We all struggle with ideas, business and more

I’m going to get a bit personal in this article. Why? Because we all struggle from time to time.

Whether it’s struggling with the technical side of photography, the creativity or the business stuff, it happens to all of us. What I have found is that by sharing our own experiences, we can help each other out.

Welcome to my brain

I thought I’d share with you what’s in my brain. Not the “oh my god there’s someone in our house at 2 a.m. brain,” but the regular almost every day “why am I doing this, how can I make this work, who the hell am I to do this, can I do this, why am I not selling anything, why are people buying other artist’s work and not mine, why can’t I focus and crank out the work like others are,” brain.

Why would I feel the need to share this with you? Because I think it’s human, some of it. Some of it is what many of us go through from time to time as employees, business owners, creatives and artists. Some of it is just my overactive brain, lack of self-confidence and the fact that I tend to question everything, including myself.

Another reason I’m sharing this is that I like to help people and if what I’m going through can help someone else then that’s great. It also helps to write things out sometimes, just to get them out of your head (or mine).

What brought this struggle on?

So, what is this all about? Let’s see, about four years ago, I quit my regular paycheck job. Scary, definitely. Best move I ever made, without a doubt. I’ve never been one to do what everyone else does, follow the trends or crowds. I know we are supposed to have a regular paying job, do that work every day, usually for someone else so that we can, oh I don’t know, pay our bills?

Regular jobs are overrated in my opinion. My guess is that the majority of us out there are not really doing what’s in our hearts. We’re doing what we HAVE to do, not what we WANT to do. It sounds selfish I know. It feels selfish a lot of times, but I’m more at peace, calmer, and happier and my blood pressure is the lowest it’s been in years. Definitely worth it.

What’s the problem then? I feel like I’m spinning my wheels a bit. Motivation (or more likely in my case, focus) is so very fleeting and that means where I am with it all and where I feel like I should be after having four years to work on it are very far apart. Granted I took quite a bit of one of the years to just BE. I took the time to process life, losing my mother and trying to organize my thoughts and what this new life looked and felt like.

“Make no small plans.”

~Daniel Burnham

Plans and ideas

Well, let me tell you about plans and ideas and having a brain that just doesn’t stop. Where does one start? Where does one stop? Once you do start, then how do you start all the other things? Ooooh I love this idea, this will be fun. And oh, don’t forget to work on writing the 3 other mentorships you have in your head.

But wait, today I vowed I would work on the fine art website content and tomorrow, I’ll start putting those e-books and books together. I have much of this started or at least recorded in a document with notes so I don’t forget once I get to the doing part of it all.

All, right there is one problem. Why? Who says I have to do it all? Me? I want to do it all, I would like to at least give it all a shot to see what works and what doesn’t. I mean that’s sort of how I operate.

Let’s try this. Meh, it was okay, but it wasn’t really FUN. It was enjoyable but not in a way to keep me interested. What’s next? Okay… this is next, try this. How else do you know if it will work or if it’s something that feeds your soul and makes you want to work on it every day if you don’t just try it first? You don’t. So off I go, trying things. Will I ever land on THE thing that just makes me want to work on it all day, every day? Not sure so I’ll just keep trying.

Inspiration from others

I started following The Blog Abroad a few years ago and as I was in the process of writing a newsletter about this struggling business, she posted about discovering your life’s purpose. It kind of hit me, that’s what it is I’m trying to do. (I no longer follow her because, hello, I follow too many blogs/sites/etc.)

These three sentences are from her post: “Sometimes you might take detours, life might hit you with some dead ends, but you never quit. The character is built on the journey, not at the destination. And you need to learn to love the process just as much as the result.”

I guess the biggest struggles for some of us are learning to love the process, and trying to figure out where our place is in this world. I’m not sure I agree with the learning to love the process though. Sometimes the process is part of our growth, the struggle and pain of the process aren’t always fun.

I’ll leave you with that and this quote.

Dreams are not easy. Dreams are painful.
They force work and commitment. They are challenging and motivating.
~Robert Kiyosaki