04 Oct A Personal Inventory

Last month I was interviewed by Jennifer Magazine, sharing my story of why and how I quit drinking alcohol.

You can read the story here.

And for the purposes of expanding on my journey with art, I thought I’d include a list of all the ways quitting drinking 4 yrs ago directly helped my art practice and business grow.

Things I gained from quitting drinking:

trusting myself, confidence, self love, mental clarity, physical energy,

the ability to confidently say no, growth mindset, unquenchable curiosity, time

Things I lost:

anxiety, indecision, saying yes to everything, deep fatigue, social commitments that caused stress and resentment,

blaming other people

Ditching the sauce, and doing all the internal growth work through books, podcasts, and meditation taught me to TRUST myself. I began to trust my intuition, and believe that I could do anything I set my mind to.

In the year prior to giving it up I was struggling with decision fatigue. Should I or shouldn’t I? A LOT of mental energy was spent on having internal conversations about how many glasses I should stick to in a given night…much like dieting. Too many rules. Giving it up all together gave me mental space. Plus, my anxiety, which had grown to mega proportions, all but disappeared.

Once my view on alcohol changed it was like a switch went on…it was like that idea of you “can’t unsee what you see”.

It was strange and shocking to have such a sudden perspective shift, especially since I had identified so strongly to drinking culture. Shifting my perspective on alcohol made me question all the things in my life I WASN’T questioning.

Questions like…Why am I not asking for what I want? Why can’t I ask for help? Why am I doing all the things as a mom/friend/wife and not giving myself the gift of rest, self care, & fully realized potential? Instead of constantly asking myself who am I to want such things, I started asking myself who am I NOT to? Why can’t my art business grow? Why can’t I ask for X amount of money? Why can’t I ask my husband to take some stuff off my plate so I can carve out time for my business?

Once I started asking these questions I got clarity, I got help, I got time and space to create.

I began to carve out regular, daily time for my art practice. I began to take it seriously and value myself and my time. I took care and patience with creating systems in my life that supported my art practice. I began to study business seriously so that I wasn’t selling myself short and undervaluing my work.

Once I made these shifts, things changed really fast. My business began to really take off.

I don’t have all the answers & quitting drinking is not in everyone’s life story, but I know this…

If you have the capacity to get really clear about what you want, then you CAN make it happen.

Do a personal inventory of all the things in your life that are stopping your dream from coming to fruition.

For me, removing alcohol was like knocking down the domino that made all the other ones fall.

Everything got better….especially my art practice and business!