1.  Focus.  If you're an Ancient Artist, you don't have a lifetime ahead of you in which to "find your way."  You have to focus right out of the starting gate. What do you want to achieve in the color purple tickets? Where do you want to be this time next year?  I've found journaling to be extremely helpful in getting to the bare bones of what I want and believe. If you get stuck wondering what to write, this is what works for me:  I start by writing "So what are you thinking about now?" I carry on a written conversation with myself, asking and answering questions. And I'm usually surprised at how vague ideas slowly become clarified.  This works well if you just want to vent, too, then throw the stuff in the shredder.
2.  Draw on your strengths.  Lets face it - you've already lived a successful life.  You've handled challenges, taken risks, probably had a career and a family, and figured out how to pay your bills.  You know what hard work is and no one's going to kid you, developing an art career is hard work. But you have the strength of your accumulated life experiences to draw upon.  Those experiences will support you when the muse abandons you, or three months pass and you still haven't heard on that portfolio review you sent out. Trust that you are where you are supposed to be and that you have the resources to get through everything.
3.  Start treating yourself as a professional.  You would be surprised at the number of artists I talk to who haven't kept the names and contact information on people who have collected their work, or who never thought they needed to be computer literate.  They just want to sell their work -- or get someone else to sell it for them. Here's the hard truth: there are many more artists out there than there are collectors. The competition is tough. Be ready today for where you want to be tomorrow.

4 .  Create compelling art.  We all want to think that our art is compelling, original, unique, right?  But it just ain't so. Do an Internet search for abstract art or go to E-Bay and see what I mean.  After the first three pages of thumbnails, everything looks the same. This is not cause for despair, though, because  those other artists don't realize what you know now: you must be different. Oh, not earth-shatteringly different, but put some thought into what you create.  Read about the inspirations that motivated Rothko (you'd be surprised) or find a group of artists and use their process as your inspiration. Find a way to tell a compelling story, which is the perfect segue into #5.

5.  Create a body of work that tells a story.  Buyers tell me they connected to a work of art because they connected to the story the artist was telling, even if that story wasn't the artist's, but their own.  Maybe your strength is in the way you use color, or capture the light. Maybe you create still-life paintings like the Dutch Masters, or non-representational pieces that capture the imagination.  By working in a series, you begin to distill your story. And no doubt you will have hundreds of stories to tell, which translates into thousands of paintings just waiting for you to complete. But here's the point: if your story so compelling that you need several canvases to completely tell it, then it will be compelling to others.  If it's something that's over and done with in 10 minutes, you might as well call it wallpaper.