God, Family, Church: Start the 7 Essential Steps to Creative Success in 2024

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What are the seven things that you have to do to have success in the coming year? Can you nail all this down to just a few actions that will guarantee your creative success spiritually, financially, and creatively? Is that even possible, that all this could be distilled into just a few concepts? Well, we're going to explore this one by one in this series that I'm going to be calling the Seven steps to creative success in 2024. And I'm going to cover it in this creative checkup starting today in this God and gig show Creative checkup episode.

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Just give me a moment to welcome those of you who are new to our podcast, and then we'll get right into this incredibly important conversation for next year's preparation.

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Hello and welcome to our show. Thank you so much for making this podcast a part of your creative day. And if you are new to our show, thank you so much for giving us a chance. And let me tell you why you're in the right place at the right time. We are here to help you transform your creative life from the inside out by applying timeless spiritual principles to the temporary creative problems that you might be facing.

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And that's whether you're a musician, artist, creative entrepreneur, anyone in the arts and entertainment space, but with a faith focus or Christian background. And you probably also work within a church or at least have a very close connection to ministry and your faith. But you work in the mainstream arts and entertainment space, and that's why you need friends and allies in this space who understand what you are all about. That's what we do here at guiding gigs. Thanks for coming aboard.

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And you need to hang around, subscribe to this channel and on the app that you're listening to or watching right now. Now, I said at the outset that we're going to help you with the seven things you have to do to have creative success next year. Now, as I'm recording this, we are in 2023 getting ready to move into 2024. And man, this year has gone by so fast. As a matter of fact, as I'm recording this, it Feels like I don't even have time to get through all seven of these steps to make sure you're ready by New Year's Eve of 2023.

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But we're going to start it now. And as you could probably guess, if you are a part of guiding gigs, these concepts are not new to this year or any year. You see, every year we try to come up with new goals, with new concepts, with New Year, new me, and all these things we're going to change to make the next year better. And most of the time it takes reevaluating the things we did last year or this year, as you might say, and figuring out what do you need to change to make next year successful. But here's the funny thing about that, and we all know this, whether it's New Year's resolutions or whatever it is, you always end up saying pretty much the same thing.

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If you are planning to get healthier, you already know the concept of getting healthier. That doesn't change with the year. You just make a new commitment. If you are planning to make more money or want to save more money or spend more time with your family, any of those goals are not new goals. They are really usually the same goals or a different version of the same goals that you had last year.

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So I'm not here to kind of put a damper on your New Year preparation. I'm here to tell you that it's really less of a new thing and more of a recommitment to the things that you already know will work. And you just need to come up with better processes, better systems, better ways to remind yourself to do the things that work. And so that's why the things that will help you to have success in 2024 are the same principles that we've taught for years in our God and gigs complete creative blueprint. We've also called them the seven Paul Creative Services in my book, God and Gigs.

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So we're going to talk about this because it absolutely is essential to your creative success in any year. But especially if you start laying the groundwork now, you'll have success in 2024 because it's a recommitment to the things that already work, that are going to make you successful in the coming year. So let's talk about the first one. And the first one says, stay connected. Now, stay connected to what, you might ask, what do I need to stay connected to to guarantee success in 2024?

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Well, in my book, and in our complete creative blueprint, we lay it out simply like this, you need to stay connected to God, to your family, and to your church. And we actually, in the book, start with church. And I know that's a controversial topic, especially in this day and age, that we have a lot of people saying, well, I don't need church. I don't need organized religion. I don't need a place where a pastor or somebody is speaking to me or trying to give me my words.

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I can speak to God on my own, even as a Christian or as a faith focused believer, I think I can just get it all on my own. Well, I'm here to tell you, and I'm sorry to be controversial here, but you're wrong. You cannot have success in 2024 without a spiritual connection to a body of believers and to your family. And that then relates to your connection to God. And I have seen this over and over, even in the last few years, with some tragedies and issues that have happened in our creative community and the people that have had a strong foundation with a local body of believers, along with the rest of the creative community.

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Those people survived the big hits, while those who did not have a strong connection or started to leave that connection, we saw them fade away. We saw them lose not only their spiritual connection, but they also lost a lot of their creative and really, their clout and their platforms were all taken away because they didn't have a source that was able to hold them together, whether it was fame or whether it was issues with money or anything else that came at them and started to tear away at the foundation of their creative life, of really their entire life. Those people who had a strong foundation of faith in God between believers, people that they were connected to and with their family, without those things, they were not able to withstand, as the Bible says, the storm and the wind that blew upon their house, and their house was built on sand. So the first thing I'm going to tell you, and it may sound very much like I'm just kind of wagging my finger, but I'm not. I'm trying to encourage you to stay connected to your local church, whether that's a church in terms of a ministry, whether it's a church in terms of someone that you're following.

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Some people do this digitally. They say they have a pastor through the digital means of following somebody or following a church. If that's you, then if that works for you, then I guess it's okay. But I don't know if it really can replace the person to person contact and accountability that a local body has for you. And I have some videos, even on my channel, and also a podcast where we help you to find a creative, friendly church.

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And now you might ask me, okay, are you saying, Allen, that the only way that I could be successful in 2024 is if I'm serving in a church, if I play in a church, if I perform in a church as a creative. No, this has nothing to do with your actual production or work or ministry, as if the only way you can be successful is to be working within a church. That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you have to be connected, that your relationships have to be closer and more grounded than simply your talents and using it for the ministry as a performance or a ministry or worship team, whatever that is. You got to go deeper than that.

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And this is a challenge, again, for many of us who have found ourselves feeling like churches did not respect or understand us. But I am telling you, and I'm challenging you, to push past that and not wait for the perfect pastor for the perfect ministry or anything like that. That's why this particular section of both our blueprint and the book oftentimes feels like I shouldn't go here. But if you want to be successful in 2024 and you don't have this foundation, you're going to find it hard to have continuous and consistent success. Now, along with that also goes your connection with your family.

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Now we talk about marriage in my book, but we also talk about really just family in general. And as you can see, these two fit together. If your family is connected to you, and you and your family are connected to a local body of a church of believers, you've got that foundation that will not be shaken, and you can build your creative life on a more solid foundation that will then allow you to keep the success should you get it. The problem is, if I come in here and I tell you a bunch of marketing things, how to build your email list, how to get more people to follow you on Instagram or social media, how to become more brand savvy, how to get gigs, or how to connect with people so that you get more collaborations. If I go into all of that, and yet you do not have the foundation of your family standing behind you, standing beside you, learning how to make those relationships work, even through the difficulties.

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And trust me, I'm not saying your family needs to be perfect because mine is not perfect. What I'm saying is that's got to be a priority before you approach the other things that you want to make success in your creative life. And so that's why if you have to get a counselor, if you have to step in with a pastor or someone to help you reform bonds or connect with bonds with your wife or your husband or your children or your father or your mother or grandmother, it doesn't mean all these relationships can be made whole overnight. It means it has to be the first step toward you making your creative life whole. You see, if you don't have these personal relationships connected first, or at least be working on them.

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You're going to find that your creative life is not moving in sync and you're going to find yourself trying to cope or medicate through your creative life. Now that is a way for you to express yourself, but it's not the best way for you to handle the actual problems. You see. A song, a poem, a movie, any of these things can help you express your emotions, but it doesn't provide solutions. Solutions to these relationship issues in your family only come from real hard work, and that comes from the heart and it comes from communication and it comes from things that don't happen inside the studio.

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So I'm really imploring you. And again, this came off probably in a different way than I thought it would. Even when I started this podcast, I started it by saying that you are going to need seven things and I'm going to walk through the rest of them so that you see them. And if you want to find out more about the complete creative blueprint that I'm telling you about, the confident creative blueprint, we changed names a couple of times. Confident and complete, that kind of fits together because that's what I want you to be totally confident in your creative abilities going into the next year.

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But before you start any of this, you got to start with staying connected. And if you need help again, check out our other videos and our other episode on being connected with the local church. That link will be in the show notes in the description of this particular episode. But before you move any further into 2024, into the next year, whenever you hear this, do not pass go, do not collect $200, as it says, a monopoly. Until you make a connection with God through Bible study and prayer.

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We have devotionals and things for that as well. And with your family and with your church. Those three put together will make you able to sustain the success that you are searching for in the coming year. And if you have that foundation intact, you will be able to keep the success and see what God has for you and your creative life and have it really in an abundant way that's not blocked because you're not working on the relationships that really matter. My friend, I hope this helped you.

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I hope this didn't come off too much of a challenge. I hope that it actually touched your heart and made you think about what's really going to bring you success in the coming year. And as we walk through the rest of these throughout this rest of the series, I hope you'll come back each week to hear what else you need to do to make sure you have success in the coming year. Start prepping now. If you're listening to this as I'm releasing it, you've got a few weeks, but don't wait till New Year's Eve to make a New Year's resolution and try to get everything together.

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Start thinking now of how you can recommit to the things that really matter and that will always bring success in your creative life. Thank you so much for listening and watching and following along with the God and gig Show. Make sure you subscribe so you can hear what we have next coming up in the next few weeks. And if you want to find out more about our programs, always go to godandgeks.com. Those links are in the show notes, including our membership God and gigs 360 Gold, where we really dive into these topics in an accountability kind of way, a mastermind format.

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I would love to see you in that. That would be a great way to start off your year. But no matter what, until next time, continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God Bless and I'll see you next episode.

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Thanks for joining us here at the God and Gigs Show. Please leave us a review on iTunes, like our Facebook page, or visit godandgigs.com and tell us what you thought of this show. We'll be back soon. In the meantime, go create something amazing.