Ep #36: Closing the Gap Between You and Your Dreams

It can seem really normal, in the beginning when you have a big dream or a vision, to get used to this gap that there is between that vision and that dream and where you are right now; between thinking and dreaming about who you could become and who you feel yourself to be right now. But that doesn’t have to stay normal forever, nor should it.

I work with my clients in engaging in their own creative revolution – emphasis on the evolution there. And in today’s podcast, I’m going to share with you two tools. These are advanced coaching tools that I use in my own life and with my clients to help them become the creative powerhouses they were meant to be, to help them claim those great creative dreams that it’s their destiny to claim.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Hello, all of you beautiful creative souls out there, hello, hello, hello and thank you for listening. I am very intentional about how I start this podcast with saying, “Hello, you beautiful creative souls,” or, “You beautiful creative geniuses.” That was something I’ve come into sort of midway through my podcasting journey now and it is intentional and it is very related to today’s topic – closing that gap between where you are and where you want to be.

But there’s more of a nuance to today’s topic. It’s not just about closing that gap. It’s about understanding that it can be normal to start there whenever you begin to dream again; there is always that gap. But where people get stuck and stay stuck for too long – and I see this happen a lot, especially in midlife – is that people start to normalize staying in that gap.

And staying in that gap was never meant to be normal for you. You were meant to move through it and achieve your dreams. But what happens – and we’ll talk about this more today – is that we start to normalize this feeling of being in the gap and not closing the gap.

So right now, for instance, I’m heading – well, tomorrow, not right now. I’m talking to you right now. Tomorrow, I’m driving to Ashville, North Carolina. I’m going to spend a few days there exploring, what I hear, is an amazing town, and then meeting up with the business mastermind that I’m a part of; this group of other amazing powerhouse entrepreneurial women who are in the coaching space.

That was very intentional for me to join that group, to join a group of very successful and also big-hearted women. There are other things that we have in common, other reasons why I chose this one in particular. But a lot of it had to do with what I wanted to normalize for myself. And I so know the power of being in a community that normalizes big-hearted success and going for your dreams, and I so know the power of investing in mentoring and coaching that facilitates normalizing a mindset that embraces, “Yes, I can claim my destiny. Yes, I can create whatever I set my mind, heart, and soul to do and I can do it in my way.”

So, that also is the intentional way in which I create my own coaching community, both The Art School and the culture that I cultivate in the relationship with my private clients. I want to normalize, for my clients, whether it’s in The Art School or private practice, I want to normalize for them a creative process that is fulfilling, where they might be challenged, but it is that optimal level of stress that puts them into a flow state.

I want to normalize, for my clients, that they can shoot for the moon and they will land there. I want to normalize massive success for my clients in terms of material success, wealth, and exposure, bodies of work they want to create, collaborations, and I want to normalize, for them, levels of wellbeing in mind, body, and spirit that they may not have even known were possible for them.

I want to normalize that they can dream big and have it all, that you can create this dream and do it from a deeply peaceful centered place and, in fact, discover that that’s how you become the most powerful creator you can be, not from just subjecting yourself to the hustle mentality culture and tying yourself to a hamster wheel or a treadmill and knocking yourself out.

Many of my clients know how to do that really well, and now it’s time to evolve and learn a different way. So what I normalize in my coaching is closing that gap and doing it over and over and over again so that you begin to trust yourself and know yourself as someone that closes that gap.

So, this is the first tool, obviously, that I’m sharing with you today about closing the gap. And you can ask yourself this question; how can I normalize the levels of success that I’m dreaming of?

First, obviously, you have to identify them. And we’ve talked about that in previous podcasts and I’ve led you through visioning exercises and goal-setting exercises. Now, how can you normalize that so it becomes – and this is very relevant to that Whole Body Gratitude podcast I did where remembering the event, remembering the success as if it was yesterday so that you become accustomed and acclimated to that, you’re laying the required neural circuitry in order for you to actually perceive and receive that experience.

So this is not a passive dreaming. This is very active on a daily basis. How are you normalizing yourself to the life of the person that you want to become? How are you normalizing yourself to their levels of health and wellbeing in mind, body, and spirit? How are you normalizing yourself to their levels of success and wealth? And then what comes up? What challenges that? And those are things that then you self-coach through or you coach through.

I called a client of mine the other day who has left the corporate world and is launching a consulting practice and I said, “Hey, congratulations on another $5000 day.” And there was silence on the phone, and then he kind of stuttered and said, “I think I missed something.” And I said, “Congratulations on having yet another $5000 day. Nine more days like that this month and you’re on the track for $50,000 a month and repeat that over and over again and you’ve got over a half a million in a year, it’s exciting.”

And another, I could tell, like brain jam and pause and he said, “Wait, I think I missed something.” So I said, “That’s okay, this was an intentional exercise.” Like, I wanted to create a brain jam where his brain was like, what, did that happen, what happened? Because I wanted to create an opening and portal and shake things up in his mind, because our mind gets in these ruts of, I don’t know what it’s like to earn half a million dollars on my own out in the world. I don’t know what’s that like.

So intentionally introducing situations where the brain is shaken up and in the unknown is just, like, one of many coaching techniques that I love. Just creating that little opening can kind of open a window or a backdoor. And sometimes, it makes it easier to challenge people’s limiting beliefs and start to widen their capacity for what they think is possible for them.

So it was also my segue for this client into an assignment I wanted to give him about how he can begin to normalize that kind of success, because it’s one thing to think about what’s possible for you, and then it’s another thing when you have it in your beingness, when it becomes part of your identity. And it’s this topic of identity that’s like a subtopic under normalizing that I want to make sure to emphasize today because when who you think you are changes, what becomes normal for you changes.

So for instance, I think of myself as an athlete. Therefore, my ideas about what’s normal for me in terms of physical health and radiance and vitality and the strength of my body and the ease in which I love to move and the way I take care of my body, it very much flows from that identity of being an athlete and being a yogi and being somebody who’s in tune with that, that makes it so much easier to proceed with actions about what to do next.

Just as then with my clients, some who even after an MFA, even after accolades, even after, you know, being a bestseller, are still questioning whether they are a true creative or whether that was a one hit wonder, whether they can repeat that same level of success again. Whereas, if you can decide on your identity and claim that destiny, make a decision, that’s one of the most powerful creative tools you can ever use. You get to decide. You decide. You define who you are. And then once that’s off the table, then your creativity just gets to flow.

You are no longer here to prove that you’re an artist, that you’re a writer, that you’re a comic, that you’re an actor, that you are worthy of creating and carrying to fruition your ideas. You no longer need to obsess about your worthiness in closing that gap. You just flow the work and the gap closes.

This is what I am speaking about when I talk again and again when I talk about cultivating a way of being, an energy that comes from your mind, body, and spirit then creates results that are inevitable. It’s a way of being where you get out of your own way and let the work flow through and the gap closes, and the gap closes again, and the gap closes again. And over and over again, your trust in yourself and your trust in your ability to follow through deepens and strengthens and is enriched, and over and over again, you realize that you don’t need to go back and forth deciding if you are or if you aren’t. You can decide once and then just flow the work and get out of the way.

And then, you can take it to another level and decide that you’re going to normalize what seems to be an elevated way of being, maybe from what the average population is accustomed to. But I believe that we are dignified beings and we came not to struggle in that gap forever and ever and not to struggle with our health and not to struggle with our self-image and not to struggle with self-doubt.

But we came to flow and to flourish and to thrive, so accepting that is the first order of business when it comes to normalizing. But then, ask yourself, how can I normalize this? One is by thinking about a shift in identity. Two is by surrounding yourself with inputs that normalize that, so whether that is the information that you take in, whether that is the community with which you intentionally surround yourself.

So think back to the podcast I did about how we are the average of the five people that we hang around with the most, think about the ways that you’re intentionally cultivating a creative ecosystem, a creative habitat that reinforces who you want to be, that reinforces this elevated normalized level of success and wellbeing. And when I say success and wellbeing, I mean on your terms. I don’t mean just what appears to be successful to the outside world. I don’t mean just performing as somebody that’s successful to the outside world. I mean truly attaining that connection to your deepest self and living from that place. From that place, what you have to offer and create flows out into the world is beautifully received, is as brilliant and gorgeous and big and successful as you want it to be.

My coaching is not about just muddle through and get by and let’s just be okay feeling mediocre because you arrived so infinitely, endlessly, untouchably worthy, you get to be as radiant and brilliant and loving and big and bold and as whatever as you want to be in this lifetime. So go claim that. Don’t mistake yourself for someone who always struggles and who has dreams but never gets there just because you’ve gotten used to being in the gap, just because you’ve normalized what it is to dream and maybe be disappointed, even for years.

Just because it happened in the past, doesn’t mean it will continue going forward, doesn’t mean just because it happened yet, doesn’t mean that it can’t happen now, tomorrow, the next day, and you persist, a year from now. Don’t normalize the gap for yourself. Decide and commit to normalizing what it is to close the gap. Give yourself that experience of fulfillment. Normalize fulfillment.

I see a lot of art that’s made from a place of angst and even trauma and that has its place, and it is not the only art and not the only use of creativity. You can also be massively creative from a place of wellbeing and having been healed. In The Art School community and with my clients, I make a big deal out of celebrating. I even got a cowbell because I wanted to amp up and really amplify and kind of go wild about the celebrating, because I don’t think I can drive the point home enough.

I want to normalize amazing effort, extraordinary ways of being that people are really going for both in my private practice and in The Art School community. And I want to normalize their incredible, incredible success and I want them to be unashamed and unabashed about celebrating that themselves and about receiving the celebration from me and from the other members of the community.

And here’s the thing; it really is contagious. Normalizing elevated levels of wellbeing, normalizing amazing success is contagious. And I always like to say, a rising tide lifts all ships. I want to normalize people’s ability to create this strong stable grounded foundation and then normalize their ability to build whatever they can dream of on top of that.

I want to normalize people being deeply centered and, like, radically wildly creative and successful. I want to normalize people making incredible amounts of money; more money than they ever thought possible for them in this lifetime.

I want to normalize the idea that you can have a cohort of artists, creatives, visionaries, creative powerhouses and that they can be wealthy and powerful and changing the world and contributing to the community and to the betterment of everyone in amazing mind-blowing ways and that it can be so fun, that it doesn’t have to be serious and it doesn’t have to be heavy and it doesn’t have to be exhausting; real deep meaningful work and also wildly beautiful and fully alive and fully expressed and connected to themselves and one another.

So, this brings me to the second tool that I wanted to share with you in relationship to the tool of normalizing. So this also brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you really, really to do more than just listen. I know these techniques work. I know that coaching works. I know for myself how radically I have changed my life truly authentically from the inside out and in a way where I feel more me than ever before and more free and also creating exponentially greater results in all areas of life. I know it works for my clients.

But for coaching to work, you have to work the coaching. So today, what I want to offer you in terms of working the coaching is a tool that I call making it harder not to than. So you might want to write this one out because it’s a little bit of a mouthful and trippy, but you’ll see where I’m going in a minute. Making it harder not to than.

So now, I know that’s a mouthful. I know that it might be a little confusing, but stick with me. This is a tool that I’ve been using for years, but it wasn’t until more recently when I applied it to my own two-million-dollar moonshot goal that I thought of this different way to articulate it and the tool became even more clear to me.

So what making it harder not to than is about cultivating a habit in your life, a way of beingness where it becomes harder not to generate a result than it is to generate a result. So an example I used earlier in the podcast was from my life as an athlete. Thinking of myself that way makes it harder for me not to workout than it is to workout. It’s actually very uncomfortable for me not to get in a certain amount of movement or breathing, yoga, running, what have you, that keeps me at a great level of health and physical shape, and it also helps me generate the energy that I need for everything else I do in my life.

So how I started to think of this in terms of financial goals and specifically my two-million-dollar moonshot goal was I thought of myself five years down the road. And I had her come and look at my goals today and thought about how she would go about achieving my financial goals today and my other goals.

And so when I looked at what my financial targets were for the months, I had a few tiers. I had one tier that was a $50,000 month and I have another tier that was a $100,000 month. And what I realized, looking from my two-million-dollar self, the woman who has achieved that and she’s looking back and informing me, was that she has a hard time not making $50,000 a month. She has a hard time not making $100,000 a month.

It’s like she has to squeeze herself and cramp her style and slow her roll and make herself smaller in every sort of way in order to fit, what right now to me, seems like a pretty amazing tier, $50,000 and $100,000, as I’m growing my way to my two-million. But it was doing that exercise of having her come back and inform my present self on how she’d go about my goals that really helped me achieve another level of that identity shift, which liberated my thinking and allowed for this influx of new ideas and energy, creative energy, but also just inspired action.

And again, I want to emphasize, to that self that’s, say, in 2025, I could see that the way she was operating in the world, she was operating from a place in her business where it’s harder not to earn that money than it is to earn that money. So, using that, I piggybacked what I know from being an athlete on how is it harder not to move my body? How is it harder not to take care of my physical health? And how can I apply that to my business?

As an artist, for sure, it is harder for me not to create. For everybody in my life – and if you’re a creative person, you’ll know it’s so much easier. The rest of life flows so much better when you have your creativity time, when you have the ability to sink your teeth and drop down into your creative work for a while.

So that’s what I want to offer you today. Think of your goals. Think of them in these three tiers, like I’ve offered before, and think how, at each level, how can I make it so that it’s harder for me not to achieve that than it is for me to do it? Because again, in that it’s hard to do it place, means that you’re still in that struggle space in the gap. So give yourself a boost out of the gap with this creativity practice, this imagination coaching exercise.

Think of yourself living, embodying that greatest version of yourself. Know that he or she would have a harder time not writing the book. He or she would have a harder time not running the race. He or she would have a harder time not making $50,000 a month. And then ask yourself, what can you do to make that happen? What can you do to make it harder for you not to create that, to set your life up in such a way, to set your mindset, to set your emotional wellbeing and your emotional mastery, to set up your robust inner spiritual life in such a way that it’s harder than not for you to effortlessly flow these extraordinary results in your life.

Because if you’re dreaming them, that’s what’s yours to claim. So make it harder not to do it than it is to do it, and then I’ll see you on the other side of that gap.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you enjoy this podcast and these episodes, I would love it if you would take the time and leave a review on iTunes. Also, topics like today are more advanced topics, so for sure, re-listen a few times, and do the work, journal about it, take it for a walk, contemplate it. And then, if you want to sink your teeth further into this work, if you want to normalize incredible levels of thriving, wellbeing, flourishing success on all levels, then coaching can be that thing that helps you close the gap.

So, whether the gap for you means you’ve never gotten up onstage but all your life you’ve dreamed of singing in front of an audience, I can help you get there. If the gap for you means you’ve already performed on stages as big as the Grammy’s or Red Rocks or Madison Garden and yet something more is calling you, you’re just afraid that it might require too much of you, I can help you close that gap as well.

So whether it’s coaching with me or doing your own work though, just don’t normalize hanging out in the middle. Normalize for yourself completing that entire creative process, from dream to creation, to fruition, to full expression and embodiment and do it over and over again.

Do this and you will have even more than a personally fulfilling creative life. You’ll be a true beacon of creativity for others. You’ll be a true living example of a radiant beautiful human being. And so now, because so much of this podcast has been about encouraging you to say yes to your dreams and destiny and encouraging you to not take no as an answer from anyone, including yourself, here are some lines from the poet Hafez.

“I rarely let the word no escape from my mouth because it is so plain to my soul, that God has shouted yes, yes, yes to every luminous movement in existence.”

Have a beautiful week, everyone, and I look forward to talking with you next time.