Such small, simple words but the thoughts and feelings behind them are huge.

I’m a recovering ‘cup half empty’ kind of person (thanks to Lea) and she still often has to pull me up on those little words when my initial response is ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘I haven’t got enough time’. But, I’m learning to recognise and catch myself as soon as I say them.

The power of positive thinking can be a huge advantage to you as an Illustrator (and a person) if you can learn to harness it – you know that feeling when the new jobs are coming in and money is flowing? It feels great doesn’t it?

It’s easy at those times to see how amazing and successful your career as an Illustrator could be, marketing is fun because you know it’s working, ideas flow, and every Illustration you produce glows with that positive energy.

Compare this to how you might feel when work has dried up, you start to doubt your skills, nothing you create seems to work out as you envisioned and you’re marketing out of desperation or even worse you stop doing everything, paralysed by fear.

Not pleasant and I bet a lot of us have been there at one time or another. I know I have.

I truly believe that the secret ingredient (all skill levels aside) to being a successful Illustrator is to keep that positive mindset regardless of how much work you have flowing in…and keep taking action, regardless of how you feel.

Imagine if…instead of just staring at your inbox hoping for a job to come in, you worked on new portfolio pieces, researched new contacts and reached out to prospective clients?

Imagine if…instead of just staring at your bank balance and worrying about how you’ll pay next month’s rent, you spent that time working on creating additional income streams to your business like writing an ebook, creating a range of prints to sell or offering online drawing lessons?

Imagine if…instead of sitting on your own, feeling lonely and isolated in your studio, you got in touch with other local Illustrators and organised a weekly get together to chat about being an Illustrator, what inspires each of you and brainstormed as a group ideas for marketing?

Nothing creates a feeling of positivity like taking action – I’ve learned this the hard way, frozen by fear and self doubt for much of my career.

It’s a horrible place to be and an easy one to slip back in to. I’m lucky, I have Lea who is such a positive force of ‘can do’.

I’m getting better at harnessing this mindset and the results speak for themselves…my work is getting noticed, I’m currently working with 3 publishers, have a very exciting meeting with another next month and in September this year I’ll have 2 books that I’ve Illustrated on the shelves of big book stores.

It’s still not easy learning to catch yourself when your initial response to something is ‘can’t’ or ‘haven’t', and to lift yourself when you’re feeling low, but it gets easier and easier the more you do it – and the zero2illo community is behind you, so use it.

Having a positive mindset does work, just remember those important words…YES, CAN and HAVE. They really do help.

If this article resonates with you, jump on the Facebook page or join us on Twitter to share your stories and positivity tips.

Note: This post was originally featured in the February zero2illo newsletter – if you’d like posts like this delivered to your inbox before they feature here on the blog, sign up to receive the zero2illo newsletter (and get your free issue of the zero2illo Zine).

Just a quick reminder that the early bird tickets for zero2illo LIVE are only on sale until the end today (Sunday 17th March).

At this year’s conference we’ll have live portfolio reviews by agent, Victoria Pearce, a live business planning session, a super practical presentation on animating your work by Wired tablet designer, Claire Cheung, and lots, lots more!

Grab your ticket here before the price goes up (includes lunch this year too)!

Lea always makes me think about my processes and my boundaries after each big job, getting me to review the criteria I use to decide if a job is a good fit or not.

When it comes to taking on commissions, I have a tendency to think about the £ or $ figure offered and whether it ‘feels’ right to me, rather than being more strategic about it.

I don’t always consider the impact it has on everyone else (Lea has been waiting for graphics from me for one of her websites for over a week and I’ve had little energy to keep up with a very active 3 year old) and my health (I’m feeling pretty rotten with a cold, after not-enough sleep for a week, due to the tight deadlines – and I know I can’t carry on like this especially with baby number 2 on the way in May).

So, Lea got me to look back over the past year and estimate how many hours each job has actually taken to complete – rather than how many I thought it would take..it’s usually double! – and then work out what the hourly rate works out at for each job.

This was quite eye-opening – some projects turned out to be less than £10 per hour and others over £50 per hour.

Of course, the hourly rate isn’t the only factor look at when deciding whether to take on a job though – sometimes a lower fee (or hourly rate) is worth it due to the exposure the project will give you and sometimes just being able to add a name to your client list can make a job worth doing.

However, calculating your hourly rate can be a good indicator of whether a job is worth taking (if all other factors such as promotion/exposure are equal) or whether that time would be better spent marketing yourself and working on your business instead.

Sometime you’re better off respecting your own personal and professionals boundaries and saying ‘No’ (something I’m still learning to do myself).

Easier said than done, right? Well there’s also an element missing here…

…and that’s that in order to get yourself into a position where you are able to turn down work – especially when you have bills to pay – you need to obviously ensure you’ve covered those bills.

This is something I’ve been working on – to build recurring/guaranteed revenue streams into my business model which cover those basics, so when other projects come along, I can use a specific set of criteria (hourly rate only being one of them) to assess whether the opportunity fits or not.

For me, these are:

• zero2illo itself (through sales of ebooks and the zero2illo Confidential private Facebook group)
• Subscription services for my Graphic Design work
• Subscription and products on offer for our soon to be launched Then There Were None website.

If this is an area you feel you need to work on too, I’ll leave you with these questions which might help…

1. What factors do you consider when taking on jobs?
2. Do you ever say ‘No’ – if so, why?
3. Do you look at the pros and cons of each job as you complete it, to decide if it is taking you closer to or further away from your goals?
4. What additional income streams could you add to your business to give you the freedom to choose what Illustration projects you take on for the right reasons, rather than through fear?

Note: This post was originally featured in the February zero2illo newsletter – if you’d like posts like this delivered to your inbox before they feature here on the blog, sign up to receive the zero2illo newsletter (and get your free issue of the zero2illo Zine).

‘Please RT and help me get to 1,000 followers’ or ‘Share this and help me get to 500 likes’

You can even buy followers and likes on Twitter and Facebook to inflate your numbers these days with cheap, online services.

But, do the numbers themselves really matter?

It can be a nice boost to the ego to have thousands of twitter followers and if you have a site where you’re looking for advertising or sponsors, the big numbers may help you secure this – although, I’m sure companies would be checking out your lists before committing to a spend and it’s pretty easy to tell when the numbers have been artificially inflated.

If you’re using your social media profiles to attract new work or sell your Illustrated goodies, it’s far better to grow a genuine, responsive audience (even if this is a slower process) than to boost your numbers with spam likes or followers.

We only decided to create a zero2illo Twitter profile when we ran the first zero2illo LIVE event in November and it has grown quite slowly with only 200 or so followers, but I know those followers are genuine ones, interested in the Illustration-based info and inspiration tweets we share, rather than just being there to make up the numbers.

It’s tempting to want to look like the big cheese on social media with massive numbers, but ask yourself this ‘does it *really* help you to achieve your goals or is it just an ego boost’?

But, as Harvey MacKay wisely said:

“If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”

Making a plan for the next 12 months can be fun, inspiring and it should be exciting too. I’m very lucky to be married to Lea (a former management consultant & process expert) and she got me to try an exercise to create a plan for 2013 that I really got into and enjoyed – I’m now super hyped about this new year and have a solid plan in place.

Here’s what she got me to do…

1. Sit down with a coffee and a notebook and write down what you want your business to look like at the end of 2013 – be as descriptive as you can including who you worked with, the size of the projects you worked on and even the income you received for each project. (The key here is to focus on the projects you’d really like to be working on, not just ones you think you’d be able to get with your portfolio and business the way it is currently – think big here, dream clients etc).
2. Do the above for each part of your business – For example, maybe you want to create additional income streams from creating your own books or prints etc.
3. Right, now you know what shape your business is in at the end of 2013, work back and think about what you need to do to get there. Break down the big goals into manageable chunks and highlight milestones along to the way to check you’re on track. Then create lists of actions for each goal/milestone detailing everything you need to do to make that goal a reality.
4. Use a calendar to keep you on track and attach deadlines to each action so you end up with a detailed calendar of what you should be working on each week to ensure that at the end of 2013, your business is exactly how you described in your notebook.

One thing I struggle with is being a bit ADHD and flitting from one thing to another without ever really getting anywhere, but I know with a detailed action plan and deadlines in place, in 2013 I won’t ever be left wondering what I should be doing on any given day.

Happy new year and happy planning!