Celebrating Each Step on our Creative Path - week 3

How has your week been? I was touched by all the on and off blog encouragement I received this week from many of you. Sincerely, thank you. Those of you who tried the Capture List idea last week...how did it go? Mine is working - hurray! I sit with it at the start of the week and day - just a few minutes - and prioritise to make my small, manageable To Do list. I haven't hyperventilated with overwhelm once this week....celebrate with me here folks...that's a BIG achievement for me!

I am not sure I mentioned last week, but I was so chuffed with myself for working out how to make a badge and HTML grab box (see column on the left) for this Celebrating space. Gosh, I felt clever! If you want to grab a Celebrate button for your blog, just copy all the html gobbledygook in the little box below the Celebrating badge on the left and then paste it into a HTML widget in your blog. If you want instructions on adding badges to your blog (and a host of other blog design how-to's) go here to Sneaky Momma's Blog Tips. Thank you Sneaky Momma for your generous sharing of information - I have turned to your clear instructions on many occasions ;)

Other steps taken this week:

• I started on a new commission...loving it already
• did my last mosaic class for the summer - what a great bunch of students  
• promoted my courses a bit more and had new enquiries for my September course which almost full
• made some good decisions about the best use of my time...keep asking myself when I am in the middle of doing something, or planning an activity "Is this actually contributing to achieving my goals?"....
• met with another blog friend, Jenny Lee Wentworth, who was visiting over from the states. Lovely, lovely evening

•  Oh...and have been to yoga 3 times this week (the most I have ever done) and am amazed at what my body is beginning to do!

Well, that's me. Would love to hear from you as you look back on your week...what did you do? What are you happy you did? What do you want to celebrate?

I'll leave you with this thought. Whenever I go to the theatre to see a big play or musical (not often these days - last one was The Sound of Music for my lovely friend Oonagh's 40th last year! ) I always feel really moved at the end when everyone claps the actors. It really wells me up. I am not sure why but I think its something to do with appreciation and acknowledgment - they have done a good job and people are showing their gratitude. I always have this strong emotional reaction and then - every time - this thought runs through my head. Why don't we celebrate other people's work in the same way? Why do only certain human endeavours get rounds of applause?

For me, this Celebrating space is a way of us applauding and acknowledging each other, for the seemingly small accomplishments on the path to greater creativity & authenticity and for the in-your-face significant achievements (Kim's first solo show underway, Amelia's about to start, Dana's great new series of interviews, Louise's one year 'blogoversary'!).

I am loving how, in the comments here, people are listing their achievements and then other's are coming back and saying "yay!" to fellow bloggers. That's the spirit of the end-of-show applause which I find so moving - the power of acknowledging the gift that is in others and celebrating when their hard work allows those gifts to emerge. Even for the greatest West End actors, it is all in the small steps taken with the eye on the path in front. Here's to you and the steps you took this week.

Concetta xx