Photo by Johann Walter Bantz on Unsplash
Dear Creative,
I’m proud of the person you had to become in order to fight for your future creative self.
We often talk about who we were and who we are. Unfortunately, this perspective leaves out the person we became in the process.
That middle self is a bridge. It often took months or even years for us to get there. It often involved huge amounts o self-doubt and betraying and/or disappointing ourselves or others. Who we became on that bridge allowed us to create the work and serve our audience today.
Let me tell you a story.
It’s been two years since I completely changed my life. I believe the stories we tell ourselves (and believe) shape our creative work. I was wearing the story of wife and business partner.
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I had to take off the story of a wife. It no longer fit me. We were no longer going to continue our partnership as life partners, but we did commit to continuing as business partners.
We are really good at working together, so we decided to continue.
Two years have passed and I think about who I had to become to fight for the person I am now.
The same applies to my creative work.
In the past two years, I’ve achieved the following creative milestones:
1. Read my poetry internationally
2. Feature interview in the international press
3. Two features in Forbes for my work as an entrepreneur
4. Presented my first TEDx talk
As I look through all of these milestones, I realized that I’m very proud of who I have become.
I also realized that the difficult moments that began with a major ending that was also very difficult. But I’ve come to understand things differently now. I no longer want to celebrate who I have become. I also want to celebrate failure and disappointment along the way.
I want to celebrate all of this because these moments shaped the person I had to become in order to fight for my future self.
Your future self is depending on you to fight for her. Your future self wants you to remember that even in your most devastating moments you are becoming the person you need to be in order to become someone you will be proud of.
There will be difficult moments. There will be devastating moments. But there will also be the truth of who you were and who you need to be in order to become your best creative self.
I hope you keep going dear creative.
I want to see your brilliance.
Love,
Your Future Self