I’ve been a business owner for 3 years. I’ve been a designer on a professional level for 5. I’ve been a photographer for 11 years and doing it professionally for 7. I started my life as a creative in 2006, thirteen years ago. And you know what? I still sometimes feel like I’m not enough. I still feel like a fake and a fraud. This month, all of these feelings came to a head and I was forced to confront them. One of these moments came in the form of a creative breakdown where I realized that I hated what I was shooting, erased the card and went and cried my eyes out in the bathroom till I felt sick.
Before I continue, you need to know: nobody has it all together. Everyone struggles in their creative work.
In the midst of my meltdown, I lamented that I’m not getting consistent clients throughout the year, that I’m not making bank, that I’ve had a few clients who didn’t like what I made. That was all to say, I’m not enough and I should just quit and go get a cushy 9-5 with a consistent paycheck. I made my way to the bedroom and crawled under a blanket. My boyfriend came in and talked with me through what I’m feeling. He reminded me of a few really important truths that I want to pass along:
THE IRS TIMELINE WAS SET BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER STARTED A COMPANY
The IRS says you must be profitable for 3 of 5 years or they consider you a hobbyist and you lose your write-offs. That’s not realistic. A lot of businesses take 5-7 years to really become stable, and it depends on the industry. The IRS timeline is not a measure of whether or not you are successful or will be successful. Anyone who has started a business knows that it takes time to build something great.
YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE
I’ve had a client or two who didn’t like what I made and went another direction. I’ve had a client or two not pay me because they thought it was a buy-it-if-you-like-it kind of deal. It sucks when you work tirelessly for hours and hours for a client and then they don’t like what you present. It can really make you question your worth and abilities as a creative professional. But you know what? For the two clients I have had who weren’t satisfied, I’ve had 27 clients who have been well beyond satisfied. The unsatisfied clients feel heavy, but they don’t negate the majority of clients that have loved your work, and they don’t represent your value, worth, or ability as a creative professional.
YOUR FRUSTRATIONS SHOULD PROPEL YOU FORWARD
I want more clients, right? So what do I need to do to get them? What can I do that will chip away at this feeling of inadequacy? Nobody knows it all and a lot of people who start companies don’t have any idea how to run a business. I’m certainly learning as I go. All these things that have been stressing me out and coming with me on my downward spiral/creative meltdown are things that I can do something about. I want more clients? Get my face out there, not just my work. Want to improve on my 93% satisfaction rate? Identify my flaws, and improve my customer service throughout the process. My cat hates me? Figure out how to win his affections. (No joke, after all the lamenting about my work, I said, “My cat doesn’t even like me. I’m hopeless.”)
YOU DO GREAT WORK. YOUR METRICS DON’T DEFINE YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE.
Traffic, sales numbers, social media engagement, all of that is important. It’s a great way to identify my strategic needs as a business, but my metrics aren’t a reflection of my value as a creative. They are a reflection of my marketing abilities. No, my marketing abilities aren’t strong. I’m not in marketing. I work with people in marketing and I provide marketing materials, but I’m a creative, by trade and nature. My degree is in graphic design, not marketing. My proclivity to root my creative identity in such a small factor as metrics is not realistic. I do good solid work. My work is not my weakness. Metrics don’t change that.
RUNNING A BUSINESS IS HARD, AND SOMETIMES IT SUCKS.
The point of all of this is that running a business is hard. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Building Rome probably sucked, and sometimes, so does running a business. Add to that, creative work is hard, and it’s straight-up miserable sometimes. So much about this is putting things in their place. Struggles and frustrations should be considered fuel, metrics are merely a tool (not identity), unsatisfied clients are an opportunity to learn and refine your business, and timelines based on someone else’s opinion or path is for the trash can.
For the record, I still think my cat hates me.