Eight years ago, three penguins on a white wall began something I didn't know I was starting.
I want to take a trip back to what started it all, and share eight lessons I'd give to anyone who has a creative idea they're excited about, inspired by, and don't know what to do with. The idea you keep pushing to the back and the bottom of your priorities. The one you don't make time for. The one you diminish. And the one that keeps popping up anyway.
It might be an idea that could change something for the better. A solution to a problem you keep noticing. Or just an idea that feels so exciting you can already see it, even if you can't explain it yet.
Painting wildlife with bold colours and in lush environments became a way for me to reconnect with my creativity and learn to express myself in ways I didn't know were possible. Art became a visual by-product of growth, transformation, love, joy, sadness, anger, connection, and a full life.
Like many, I found a way to pivot during COVID-19 and branched out into a home decor and beach essentials line. The orders for home decor products were coming in like hotcakes and the beach essentials products got some movement and excitement, but the timing was off, considering many couldn't leave their homes. I couldn't keep up with the demand of home decor, specifically ocean-inspired coasters and charcuterie boards, and by the end of the holiday season in 2021, I officially burned out. I couldn't cut, paint, or sand one more board. I hadn't given myself permission to paint in months, and while spinning these plates on one hand, I was also working as a paramedic during the pandemic. Within a few days I got COVID, got sick, and had many of the usual symptoms. I was short of breath for the first time in my life and completely lost my voice.
After the first week, when the fever and body aches had decreased, I kept walking by my studio. I would pop my head in, peek, and then continue down the hallway. After a few more days, I finally went in one day and started playing around. Looking back, it's what I had needed most for more than a few months. Perhaps my entire life. A creative outlet to create without the need to sell, paint it perfectly, or even get any feedback, and just allowing myself to feel and express.
Today, the same behaviours of overextending myself, not having any healthy boundaries, not expressing myself or my needs, and losing the magic from a creative project by turning it into a task, no longer run my business or my life. I know much sooner how my body communicates to me, what I need, and honour it before it gets loud.
I live my life more intentionally, more slowly, so that I can be present with all my senses with what is here, and I build my business from that place now, because taking the time to watch the sunrise feels like one of the luckiest things we get to experience every day, if we choose to notice it. And you never know where your next best idea is waiting for you.
So if you're building a creative business, or have been on the fence, here's what I'd tell you.
1. Dare to dream big. If you've ever felt yourself shrinking a dream, minimizing it, or catch yourself thinking "yeah right," ask yourself why.
2. Find or form a community. Nobody knows what they're doing before they do it. Nobody. Go find people who share the same questions, the same struggles, the same desires, and work on it together. If you're willing to ask for help, continuously, and let go of the idea that you should already know more than you do, or be further along than you are, or figure it all out alone, you won't just save yourself years and money. You'll save energy, peace of mind, and in your body. And you'll gain rich experience, growth, deep connection, and time back.
3. Do one thing outside your comfort zone every week. In business, in your relationships with others, and in your relationship with yourself.
4. Spend more time on your craft than you currently let yourself. If it's zero, move it to an hour a week. If it's a day, make it two. Then ask yourself why it feels hard to do that.
5. Spend more time outdoors than you're comfortable with. As a creative, your ideas don't come directly from you. They're formed from the conscious and unconscious moments that have caught your attention throughout your whole life. All of your senses have been taking in information for as long as you've been alive.
In a world that's constantly rushing and getting things done quickly, we forget the other side of the coin: The observer. The part of you that reflects. That notices what you like, what you dislike, what you value, what you want to change, and how you want to show up in your own life. The part of you that chooses how you experience the world.
6. When was the last time you did something just for yourself? Not a Netflix binge. A whole afternoon, or a whole day, doing something that lets you just be. Maybe it's creating something out of nothing, skipping rocks on the water, reading the most amazing book, buying yourself flowers or a slice of cake just because, laying on the grass looking up at the clouds, collecting seashells on the shore, grabbing a fancy latte, or writing yourself a letter.
7. If you skip straight to strategy because you want to get "there" faster, you're building on shaky ground. It might hold up. You might even see financial success. But you'll eventually have to become familiar with who you are anyway: Why you think the way you do, what you believe, what you value, what you stand for and against and more importantly why.
Because the reason behind why you start something will always grow as you grow. If it doesn't, you might be missing out on the beauty and power of learning to look back and feel proud of yourself - of celebrating yourself.
8. The parts of you that got you here can't get you to where you're going. The one you see every time you close your eyes. The ambitious, over-achieving, perfectionist, independent, push-through-anything parts of you were built to reach for something outside yourself: validation, belonging, acceptance, love, and a sense of enoughness. The vision and the dream get to be received by a different part of you. The one who uses her voice. Who understands that power isn't always something to be afraid of. Who creates for the sake of creating. Who respects herself enough to leave a situation the moment it stops feeling aligned, even if it's just draining, or old, or predictable.
Eight years later, it's still animals, sunsets, and botanicals. It was never really about the three things themselves. It was about paying attention to what kept showing up, and finally making room for it in my life.
If there's something that's been showing up for you too, I hope this is what makes you finally turn toward it.
With love,
Katherine
