Time is a construct that no longer really exists for me.
When you’re indoors for an extended period of time, especially with a pandemic going on, you are going to be surrounded by your own thoughts a majority of it. I am realizing that I am becoming even better at time management when it comes to my day job which is great and it’s allowing me to see where I have more time available in the day to take breaks so I can keep myself from burning out.
The last two-ish weeks I’ve been chipping away at a cross stitch project I’ve been working on and put off for the last couple years (more on that in a later post). I am so ridiculously excited about how close I am to getting to the next stage of that project while also chipping at the hundreds remaining. It’s very thrilling to feel so close to hitting one of my main creative goals with this project and it’s given me the motivation I’ve been missing with my creative side overall.
In the time that I have been working on this project I have realized the perfection is truly the destroyer of creativity. For so long I have held back on my own creative endeavors because I felt it, and I, had to be perfect all the time. If I couldn’t do a piece exactly as I envisioned it I stopped. If I got to the “ugly” part of a painting I couldn’t push myself past it and so I would quit working on it. This idea of my work having to be “perfect” was super crippling.
I was also experiencing a bit of an identity crisis. The bits of my creative endeavors that I would show off resulted in me seeing lower engagement numbers than something that was of me or my face (or posts related to my day job). It’s a bit disheartening because my “following” originally grew from being an artist and to see that I neglected it for so long that folks either forgot or just straight up don’t know had me down for a bit. I had even contemplated “starting over” by creating separate Twitter/Instagram channels to build from the ground up.
After going back and forth for a bit I decided to stick it out on the pages I’ve built even with it being jarring for folks as I start adjusting my content to focus more on those creative endeavors and sharing my passions more (lots more Disney, lots more Pokemon, lots more Books, etc). I have so many new art supplies that I plan to try out and videos I want to record. I want to document my creative journey more on this blog so I’m thinking more of a weekly blog, probably every Sunday, cataloging creative things I’ve done that week.A quick thing before I end this blog: I know I mentioned engagement numbers getting me down with my art, a lot of folks feel this on social. With my day job being focused on social media and engagement/follow numbers being a big deal it can be difficult to really hard to get my brain to separate the two instances of one being tied to managing big company brand channels vs my own personal channels. It is something that I am working through while going through this personal creative journey.
Keep an eye out next week for my first update!!
