NSFW photos in this article

“Carve your own seat instead of sitting in the lap of another”, is something that I said recently in one of my social media posts. What started as a piece of advice for the people that chose to follow me, ended up being a timely reminder for myself. I find myself confronted with this question often: what kind of business owner do I want to be? What kind of human do I want to be? I don’t see that exact person anywhere else. I don’t see anyone else doing exactly what I’m doing. So that’s it; that’s my seat at the table.

I’ve spent most of my life living on one side of two extremes. Finding a place in the middle is a welcome breath of fresh air - as I feel things fervently, I explode with emotion and busy-ness, things need to happen immediately or not at all. I do things at full bore, or full stop. But, as I get older I yearn for a quiet place between those two places, where I can choose to take some things from either side to create a more balanced version of myself. It’s coming, I swear - but boy does it take fuckin’ practice.

So I’ve realized a few things over the last few months of trying to work for myself, that you might find useful when trying to create a practice or a living.

1. Take a day off. (Credit: my husband who told me last Sunday I was to sit down, drink coffee, watch modern family, and nothing else. Thanks love.) Turns out when I’m doing something I give a shit about, I can’t stop. I completely immerse myself in it. I live it, I breathe it, and (turns out) I’m super uncomfortable if I’m not actively working toward my goals 100% of the time. But burn out is a thing, and a shitty one. When I crash I find I can’t do anything productive - I end up binge marathoning Grey’s Anatomy and my husband considers leaving for a while until I decide to shower again. I’ve learned that taking a day off, even one, is a necessary recalibration for my already overwhelmed mind.

2. Comparison blows. It’s not even the thief of joy, it just blows. I recently had to unfollow every single photographer after getting sucked into my 6th shame spiral because I wasn’t as “successful” as they were, whatever that means. Despite my logical brain knowing that I can’t possibly measure another’s success by the highlight reel that is their instagram, I found myself there anyway. So what does success look like to you? How can you achieve that? Once you know what your version of success is, you’re the only one that can evaluate if you’ve achieved it.

3. Chasing a muse is fundamentally flawed and she’ll always let you down. There seems to be a running myth that if you’re a creative person you work exclusively by the candle light at three AM, half a bottle of jack deep with only the full ash tray at your side to keep you company. While a tortured soul can make for great work, we need to dispel of the notion that you need to be fundamentally broken to create. Here’s a secret that I’ve learned trying to monetize my creativity: talent is a myth. Or rather, it’s about 5% of the job. The other 95%? Hard work and dumb luck. Muse creativity - where you wait for inspiration or ideal circumstances to create - is a terrible way to create. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. Live it, breathe it. Let it enrapture you, let it woo you. Let it try to convince you to burn it all down and start again. Do it even if what you produce is “BAD”. Do it even when you don’t want to. Getting anywhere requires the consistency of doing. Everyday. Regardless of circumstance. Even when you don’t have the perfect writing desk to do so. (Talking to you, younger Meagan.)

4. Schedules, time blocks, organization; oh my! YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST! Schedules are the one thing that’s gonna keep track of your to do’s and allow time for your brilliance. What do you need and WANT to do in a week? Write it all down. Now how often do you need to do it? Write it all out in a weekly calendar. You think organization is lame? I’ll tell you what’s lame. Being in a constant state of panic because you think you’re never keeping track of anything. Scheduling and time blocking doesn’t stop at tangible work. I love recommending an hour to day dream, to read, to spin in circles in your kitchen, to have a profound existential crisis. It’s not that you need the time, it’s that you need the anxiety of remembering it to LEAVE YOUR HEAD. To make way for that brilliance to come through that I was talking about earlier.

5. Be your own best friend. (And try to be flexible) What I mean by that is, be patient with yourself the same way you would a pal. Give yourself grace. Being a creative or a person working for themselves is hard, and you’re gonna screw it up - a lot. Take it from me: I spent a month doing virtual photoshoots in exchange for exposure from Instagram influencers. That didn’t really work in the way I thought it would. BUT! That’s okay, because I met a ton of amazing humans in the process - and I did a handful of really rad shoots and helped to facilitate a lot of healing. Remember how we were supposed to write down our personal definition of success? That’s mine: that I helped to facilitate a certain kind of healing. Did that happen in the way I thought it would? No, but it still happened.

6. Lastly, let go of the thinking that you’re going to “arrive”. ‘Cause you don’t. And culturally, we’re a little obsessed with the notion of “arriving”. Whether it’s 10 pounds lighter, at the job that we want or in the marriage that we want. Unfortunately, change doesn’t happen like that. Things don’t come to you like that. It happens slowly and over time - so subtle that you can’t see it - but one day you look over your shoulder and your kid is 4 instead of 1. So instead of waiting to do the thing, waiting to arrive, waiting till you’ve accomplished X,Y, & Z, just do it. Do the thing. Be the person. I believe in you.

Thanks to one of my (many) super chill virtual clients that was fine with me sharing her photos.