#27: Moving from Dreaming to Doing

I'll never forget the moment I was walking down the aisle at the fabric store and I had fabric on both sides of me and I looked at one of the designs and it hit me. Someone was doing this for their job. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer.

Fast forward to today.

I I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life

and experience the same success.

I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly free, profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. Today I want to talk to all of you out there who have a dream, a really big goal. Like a goal that is so big that it feels scary to say out loud or vulnerable to share with your friends. And if you're one of those people who have a dream like this, you likely know exactly what it is right now. And so I'm also going to share with you a bit of a hack that I learned on how to move from being a dreamer to being a doer. So we're talking about moving from dreaming to doing. And this is really going to be a story. I don't even have any notes. I've just been thinking about this and so I'm going to to just share with you my personal experience from how I moved from dreaming to doing, because it wasn't easy for me, but it was so worth it. And the hack is so simple, you're gonna love it. So I'm really just gonna start with my story and you likely know it if you've listened to this podcast for very long. But I grew up in a very creative house with incredible parents who were both entrepreneurs. My dad was like a developer. He's just an entrepreneur to the core. He did a lot of different things. And my mom owned a quilt shop. She was a stay at home mom for a long time and then she opened a quilt shop a little bit later and has always just been so incredibly creative. So I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just always did in fact, a really fun story that doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about today is that, oh, my goodness, I can't believe I'm about to tell you this. I was a cheerleader in high school and I went on to compete and I cheered at NC State University. I cheered at the collegiate level, which was so fun, but it was so long ago. So anyways, when I was a senior in high school, we had to do a senior project. And my dad had this little tiny spot in a shopping center that he had developed that that was vacant, like nobody had rented it. And he let me turn it into like a cheerleading coaching gym situation for like six months. But that was the kind of freedom and play that I got at that young age. I saw an opportunity to do something on my own and kind of be an entrepreneur. And my dad wanted to nourish it and he, he fed that. So we were called the Carolina Elite All Stars. I still have my business card when I was 17 doing this gym thing, but I hired a coach to come help me. And it was really a huge, a huge learning opportunity for me. And it really solidified just how much I did want to become an entrepreneur, but I didn't know what I wanted to do or anything like that. So off to college I went. I went to NC State and I went to business school because that was all I knew I wanted to do was some kind of entrepreneurial thing. At the time, they didn't have an entrepreneurship degree. And so I very much kind of went into this business, like, major kind of learning how to climb the corporate ladder, which was not what I wanted to do, but it taught me enough. It actually taught me how to learn. You know what it did? It taught me how to learn. So anyways, graduated college student, still didn't know what I wanted to do. My husband and I, David, loved the outdoors. We used to go backpacking all the time. And I used to also work at rei. I was the backpack specialist, if you will. And so we toyed with the idea of opening an outdoor store, and I made like a business plan for it, which, you know, you don't even need anymore these days. But anyways, while I was kind of hemming and hawing, I decided to go back and work for my mom at the quilt shop. And so I was kind of in charge of product and inventory. And part of my job was to meet with reps and decide what fabric collections we would carry in the store, which was always so fun to see the new collections come Out. And I'll never forget the moment I was walking down the aisle at the fabric store, and I had fabric on both sides of the me. And I looked at one of the designs, and it hit me. Someone was doing this for their job. And I don't know why that hadn't really dawned on me before, because, you know, obviously. But I had just never considered that this was actually something that people were making a career out of. And all of the sudden, like, everything that I loved in life, like fabric and sewing and design. And I wouldn't have called myself an artist, but I used to love, like, making all the signs for the shop. So I used to use this program called Print Shop. Do you remember this program called Print Shop? It was like, you know, a graphic design, like, drag and drop, clip art around and make signs. But I used to love it so much. I used to love arranging it, and I did used to draw a lot, especially as a kid, but I didn't have an art practice. But I thought, this wraps up everything that I love so much. I knew I was creative. I've always been creative. I wanted to be in the creative industry. And this is something that would allow me the freedom that I wanted, too. I wanted to be able to have financial freedom, first of all, but also location freedom. I wanted to be able to work from wherever I wanted to live. And I also wanted time freedom, meaning I wanted to set my own schedule and work whenever I wanted. And so this just checked so many of the boxes. I decided, like, in that moment, oh, my goodness, this is it. I want to be a fabric designer. And then I think the fact that I knew nothing really settled in. At some point, I told my husband, I told David that that's what I wanted to do. And at some point, I told my mom I was very careful with who I told first because it fel felt so big that it was almost embarrassing. Like, okay, okay. Like, who are you to think that you can do this? But okay, you know, of course, David and my mom didn't say that, but that was my fear that someone would think if I wasn't careful with who I told. Right. They, on the other hand, were my biggest cheerleaders, speaking of cheerleading. So I let it sink into my bones as a big, big, big dream. And then I let the overwhelm just take over. I didn't know anything. I had no foot in the door. I didn't know what program I needed to use. I didn't have an art practice. I didn't know anybody who is A fabric designer. I didn't know the first thing.

I am so excited to kick off this workshop. Come join us@bonniecristine.com Secrets Last year, over 25,000 curious creatives, artists, illustrators and surface designers joined. And now I want to invite you to my free workshop called Secrets to Success and Surface Design Begins Soon. I want to invite you to come dip your toes into the breathtaking world of pattern design. Create something lovely, something of your own, something that didn't exist in the world before you created it. This process is nothing short of magical, and I can't wait to share it with you. If you've ever wanted to see your artwork on a product like fabric or wallpaper or pillows, then you're in exactly the right place. I'm Bonnie Christine. I'm a surface pattern designer, entrepreneur and online educator. And my goal in this workshop is to grab your hand and provide you with the clarity and the confidence that you need to move forward. Here's an overview of what we'll be learning in this free workshop. In lesson number one, I'll be laying the foundations by sharing with you all of the opportunities that are available to you in the world of surface design. In lesson number two, I'll be sharing with you the very first steps that you can take to get started. And then we'll cover the five types of surface designers and the six essential stages to successfully. I'll be zooming way out, literally laying out an entire blueprint of the process, from getting started as a hobbyist to working as a professional. In lesson number three, well, we're going to get to work. You'll get an incredible workbook that we'll fill out together to create your very own personalized roadmap to reaching your goal in surface design. Finally, in lesson number four, I'll share with you all of the many different ways that you can create income from your artwork as I cover the different streams of revenue that you can add to your business using your skills as a surface designer. I'll also be sharing with you how you can do this with more speed and ease than ever before. Join me from February 13th to the 21st for this free mini course and gain access to all of the lessons, live Q and A sessions, a workbook, and of course, your secrets to success. There are no prerequisites required, so you don't need any experience at all. You just need to be curious and creative. And once it's released, everything is available for you to work through at your own pace and at your own time. Seeing something come to life that didn't exist before you created it is incredible. There are industries and brands all around the world that are waiting for your artwork. I am so excited to kick off this workshop. Come join us at bonniecristine.com secrets. Again, that's bonniecristine.com Secrets.

So that not knowing just settled in and halted my progress. So at this point, I was just a dreamer. And I remember I let six months go by. I mean, they flew by, really. I didn't even realize they were going by. And one morning, you know, I thought about it every single day. I thought about wanting to do this, but, oh, well, I don't know how. I don't know how to do it, so, oh, well. And one morning, I realized that it had been six months, and I really got mad. I got upset at myself for letting six months go by. And so it dawned on me that it doesn't matter, that I don't know what to do, what I'll be doing, what all the steps are, that I just need to start taking action. I just need to start doing something. And so I decided on that day to start doing just one thing every single day until I reached my goal. And something about that broke this huge dream down into very, very tiny, actionable steps, because I had no idea what step 22, let alone 2032, looked like. But I didn't know what I could do today. I knew what I could do today to inch forward. And you know what that was? It was just Googling how to become a fabric designer. And so the power of just researching is part of just the very first steps. We have to just realize that as we begin to research, we'll get answers to our questions. But at the same time, the research in and of itself will spawn new questions that we then go research and we get answers to, and that research spawns a new question. And so you just. Just learn and it unfolds. And one thing led to the next. Now, there was a little bit of time where I considered going back to college. I considered going to scad, which is art college in Savannah. And at this point, I had. I was married. We had already graduated college, and I was considering going back to school for fabric design. And this would have taken us. We would have had to have moved and taken David out of his job at the time. And I got all the way through the application until the moment that they wanted me to write an essay. And I was like, you know what? I think I'll just try this on my own.

First.

So that's what I did. I started doing one thing every day. And I won't lie, I obsessed over it a bit, meaning I did not skip a day. I remember there were a couple of days where I had a big, long day doing other things, and I would get in bed and think, oh, my goodness, I didn't do anything today in, specifically in moving forward with this dream. And I would get myself right back up out of bed, and I would go to the computer and I would research for 15 minutes. Like, 15 minutes counted. And so some days it was 15 minutes. Other days it was a couple of hours. Other days it was eight or nine hours. And the progress just began to roll. And so, like, just one weekend, I remember feeling like, okay, I'm taking action. Like, nothing felt better than just taking some action towards it. Having something to prove for my goal, my dream, you know. And then I remember a month in being like, I've made significant progress. And then a couple of months in, I knew so many things, and I had by that point realized that I needed to learn Adobe Illustrator for this particular dream to come true. And so, side note is that this was in 2009, 2010. No one was teaching this online. Everything was a closed door. There were no books, there were no classes. There were. There was nobody to help. And so I very much piecemealed my entire education together. I learned Adobe Illustrator from a couple of dudes designing, like, robots and tessellating lizards. And I would take a lesson and go back to my Illustrator document, try to figure out how to, like, take what I had learned and implement it in, like, my more feminine way. And how, you know, how am I going to take this and really figure it out? But I did it. And so at the end of daily things, at the end of almost two years, I signed my very first licensing contract as a fabric designer. Now, that story is that, you know, these 18 months or two years had taken me one thing a day. I had side jobs along the way. I was a personal assistant for someone for a little while. I was the receptionist at a spa for a little while. Oh, this is a fun one. We were actually living in California at the time because my husband was a cycling coach for endurance athletes. And so we. We lived in Santa Ines for two

or three years, which is where I

was when I was doing all of this. And I remember there was a woman in Santa Barbara who had a clothing store, and she was trying to get up and running on her blog. And what I did in the meantime was I also blogged. I got started as a blogger. And so I would make her images for her blog posts, and she would pay me, like, by the blog post. And so I just piecemealed things together. We made ends meet. I did a bunch of odd jobs, and we were stretched thin, but I still did one thing a day the whole time. So at the end of that, it brought me to, you know, I had learned the program, I had built a portfolio, I had multiple collections, I had started reaching out to companies. And it brought me to International Quilt Market, where I had meetings with art directors. And there was one moment where I sat down with Pat Bravo, the art director of Art Gallery Fabrics. And it was my dream company. And she looked at my work and asked me if I would come with them, come sign with them and cancel the rest of my appointments. And I burst into tears. Actually, I think I held it together until I stepped outside of her sight, and then I burst into tears. And my mom was there with me. She had her phone on silent. And so it took me like, 15 minutes running around this huge conference trying to find her, being like mom. It happened. And so my point to sharing all of this story with you is that that moment changed me. I had never had something so impossible become possible in my entire life. And it made me believe in getting after it and getting after really big dreams and big goals, knowing that if me, who had no experience, no nothing to show, no online presence, no art experience, nothing, like if. If I had nothing and all but my consistent action is what brought me to accomplishing my life's biggest dream, then surely anything was possible for anyone who wanted it. And so it was purely through consistently doing one thing every day that this entire dream came true in my life. And my goodness, it's unfolded into more than I could have ever imagined. A more fulfilling career than I could have ever imagined. I could have never imagined it. So this is all to say, you have a dream, you have a goal, and you won't believe the immeasurable progress that you make on it. If you just start consistently doing one thing every single day, you can't skip a day. And if you do, you absolutely cannot skip two days. You have to become a little obsessed with your daily action. It's the consistency that gets you to where you're going. It's the consistency that sets you apart from everyone else. It's the consistency that will help you accomplish your best, biggest goal. And it doesn't matter how long it takes. It took me two years. It could take you five years, it could take you 10 years, it could take you two months, I don't know. But the time that it takes doesn't actually matter as long as you are consistently working towards it. So I thought you might like something visual to go along with this. I created. It's almost like a habit tracker, but it's actually a one thing a day tracker. And it's a tracker where you can mark off every single day. I heard Jerry Seinfeld tell this story a long time ago where he said that he wanted to get better at writing jokes, so he decided to write a joke, a new joke every day. Like what a thought, right? And so he made a tracker and he would put a red X, I believe, in every square. And then he was doing one every day. And those red X's created a chain. And the chain in and of itself was motivation enough for him to keep going because he could not bear break the chain. He could not bear see a blank square on his tracker. So I created a one thing a day tracker for you so that remember, 15 minutes alone counts. And so, quite frankly, if you've listened to this podcast today, you can count it as your one thing and go ahead and mark your X off today. And so that's a free download for you. You can get it at today's show notes over@PropriationalCreative.com download it, print it as many times as you want, and start creating your chain. Because you, my friend, are going to become a doer and see your biggest dream come true. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. If you know of someone else who has a dream or a goal who might benefit from this simple, simple hack of just doing one thing a day, would you send them this episode so that they can listen to it and we can meet each other too? Don't forget to download your Tracker again. That's professionalcreative.com you can find show notes for all of the other episodes there as well. My friend, work to create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And don't forget, there's room for you. I'll see you next time with a super, super, super duper special episode. You are not going to want to miss it. I'm so excited, I can barely wait. I'll see you then.