13 reasons you're not as successful as you should be.

unbelievable but true: most people don't have goals. i can't imagine living in new york city without them. because of the pace and the pressure and the high cost of living here financially and mentally,  i've always had to have a good reason to stay. i mean a really good reason -- because i like it here or i feel like it was somehow never good enough. 

make no mistake: this place can be hell on earth.  trying and trying and trying and trying and not getting anywhere -- living through that, time and again, has got to be some subset of hell. and for some of us, for a time, that is exactly what it's like to be an artist in new york city. the thing is, you have to put your time in. you have to keep going. or not. i knew a lot of people who hit that wall and went home. i hit that wall and climbed right over it. i just couldn't live with myself if i quit. i'd never know what could have happened. so i kept going.

having time-based goals anchored me. failures made me rethink things and try something new. accomplishing things every day gave me little victories that compelled me to stay the course. and then something gigantic would happen and there would be so much success, even daddy stopped hassling me. and then all of that would die down, and eventually daddy would crank right back up again, which brought me back to square one. 

as it turns out, i had a mindset for success -- and i really had no idea.  i was just trying to survive new york city.

i work extremely hard, sure. hard work is what's required -- and i'm certainly not afraid of it. and yes, i'm highly creative. i'm an artist and i'm harmelodic, so it comes with the territory. creativity helps when it's time to find a new way to unravel an old problem, when i've run out of options, when i need to turn on a dime and make a quick decision. i'm always having to learn new things, usually right when i'm comfortable with what i already know.  sometimes i'm eager to learn but more often than not, it's something that 's foisted on me out of nowhere and i'm freaking out, because i have so much catching up to do. and then i catch up and there's something else to learn, right now. running around with highly creative people who have to change and adapt in a snap helps a great deal. 

the impossibilities start rushing in when i have ideas and no real way to develop them -- no money, no time, no equipment, no nothing.  i don't care. i keep strategizing and thinking my way through it. i keep going. i keep waiting for a crack in the ice. and somehow, that crack happens and i get all the way in there.  success! another victory erupts. and then it's on to the next.

and as if all of that weren't enough, i never, ever, ever give up.

that's the real reason why i'm still in the city. it's not about auditioning and getting the part and doing eight shows a week for months or years on end. it is but it's not. not exactly. i'm not finished with everything that i want to do here, not yet.

this is how new york city infects you. when will i ever not think like this. how can i stop.