Andrea Schroeder

Please tell us what you do.

I offer online life-coaching courses geared towards creative people with big dreams. I encourage creative people to grow towards their full potential, and to use their inner gifts to overcome the obstacles along the way.

What type of art do you create?

I just like to make stuff – anything! Mostly: I sew and knit my own clothes as a hobby, I paint in my art journals as my own personal creative/spiritual practice and I draw on my tablet to create content for my courses.

What is a “Creative Dream Incubator”?

Creative: using the creative process outside of your art, using it to create your life.

Dream: I do believe that our dreams are our soul calling us towards our purpose.

Incubator: nurturing + nourishing (in this case – our dreams)

So this kind of speaks to the intersection of creativity and spirituality. Our creativity is the mechanism through which we bring our souls to life, in the outer world. In other words: we all have all of the gifts of our souls inside of us, creativity is how we bring it out into our lives.

I have a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Fashion Design, I am also an accredited Spiritual Teacher and Counsellor. These were both four year programs, so gave me lots of time to really explore creativity and spirituality – the deeper I got the more I began to bring them together on my own. While I was finishing my internship as a Spiritual Teacher I began to develop my own Creativity Workshops where I taught people how to approach spiritual growth through creative play -I found it really helped people engage more fully with their own inner worlds. I was so in love with that work that I kept exploring and eventually started my business.

Can you give us an idea of how artists can benefit
by working with you?

While my focus is always on helping people move towards their dreams, what we end up focusing on first tends to be the difficult stuff: the self-doubt, the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of change, the lack of clarity and focus. So, unfortunately, I tend to make my clients face the things that they least want to face.

The good news is that once people work through the stuff that stops them, they are no longer stopped by it! So that’s how I help people become free to fully pursue their dreams. At that stage I focus on helping them get more in touch with their intuitive wisdom because that’s where you always find the best advice for how to make your dream real.

Do you have any advice for artists who might be
hesitant to fully pursue their passions?

Well, first I would offer the fact that *everyone* is hesitant to fully pursue their passion! That usually makes people sign with relief. It’s not just you, I promise.

As I alluded to in my last answer, working through the self-doubt or limiting beliefs actually is the way you move towards your dream. You don’t wait for that stuff to be gone, you choose to begin.

Waiting is actually exactly what your self-doubt wants you to do. It’s only purpose is to keep you exactly where you are today. At some point you’re going to have to choose: do you want to do what your self-doubt wants or do you want to do what you want?

Yes, of course, that’s scary and uncomfortable – but are you so afraid of feeling afraid and uncomfortable that you’ll give up your dreams to stay in your comfort zone?

The more you can be willing to simply be uncomfortable the easier you’re going to find it to really pursue your dream.

Can you give some advice for artists considering
coaching as a business?

First I want to offer encouragement! If you feel called to help others in that way please explore it – the world needs all the help it can get!

Then I would suggest that you take the time to fully develop your skills as a coach. You may be naturally inclined towards this kind of work and that’s great – you still need good training. For me, that was a five-year process. I didn’t get coaching certification, I got certified as a Spiritual Teacher which was a four-year training and then took a lot of smaller trainings for a year after that to get a feel for different ways of approaching this work.

Because coaching is an unregulated industry, there is nothing stopping you from taking a weekend coaching training and immediately putting yourself out there as a coach but to do that really does your dream, and your clients, a disservice.

Take your time to build the foundation you need for success. If you’re asking for people to trust you with their dreams then make sure you can care for them properly.