Hey friends, it's Jules and welcome to the pool party.
I thought we would do something a little bit different today and in the same vein of talking
about branding, creativity, design, what it takes to make design, I wanted to switch it
up a little bit and talk about self-care for creatives and when it's time to reassess,
revisit and revise our work.
And when I'm talking about our work, this broader context of the roles we do, how we
define ourselves as multi-hyphenates, maybe you're a designer, photographer, someone
who has your own business and in that case, you're able to make decisions and decide
what you work on but sometimes that task can be quite daunting.
Honestly, with the internet and social media, there have been many new businesses I've
seen my friends and collaborators be able to make over the years and while it's exciting,
I think some of the social media platforms we see don't really show all of the work
that goes behind being a producer, what it takes to build a business with longevity and
to be honest, I think many folks really figure it out on the fly.
As a person who is in my 20s, my late 20s now, I find that I see people start new ventures
all the time and it's really hard to know whether that idea is going to be something
that lasts a season or a long time.
I genuinely don't believe that anyone can tell you what the answer is, what's going
to happen next and the reality is you just have to check in with yourself.
You have to be very real about what is working for you, why it's working, if you're learning,
if it's contributing to your goals and if it isn't anymore, why that might be and everything
is a learning process.
I think work is one of the things that we will, whether we like to or not, have to engage
with for a large part of our lives and since the pandemic, work has also gone remote.
Work has changed, titles have changed, it's consolidated, become more quick and I think
sometimes it's hard not to change.
Things are rapidly changing, especially for the creative industry and while you might
have been a producer even early on in your career, it's very easy to even transition
to a creative director role but then the context in which you work, what companies you work
for can also change.
So this is exciting, there's a lot of room to grow and develop but I also find that there's
this issue that comes up which can at times be paralyzing and that's this question, what
do I really want to do, what do you want to do and what is it going to look like in the
next few years?
I think due to the unpredictable nature of the creative industry and over the past few
years we've seen a slowdown even in the amount of jobs that are offered to some creatives,
it can be hard for people to plan and planning is great because it helps to create realistic
goals and find skills to improve upon but the truth is I think that as quickly as industries
change into your job titles, so do our internal compasses and we have to make decisions quickly.
And so in this podcast today, I want to talk a bit about this concept of creating an offer
that really makes sense to you with what you're aligned with in this moment, this season of
your life and some things to consider as you're offering a new service as a creative or even
product and then I want to talk a bit about this Japanese concept of Ikigai and you may
have heard this before but I think it's important to revisit especially for creatives because
I mentioned this a few times, I think one of the issues that creatives run into is that
let's say you're a designer, graphic designer, it's really easy to work for an agency, get
work assigned to you and continue doing that work for months, maybe even years and then
not really think about the business aspect, how this work comes in, how much you get paid
and to even really grow beyond that role other than churning out projects and increasing
speed and efficiency.
I find that many designers and creatives, they get into this line of work not to necessarily
become a more efficient part of a creative machine but because they have a true deep
and deep love of design process, they like the way it engages their brain and I think
this is a fantastic way to get involved in the industry but there are a few paths to
go and at the end of the day, I think one of the most beautiful outcomes is to maintain
creative decisions and design thinking and apply that to your skill set and even design
and create a job, a career that you truly love, that you feel really benefits the people
you work with and makes the world a better place and I think these are pieces of a triangle
that fall flat with many designers as they start to get their first few industry jobs
and it's because the work is tough, it's not always easy going, sometimes there are
long hours demanding clients and it becomes a mental game, a game of prioritizing what
you value, what you truly want to get out of a role and then not letting all the other
factors that might slip in, other people's stress get to you and why you decided to start
in the first place.
So again, we're going to talk about a bit of self-care for creatives today, when it's
time to reassess, revisit and revise and then as we begin to talk about crafting an offer
that really speaks to you, what you love and what you need in the season of your life,
we'll discuss this Japanese concept of Ikigai.
So let's dive in!
As we've discussed this grand project of branding, values and essentially building
companies from scratch, that is oftentimes what people set out to do with the goal of
branding and design.
And in my opinion, I think that some of the best companies and brands start with really
strong values of services that they offer and what they essentially want to branch out
and do in the world.
The reality is that over the years, we've seen across many industries that people will
sometimes use branding and hire brand marketers in order to essentially create a mask and
beautiful packaging that masks up a much more sinister reality of the work life culture
they're creating, false promises of product that aren't actually creating the outcomes
that they want, yet they sell a ton because the branding is beautiful, there is this whole
vibe and there is a psychology to branding and marketing where if it looks good, it must
be good.
I think this is one of the realities and the truths behind branding that sometimes designers
can fall into.
Oftentimes when you take on a job, you can ask your employer a few questions and then
obviously everyone wants a job to work out in their best favor, but what do you do when
the role you were promised ends up becoming something that really drags you down and no
longer aligns with your values?
The product mission that you were sold isn't actually firm and then as a designer and an
artist, you're being tasked with this role of putting on makeup around an idea that isn't
so pretty and taking this ugly idea in order to sell it to the broader public.
This is actually something that's really common in the design industry, especially when it
comes to roles where people hire in-house designers and they hire them to do a branding
project but the product isn't quite done yet.
I have had many friends over the years who have worked for startups or have been contracted
by companies and they fell in love with the creative work and they get excited because
they want to work for a big brand and make a good salary, but then they find out that
they don't really believe in the product that they're building.
And so we're going to go back to this question of when is it a good time to recess and revisit
and revise the work that you do?
In my opinion, that time is any time where it feels like what you're doing no longer
aligns with your personal values.
And in this podcast, I've talked a lot about people who might be going out and starting
their own venture and they get the opportunity to build from scratch.
Maybe that's you right now and that's a great place to be in.
But for many designers and artists and creatives, maybe you've taken on a job where your role
has been compartmentalized and there are lots of things about the job that you enjoy.
You get to apply your skill set, but maybe you no longer believe in what your company
is doing.
There is a phrase that maybe you've heard of before and I think it really applies in
this scenario.
If it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no.
In my opinion, I think one of the great goals of branding, especially for yourself, is to
become more of yourself, to get to know your talents and share that with people.
And branding is not a scam in this sense.
Branding is not a scam in this sense.
There are many people who will hire branders, unfortunately with the malicious intent of
pulling a fast one on the public to really try to get something through the door.
And truthfully, that's a red flag.
And it's hard to describe when you know it's happening, but when you recognize that it
is, your instincts are so important.
I got into design because I thought it was a great way of communicating to the public.
I wanted to inspire people and help them be more connected with each other.
I learned about mood boarding, brand values, and creating artwork that would translate
a vision to a wide variety of people and that to me felt like a superpower.
It is a superpower and I think it's one that needs to be used carefully.
Some of you may have the pleasure of working on projects that do offer a lot of good to
people.
Whether that because you're working on a project that is meant to assist organizations that
are connecting people with resources that they need or putting on events that bring
a lot of value.
There are also projects out there, many companies I feel, that get into any line of work essentially
to churn profit, to productize, to sell, and not even really sometimes vet their products,
but they understand that you need money and the biggest thing that they ever want to do
is just maximize profit.
I feel like this is probably one of the most shallow values you could have, especially
because you could maximize profit while helping people.
And I don't think that these two things are mutually exclusive, but I have seen a trend
over the years where people will maximize profit at any cost, especially at the cost
of relationships to people, the health of the environment, and quality of design work.
Now that last one I think probably pales in comparison to the first two.
It's really important to keep good working relationships with people and I think there
is also a biological clock that we all run on and that is the health of our earth.
In the digital age, a few creatives, many creatives out there work with deliverables
that are not made on print products, do not need to be made in a factory, and there may
be this misconception that because people are not working with physical products, there
isn't a cost, a biological cost.
But there's a lot of strain I've seen put on creatives who work around the clock in
the digital age and this leads to burnout.
I think before people even can recognize what's happening, the cycle of making money, of being
attached to a computer happens so quickly, people can't unplug and I've experienced
this myself even.
It gets really scary because there's this question of how do you stop?
Is the work going to be relevant?
I don't really know how to answer any one of these questions to be honest, but I'll
give you an example, when I worked in social media, a lot of times there would be new trends
developing every single day and while we could plan as much as possible for a calendar, if
you want to act on a trend and maximize viewership, you have to act within frankly a one to two
day window and if you don't, it's highly likely you'll pass on the opportunity to
grow at the pace of that trend and you'll miss out.
There's a lot of this fear of missing out that happens I think with companies and marketers,
people who create this content, but I feel that it can create a really unhealthy dynamic
and I think it's interesting that oftentimes people very early on in their career are hired
in task with this burden of creating trending content.
I genuinely feel it's because there's also a big burnout period that happens after making
this type of content for months on end and I think now with this discussion of a surgeon
general warning on social media and consuming content, I also want to flag that in the background,
I do think that there is a cost to making this type of content.
When I used to work at a social media agency, I wouldn't just be making trending content
for a single account, I would be making it across all accounts and while I know the boxes
to tick for a trend and what it needs to look like in order to be passable to an audience,
I was operating so quickly that at times it didn't necessarily matter if I was hitting
the process of a good design flow, what mattered is that we got it out the door fast and I
think for me that satisfaction of creating good design really went down and I started
to prioritize pleasing the algorithm but from this point of view of not doing it necessarily
for myself even but for all of these brand accounts that I worked on and my agency was
tasked with.
Now I know there are many people who think that this might be a dream role of working
with many celebrities and big brands, honestly I think at the start of your career it really
is and it can be but and that's not to knock all of the great benefits that I got from
doing this type of work and the audiences I got to touch but it did come at this cost
of where I was no longer satisfied with any of these metrics and I started to feel a high
level of disdain for the feedback that I would get that I knew would not necessarily matter
for the design or for the content because what mattered most of all was that we just
kept on making more and then these people who we worked with had content to put out
and it's challenging because when you work in a digital sense for algorithms, a lot of
times volume does count a lot so does consistency and timing but when the trends change so quickly
it can become a huge burnout role to essentially be on multiple accounts creating content and
not really being able to retain any of that creativity or talent for yourself so I started
to feel extremely drained doing this type of work but I was also burdened with this
fact that I was really early on in my career and that most people actually would only really
want to hire me for social media work not for some of these longer term brand or design
projects that might have a slower pace so I think it's interesting now in this guys
of pop psychology and when it comes to talking about burnout there's this idea that we can
control our burnouts and essentially the rate at which it happens by having boundaries and
sometimes those boundaries don't necessarily look like communicating that you can't do
a certain type of work but it's also turning off the computer past a certain hour I know
some folks who genuinely could not do that working in a social media context especially
with the type of clientele that they work with and I find that this is extremely bad
for mental health and it's really good to get ahead of this so while I couldn't have
predicted my level of burnout I feel that when you go into a role it's important to
have at least a few days out of the week in which you do absolutely log off at 5pm I know
that sometimes last minute things come up but I genuinely don't believe it's fair for
employers to ask their employees to stay on or be available for edits or changes past
8pm especially when the workload is such that it's going to be there the next day and that
there are deadlines multiple deadlines coming up in the same week I at the beginning of
my career would just say yes to anything and there are times for sure where you definitely
need to say yes if there's if these are like the only projects you can work on but I got
so used to saying yes to the point where I just even if I was so burnt out and I had
nothing to offer creatively I would feel anxiety saying no so I've gotten a bit into this
personal story of my burnouts and I wish I could tell you that I handled it the right
way but realistically what happened was that I hit a wall where I wasn't setting where
I wasn't setting boundaries that one day I found a backup project that I could do that
would make me enough money in the meantime and I put in my two weeks notice if I had
the opportunity to go back I really wish that I actually practice having stronger boundaries
before putting in my notice and I'll tell you why it's because I didn't really solve
this problem I had with boundaries and saying yes or no to work I just delayed it but here's
the problem I was working weekends nights taking on freelance projects on the side of
a full-time creative job and this is what I probably would have done instead to create
boundaries on the side instead of essentially cold turkey putting in a two weeks notice
so here are some ways that you can have a better sense of boundaries and your own creative
direction and I think that these ideas that I'm going to offer you are also what's going
to help preserve your sense of creativity your personal mental space and then also help
you feel like you have a better control of your creative process and this first one might
be obvious but it's go on a social media cleanse I think that there are many roles these days
where creatives are tasked with knowing what the trends are and that has developed into
a chronic sense of being online genuinely there's no reason why you need to be scrolling
on your phone on the weekends or after work especially if you work in the realm of social
media I know that it might seem hard to delete the app sometimes but I was discussing this
with a friend the other day I feel that the algorithms and the trends have gotten so good
at hooking people's attention that the act of it becomes as addictive if not as harmful
as basically vaping constantly and the dopamine rush you get becomes so highly charged that
it's hard to tell when you've gotten your fill and so what I would do
instead is some people even say that they have another phone or a separate iPad for
social media and their work socials I think this is also a really good idea just for hygiene
to keep it separate have that work phone use it only during the day and then put it aside
don't mix your work and your personal phone and social media together I think that may
lead to a lot of problems and there are also times too where I saw people who worked in
social media accidentally post to professional accounts when they were really actually like
at a bar trying to have a good time with their friends and I think you can avoid that just
by having a separate phone of course not everyone can afford this until I think that at some
point you do need to develop a personal boundary of just fully shutting off socials and only
responding and logging in when it's needed at this moment in time I've gone on the longest
social cleanse I've ever gone I haven't logged on to Instagram or TikTok in about three weeks
but before that I would log in just once a week to post and respond to direct messages
and then I would delete that from my phone and the reason why I did this was because
I got into this really destructive cycle of scrolling just to feel like I was knowing
what was going on in the world but the reality is new things happen all the time and I started
prioritizing what was happening on my phone more so than actually being a person in the
world and going out to events and talking to people around me in order to get a sense
of what was happening in my own life one thing that's really good to do if you decide to
go on a social media cleanse is to actually tell your close friends and the people you
meet who might be new friends that you have social media boundaries or that you are not
going online as often these days just so they know that you're not ignoring them and I know
this seems like a little extra task but interestingly enough when I'm not on social media as much
I text my friends more I actually directly send them photos and videos and that's something
that makes me happy because I want to be intentional about what I put out into the world and I
don't just want to contribute to the sense of FOMO that I know people get from seeing
other people's Instagram stories this might seem like a bit of a chant tangent but I genuinely
feel that platforms like Instagram are made with intention of preying on FOMO which is
like the fear of missing out and that sense of anxiety that you might have if you're
not at an event but what I see so often with friends and people who work in social or chronically
online is that they basically never rest and I started to get this feeling of hanging out
with my friends who work in social media that they're just constantly trained and they
never really have a sense of peace and genuinely that would impact my health as well so what
do you do instead of being on social media there are so many things to do you can go
to an art library I visited Los Angeles recently and Glendale has a beautiful art library called
the brand and you can go for free get a library card and there are so many books on art how
to draw on music magazines and biographies of artists that are so entertaining and you
can even listen to podcasts they have there it's a beautiful space I think that what's
wanting in the world is the sense of self-reflection of time away from the pressure of creating
content that only fuels the sense of this fear of missing out and then wanting people
to get out to do more but I'm starting to feel that people are doing more than enough
but they're not resting and that's not the type of world I want to live in so I want
you to consider what would the version of you who has what you want do about this particular
scenario and I think sometimes we act so much from this place of not having enough not being
enough and I think social media is largely responsible for this and it's not the aspect
of seeing your friends online I think it's that genuinely the algorithms are predatory
and they manufacture this anxiety because it's to their benefit it keeps you online
it keeps you hooked it keeps you doing things you might not even feel like you want to do
just to impress people you might not even care about and there are studies on this and
I think if you are chronically online or if you use social media enough you will know
how this feels I think instead of overdoing it one thing that's good to cultivate especially
for creatives is this thing that I call Jomo which is the joy of missing out so let's talk
a little bit more about this but first let's go on a break
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There were moments in my early 20s where I would go out just to say that I did.
I wanted to have a packed calendar, experience everything.
I was living in San Francisco and if there was ever a moment where I experienced any
sort of downtime, I felt sad.
It didn't matter what I was doing as long as I had plans, I somehow felt that I was
making the most of my life.
The problem is I'd come home feeling empty and depleted.
Now in my late 20s, I'm trying to switch over to this sense of JOMO, this joy of missing
out as opposed to the fear of missing out I faced in my early 20s.
So in my late 20s, I set goals for my personal work and I itch to make them happen.
When I finally do, I feel relieved and I think one of the reasons why I'm able to do this
is because I save energy, I prioritize rest, care, relaxation.
I made a list of things that I genuinely enjoy doing and that's reading, going to libraries,
taking long showers, doing my YouTube workouts.
These are all things that I love doing in my free time, especially when the clock hits
5pm and I know that it's important to do these things because later on, they fuel my
creative battery and my ability to produce work.
I feel inspired by the activities I have outside of work and while they might not actively
be making me money, I know I'm investing back into myself.
So I have a little bit of a list for some quick advice when it comes to finding your
personal true nor's and developing this sense of intuition of what might fuel you, what
might replenish you.
And it's quite simple, it's just four things.
And the first piece of advice I have is don't take advice from people who aren't taking
the same risk you are.
And I think pursuing a creative career is a very special and particular type of risk.
Like I mentioned, I think it requires a certain amount of rest and reflection, piecing together
inspiration, but also devoting time to work and pursuing your craft.
And this was something I noticed that a lot of people around me in my early 20s were not
doing.
They were on a very defined career path as engineers or maybe pursuing academia.
But for me, I had to learn about my own creative cycle, what helps me create the best work.
And sometimes I would get advice from people to work hard, play hard.
But the reality is they weren't taking the same risks as me.
They didn't have the same vision for their future that I did.
And when I followed that advice, work hard, play hard, I actually didn't really have
any energy to make creative work I felt proud of.
While that might have worked for someone else, they were following a different life path
and they were taking a different set of risks.
So again, don't take advice from people who aren't taking the same risks you are.
They don't have the same things on the line.
They may not even have the same vision.
Ultimately, that's for you to decide.
But if you're in a phase of gathering information, take other people's advice with a grain of
salt and really don't ask advice from people who don't have the life that you wish to
have.
Some people want to be there for you as a friend when you're going through a rough
time.
But unless they have the life that you might want to take inspiration from, seriously,
don't even ask for it.
Don't listen to it.
Or you can be present for it, but in one year, out the other and cap the amount of time you
spend listening to that advice.
You need to find what your true north is.
And I think that the most well rested bodies and rested minds will create a sense of true
north for creatives where you will know what the next step is.
So that's actually advice number two.
Don't take advice from people who aren't living the kind of life you want to live.
And while we can get a lot of FOMO and inspiration from people online, maybe try to meet people
out in the wild who are living the life that you want.
And there might be aspects of their life that you really enjoy, and there might be other
aspects that you don't.
And that might just be because it's their life, it's their personal choice.
And so you can essentially pick and choose, but don't get obsessed with the highlight reel
of someone else's life.
Because the reality is, I know many people who work extremely draining hours, whose life
looks really good on social media, but I would not trade my life for theirs in a single second.
All right, piece of advice number three, investing in self might be the best investment.
And I think that this is important to learn, not just from an educational sense in pursuing
your career, or even spending money on things that you think will help you with your career.
I think you can take time and learn to discipline yourself with time.
And I find that really setting boundaries and limits with the work and social media
is important because time is your personal currency that you can then use to devote to
things that actually interest you.
And I think for this fourth piece of advice, it's super important to find things that
actually interest you, but it's only going to come when you have even the smallest amount
of time to devote to yourself.
Even if today you only have 30 minutes, spend 30 minutes in silence, maybe spend even 10
minutes of that 30 minutes in silence, just asking yourself what you like, what you want
to do, and then allow yourself to engage with that joy of doing the things that you like.
And this all ties back into the joy of missing out because all of us have a limited amount
of time.
I don't mean for this to get dark, but going back to that biological clock, we live on
the earth and the earth has its own timeline, but we also have our own timeline.
Many of us may live a long life, but some of us will not.
And I think it's really important to understand the biological processes of our bodies, the
rest they need in order to feel creative and nourish the relationships that we need in
order to feel motivated.
And I think this is a really delicate balance to maintain these days, especially when there
are all these little earworms and trends and social media platforms vying for our attention.
I think that really dedicating time to ourselves and exploration and pouring into ourselves
is truly the only way out of this mess.
And lastly, I just want to leave you with this before we go into this concept of Ikigai.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you necessarily should.
And this is something that I wish I had really internalized early on in my career.
I think sometimes people treat creatives, especially designers, like magicians, and
I think having the talent and the skills to use a lot of different tools to read boards,
storyboard, and create a vision is extremely powerful.
But just because you can do something quickly or you can sell the vision of a product doesn't
necessarily mean you should.
None of us creates within a silo and I think it's important to take a step back to get
to know what kind of world we want to live in and if what we're doing every day is contributing
to that world that we want to create, that we can tolerate living in.
So lastly, we're going to talk about this Japanese concept of Ikigai and I think this
is really important for examining when you make your first offer.
And if you are going on the path of freelancing, you work for yourself.
This Japanese concept of Ikigai has become really popular and it's this mix of what you're
good at, what you like, what people need, and what can make you money.
Let's say that you're in a career that you don't particularly enjoy.
That might be the piece of your life that makes you money.
And then there are a few other buckets you can fill in terms of knowing what you're good
at, what you like, and what people need.
So maybe today what you spend your time investing in is just doing this journaling exercise,
taking a walk, listening to this podcast, and really truly answering, taking the time
to find a piece of the puzzle to all of these things.
And I think it's important to understand that you're not going to know right away.
This is not a question to be answered overnight, but the beauty of this is we can keep on returning
to these questions.
What am I good at?
What do I like?
What do people need?
What can make me money?
And over time, the hope is that we can create our own individual sense of balance that fulfills
all these needs and reaches back to a broader sense of value that isn't necessarily based
on just maximizing profit or increasing shareholder yields.
It's going to pour back into us.
And I think this is really important because you're only early in your career for so long
and then suddenly you're mid-weight and then you're senior and then you're the creative
director.
I think it's important to recognize that we are always the creative director of our own
lives and that starts with right now.
That starts with today, the types of thoughts that we tell ourselves, the types of habits
we engage with.
And I think it can be a lot more simple than we make it out to be.
That is my episode today on self-care for creatives when it's time to reassess and revisit
and revise.
I would love to hear from you and what you have done in your life if you're creative,
if you've worked in burnout creative roles, or if you've found the perfect balance.
I would venture to guess that not many people have, but we're all working on this together
and I find that online community is so important in finding your true-knowers and finding a
sense of strength in making the right decisions for you.
If you could please give this episode a like or five stars, follow it.
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And if you have any more questions about branding and design, you can listen to the other episodes
in this series and most of all, you can always visit my website, juliaaspero.me.
J-U-L-I-A-E as in elephant, S-P-E-R-O dot me.
Alright, thank you for listening to the pool party and I will talk to you next time.