Sevenzest

Babble

1 July 08

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Winter is definately here!

With the cold wintry Christchurch weather there hasn’t been a whole lot to do but to stay put indoor and find little wee hobbies to fill in the time. I’d say about a quarter is spent trying to keep myself warm with a fire place (no joke), another part being crafty – (I’ve recently joined a craft group with a bunch of cool creative gals) and the rest of the time doing yoga/meditation and lots and lots of DVD watching. That’s of course, not including work which I’ve done a little bit in the weekend to catch up with deadlines.

So it’s been over 4 months since I’ve gone complete freelance, and I’m still adjusting to the ‘sol-’ of it really. I was telling my old boss and co-workers the other day how much I missed being around people, but I guess unless I hire some people or find another freelance buddy to share an office space with, I’ll have to get out more. But it’s hard in winter, or is that just a mere seasonal excuse to stay inside and think too much!? Yes thinking too much, that’s another thing that’s been creeping up on me.

So what have i been thinking about? Apart from my personal life of trying to find a balance in my thinking, I’ve come to a small, but prominent conclusion about my thought pattern. You see, I’m doing this field for life. I don’t mean just design – in graphics, ads, web – whatever it is, my dream in any career was to be creative. But seemingly the dream sometimes gets ‘blocked’ and the amazing appreciation of living the life you want gets distracted by the following things: deadlines, challenging clients, too much computer and sitting, ‘autopilot’ design (doing what you know is safe, but lacking luster), not communicating your needs and failing to be organised. Then I realised this morning, that, despite of everything, if I create resentment towards work, it’s because I’ve failed to be myself. I took the work for granted, and instead of seeing the reason I was doing this is because I love being creative and helping people, I saw it as that I had to do it without looking at it with a conscious choice.

So it stopped me from looking at deadlines/challenges and acting on auto pilot, I’ve looked at deadlines, and considered that this was an opportunity to create something unique, that both fit my client and my love of ‘making’ something from nothing. The result is a renewed perspective and the desire to invest in the projects. I also think going down a path of assessing and regularly motivating me to ‘be myself’ will be a great path for me to keep pursuing if I want to find more satisfaction from this career.