March is always a time of renewal for me. My birthday is February 28 so I kick off a new year of life, plus spring being my favorite season, everything just ends up feeling new. I was told with your 30s comes a fresh surge of confidence. I think I blossomed prematurely for once and that came when I was about 27. But 34 felt like it started with a spark and a wildfire.
CUTTING DEAD WEIGHT
For starters, I quit my part time job. I was working at a regional coffee vendor just for fun and maybe some extra cash, when my manager threatened to take me off the schedule, effectively fire me, if I didn’t answer his calls that day, I drew a line. This fun job had ceased to be fun, and I was already on the fence about the position anyway since it was taking a lot of time and energy away from my business. When a person makes threats, no matter how small, that’s usually my cue to make my exit.
It got me to ask myself how I can show more grace towards clients. I’m not graceless when it comes to clients, but are there areas of client work that stress me out because I’m maybe not being patient enough? The other thing I thought of is how I invest in my community as a creative. I need to put a little more effort into building relationships. I’m such a homebody that unless I’m going on a grand adventure, I’m not really thrilled to leave the house.
This brings me to my next point. I focus a lot on my work because I love what I do. Leaving my fun job was a turning point for me. It was the first time I really felt like I had to choose between my company and something else. We never know how we’re going to choose until we’re faced with the choice. I always figured I’d put my company first, and now I’m glad to know that I really would. I’ve never been more confident that this is the right path for me.
OWNING THE BLACK SHEEP LABEL
Through a wonderful vacation, I realized I am the black sheep in my family. Ever since, I have been living into that with ferocity. The things that make me weird like my passion for the kinds of micro-cultures that surround brands or my love of aviation are things that I’m wholeheartedly embracing. I feel like that vacation and the realization that I’m the odd one out brought about renewal to my work and to my personal goals. I’ve been more disciplined in my daily practice and more driven in everything I do related to my work.
The things we geek out about outside of our creative work are the things that take our creative work to the next level. I just created a poster of runway lights that I plan on putting in my shop. It’s one way that I can share the work I do for the enjoyment of creating, and a way that I can be genuine in what I put forth in my business.
BEING BOLD
I returned from my short vacation and dove head first back into my work. Where I’ve struggled in writing blog posts, I had four or five in my drafts folder. Three of those have been published, one of them is this one. It was a long winter and I very clearly needed a vacation to renew myself. Things I’ve been putting off for months are finished. My shelves and files are organized. My office is clean. My taxes are done. It feels amazing and I couldn’t have done it without that little change in scenery.
Another thing that my vacation accomplished is being more bold in my writing. I saw this in my last post about dealing with naysayers. Normally, I would just talk about setting boundaries, just doing your thing anyway, and respectfully standing up for yourself. In that post, I got more personal by quoting some things that were actually said to me. I chose to do this because there are thousands of articles about setting boundaries and doing it anyway. Those articles never talk about the hurtful things that were said, and I wanted to make it clear to anyone reading, especially anyone thinking about taking an unconventional path, that mean comments aren’t a reason to give up. I felt like I needed to offer my experiences for the person who may stumble upon my blog late at night wondering if the critics are right.
THE STATUS QUO IS A HORRIBLE GOAL
The push back on my career has been strong these days. Even on the worst days, though, my love for what I do is so much greater than the impact of a few careless words. That’s not to say that it doesn’t hurt, but my love for my work is so great that an insult is like, as one of my favorite songs puts it, water off my wings. As I reflect on the ways I’ve been dismissed, I can’t help but wonder if it’s coming from a place of hurt, a place of regret. As I look back at these interactions, the stark reality of convention and playing by the rules sinks in and my attention moves away from this interaction.
When we spend our lives trying to fit in with culture, and place a high value on living conventionally at the expense of our own desires, we make a tremendous sacrifice. We excuse it with, “We can’t always do what we want to do,” but that doesn’t take the sting out of looking back on life and realizing that you never really made it your own. That’s what we do when we abandon our goals and desires and beat ourselves into submission of sociocultural norms, the status quo and conventional living. We fail to make our lives our own and as we age, the reality of our choices sinks in and becomes regret. When it comes to our careers, it’s 47 years that we won’t get back. That’s most of our lives. That’s not a kind realization when you’re in your golden years. You might have a nice retirement account, but what is money when you realize you were too bound to convention to really live?
That’s all for March!!
Hope your April finds you refreshed, renewed and re-energized.