I’m up to Week 9 of the Artist’s Way. Since I am always with myself, it is difficult to see what changes I made within myself and how the book has been helping me in an observable manner.

Some of the changes that may or may not be related to this book include:

• Until recently, I was worried about my financial resources. Being not so busy in my freelance translation job, which is my main income stream, I would worry how awful it would be if my savings ran out. But now, my way of thinking is this: “Wow, I have enough money to survive for 2 or 3 months. That’s not bad. I could work on making something happen within this period of time!”
• In an earlier post, I wrote that I’m interested in Argentine Tango. I had been looking for a good place to learn it, but I didn’t find anything appealing. Recently, however, I found someone looking for people who want to learn Argentine Tango on a Japanese social networking site. It’s a course for training 20 new Tango dancers (10 women and 10 men). I asked him if a beginner could join and he had no problem with that. The lesson fee is 4000 yen a month, which is… a bargain (as far as I’m concerned, it usually costs 2500 ? 3500 yen per lesson at other places). The course will start in April and I’m totally looking forward to it.
• I improved my grappling skills. How can it be related to the Artist’s Way? I’m not sure. If that’s possible at all, then it has to be this: I’m more aware of what’s going on in sparring and I can note what to work on next time. In a way, I became more observant, at least in this martial arts context. What I like about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and grappling is that one small mental note can improve your game, since in many cases you already have enough physical capabilities to do what you want to do unless it involves fancy, acrobatic moves.
• I read Linchpin by Seth Godin. Is this an interesting change? To me, yes. I already was the kind of person who would enjoy reading Seth Godin’s books. I already knew about him, but it was the reading deprivation week that made me rediscover Seth Godin. I watched his 2009 TED talk video during that week. It was inspiring. So, I bought a copy of his new book Linchpin. Coincidentally, this book goes hand in hand with the Artist’s Way. One of the core messages of Linchpin is that the world needs more artists and we are artistic and creative. I will write a review of this book sometime, but I’m sure you can find what other people thought of this book else where in the mean time. Go buy it and read it. Please.

Overall, I feel more proactive, grounded, and open than before I started working on this book. I guess I haven’t experienced huge changes or coincidences yet, but I can feel them coming. I do feel that way.

But what does one do in the Artist’s Way program anyway? Here are some exercises from the book:

• Get rid of unwanted clothes.
• Bake something.
• Collect rocks.
• Take note of every spending of yours.
• Make a vision map of your past, present, future and dreams.
• Make specific action plans for your dreams.

So, the bottom line is… by baking ANZAC biscuits, I play Tetris of the creativity kind! You can bake ANZAC biscuits and be creative too. Woohoo!