Dealing with Creative Burn Out

excuse my blog for farting dust the last few months. we decided we needed to part ways for the summer as I tried to figure out what I actually wanted out of life and while I moved into a new home, became super busy with my day job and well, excuses excuses. let me tell you something: i’ve got plenty.

basically the reality of it all: i was in a state of comparing myself to others. deciding that my work wasn’t heading in the popular direction I wanted it to be and with that came a ton of defeat. and let me tell you something, that is a dark dark hole to fall into. it is filled with constant failure and judgement over your own creations and with that comes self doubt, insecurities, oh you know, the whole nine yards of self deprecation, but not in the humorous kind of way that i am used to.

now. let me go pour my self a pitcher of whiskey. or i guess, open a can of sardines?

hold on. i should probably be more real: my life the last few months wasn’t ALL that dark. i just mean the creative bit. but that is also the bit that lights a fire under my ass and fills my life with a little more shiz-zam. youknowwhatiamsaying?

it’s that…. BIG MAGIC (okay I stole that term from the book, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert) but that is LITERALLY the best way to describe it. Seriously. but i was instead experiencing a big thing of nada. like zero motivation. because any time i would allow myself to get excited about something a voice in the back of my head would tell me that it was impossible and why bother trying if i was going to fail?

WHOA. that’s depressing julia. sound the violins.

anyone else ever experience this? and IF you do, what are your ways for slipping out of that funk? if someone tells me to take up cycling i am deleting your comment. just an fyi. so tell me something else.

but guys. i’m back. sort of. starting to get back. starting to feel that spark again. starting to find inspiration through others work instead of feeling like i will never be good enough. and it feels GREAT. it’s exciting! it’s like starting over, but with out all of that ‘from scratch’ business. because MAN is that hard. but for those of you who are CURRENTLY experiencing a burn out, you WILL get through it. TRUST ME. There might be a lot of wine and chocolate and weight gain involved, but it’ll happen. You just can’t quit completely because that will involve regrets later on in life. And there is nothing in life that is worse than regret (actually a shortage of chocolate, prohibition, forehead zits on picture day, spoiled milk, stubbed toes, awkward silences, waving to people that don’t wave back and someone witnesses you trying to play it cool, etc) so i guess there are worse things in life, but just take regrets off the list. and if i can through a burnout, so can you.

capisce?

capisce.

(also i didn’t know what picture to post for this so i threw up some weird cans i found attractive. no idea. i legit hate the smell of sardines so this really grossed me out. you’re welcome)