that helps you making the right choices.
Even in the hectic times right now, I hope you find the rest and time to give it some thoughts.