Recently I have been stuck in a complete creative rut, everything that I want to say seems to have been said before and in a better way than I am able to do. Everyone that I look up to and surround myself with seem to be achieving a hell of a lot more than I am and after sitting around feeling sorry for myself for way too long it has lead me to question why I am still so set on comparing my success to the achievements of other people instead of just working for myself.
A lot of the time I find myself wanting to branch out with my blog and social platforms; I want to begin to create more fashion posts but feel like I’m not cool enough to do that; I want to create YouTube videos but I know that they won’t be anywhere near as wonderful as those that my friends create; I want to be self hosted, but what if it all goes wrong?
This thought process stops me before I have even put the first steps in place for me to be able to achieve these things, it was when I was watching a Dottie James video earlier that she explained how she gets the same kind of feelings that I realised everyone must feel like this at some point. For me, whenever I tell anyone about my plans and the things that I want to do and they give me their approval and positive views on the work it then puts me off of actually making the thing (because if I already have the approval without actually making the thing then why do I need to go through the stress of really making it?).
This thought process stops me before I have even put the first steps in place for me to be able to achieve these things, it was when I was watching a Dottie James video earlier that she explained how she gets the same kind of feelings that I realised everyone must feel like this at some point. For me, whenever I tell anyone about my plans and the things that I want to do and they give me their approval and positive views on the work it then puts me off of actually making the thing (because if I already have the approval without actually making the thing then why do I need to go through the stress of really making it?).
The past few days have been spent reminding myself that I am only eighteen and that nothing has to be laid on a plate for me yet, and none of my creative skills are ever set in stone. I still have so many years of creative progress ahead of me and there is no point at all in dwelling on why I haven’t progressed as far as someone like Lucy Moon who is in her twenties and has been creating online content since she was fourteen. Her following didn’t happen overnight and neither did her finding her style, I am allowed to play around with my work until I find what fits me and this is something that I need to remember.
People are constantly progressing, and their development doesn’t happen over night. It happens with hard work and dedication, it happens with hours put into their craft and creating things that they feel the world will benefit from in some way or another. This is what I need to keep reminding myself. Despite my constant stresses that I am not progressing fast enough, I am in fact progressing at a gradual rate. In the past year my blog has gone from getting on average 150 page views a month to getting well over 2000 a month which is a number that somehow keeps growing and an achievement that I need to keep in mind when I am beating myself up about my online content. Things are working in my favour, I am the only one that is holding myself back by refraining myself from putting out the content that I want to create.
The other night I gave myself a kick into action and forced myself to think deeply about the good things that have happened for me when it comes to being taken seriously as a creator. While there may not be as many as I want there to be (can you tell how self critical I am yet?) there are many that I am beyond proud of. For example, my photographs have been used for the cover of an EP, they have been published in newspapers and used for merchandise. I have been accepted to shoot Mayday Parade, Dodie Clark and other artists that I love, and this year have even more opportunities coming my way. I managed to get into university and worked bloody hard on all the work I handed in, everything I have achieved has been down to me and everything I am going to achieve in the future is going to be down to me too.
2018 is the year the I am going to be consistently challenging myself to leave my comfort zone and do those things that I want to do, but I am going to keep the projects secret because that way they will be projects for me. I will be gaining the appreciation for the work once it is done in comparison to achieving appreciation for the plan of the thing. While I have mentioned a few ways that I would ideally like to begin to expand my blog, and you are all clearly aware of the fact that I am uploading at a much more regular pace than I used to (four times a week instead of the old two posts a week) there are a lot of things that I have up my sleeve.
Tonight I am going to challenge you all to take a step back and look at why you are being so self critical with your work, especially if it comes in the terms of being an online creator (or just a creative in general). Why are we so determined to compare our works in process to things that are already completed masterpieces from someone else? Once you have begun to think about that issue and tackle the ways you can begin to develop you realise nothing is helping you back other than yourself. At that point you are able to excel at what you do.
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