why don't I just do what I want?

following your creative passions is an option??

Hello lovely people, good morning from sunny London (it’s full of cherry blossoms so I’m pretending I’m in Japan). Let me start this off by saying a huge thank you - there are around 6,500 of us right now, and one month ago there were less than 3,000. It means the absolute world to have you here! Thank you, thank you, thank you. ☀️

The past month has been an interesting one for me, with a lot going on. I threw myself into learning more about art direction and connecting with dozens of new people as I realized that creativity was seriously missing from my everyday work, even as I run a marketing agency. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way, even though I haven’t been sticking to all the exercises as meticulously as I should. Anyway, I realized that I was doing too much business-managing and not enough creating. I always said I need my job to bring me enough stability and freedom so that I’ll be able to be creative on the side. But there’s something to be said here about your energy, where it goes, how much energy you have left, and if all your creative energy is drained in your 9-5, there isn’t much room for creativity left.

That led to a little identity crisis for a few weeks, where I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what makes me light up the most and how I can fully pursue it. I’m very multipassionate which can be as fun as it is difficult and incredibly confusing, so figuring out one direction to take seriously paralyses me.

One thing I’ve figured out through The Artist’s Way is that although I write a lot about designing lives and careers that are fulfilling and work for you, I still have some unconscious beliefs about work that I’m now doing my best to let go of. In this past month I’ve been trying to be very intentional about noticing exactly what makes me light up the most. I have this deep belief that it’s extremely important to figure out what you really, truly, deeply want, so you can pursue it with everything you’ve got. And at 25, knowing exactly what I want isn’t as simple - most of us learn how to do that much later on. One of the most consistent passions and loves throughout my life has been photography. I’ve never been without it, and never will. For years I’ve described myself as a travel photographer with a special love for capturing dreamy, ethereal beauty in the ordinary - like this.

My lifelong dream used to be being a National Geographic photographer and traveling the world to capture scenes like these. When I met professional photographers whose life was literally this, I had a seriously deep reaction. I wanted to ask them a thousand questions and take detailed notes on exactly what they do and every single step they took to get there. I remember reading in The Artist’s Way that when you feel a deep jealousy or fire inside you when faced with someone else’s job, it’s a great sign that there’s something hidden there about what you really want to be doing in your life. I think Julia Cameron is right.

But for some reason, I never ever considered (in my adult life) that having photography be part of my job is a real option. That just did not cross my mind. That’s where these subconscious beliefs come in. There’s things in your life that you’ve always loved and been good at, been excited about, but when these passions are creative we just tend to ignore them as viable career options and don’t even give them a chance (I know of course some people do, but so many don’t). Maybe because deep down we believe that they’re truly not viable, can never be profitable enough, etc, etc. But honestly every single day I see examples that prove me otherwise. If so many other people can do it, what makes you seriously think you can’t?