Hello welcome or welcome back to the blog,
I'm writing this to have a real talk moment with people who may wonder what it's like trying to create a name for yourself in the digital media space. Being a small fry artist in a crowd full of more popular faces all eager to make it big can be daunting. It's going to be insurmountably hard and mentally wanning when you've spent hours planning, strategizing, creating, and producing your hard work only for it to unexpectedly perform so poorly. Or, if you go months on end without booking clients it begins to make you question if your work is even good enough. You'll start to feel your well of creativity dry up like the Sahara. Fear of failure will hit you like a car driving 70 mph and you were standing with your feet planted firmly to the ground. It's really hard to separate yourself from your work when you're passionate about it. When your views, photos, and videos don't pull in big numbers like you expected or if your schedule is alarmingly free it tends to feel like maybe your art simply isn't good.
What They Don't Tell You
It's hard to have conversations like this without bringing social media into it. It's extremely hard to be a struggling artist desperately wanting to create a life where you can support yourself to no avail but see other people doing it seemingly effortlessly. It can be extremely discouraging, sometimes. Even if you want to feel excited for them, it's difficult because to varying degrees we all base how well we’re doing by proximity. The truth is it's challenging to see other creatives and artist succeed, and you're not. Of course, we're happy for them because they deserve it, but it is bittersweet. All the support they get online from thousands even millions of people all over the world can be very hard to not look at them through a rose-tinted lens and feel out of your depth. I'm sure at one point or another you relate to this too; I know I certainly can. This is the aspect of this kind of work I don't see nearly enough people talk about because it is a hard thing to admit. No one wants to be in this position. Regardless of how strong your will is, it will still it hit you like a ton of bricks.
A Moment of Vulnerability
I don't want career envy to discourage me or any other people who want nothing more than to succeed in this line of work. Rather you do it freelancing, contracting, or in a 9-5 job. It's when I start to feel at my lowest as an artist and creator that I try to find the silver lining in this moment of comparison and self-doubt. I try to use these dense emotions to produce something real. It's really hard to just self-love and positive vibes yourself out of blips of sadness and disappointment like this. It's the reason I'm writing this blog right now. I'm deeply frustrated because growing my audience online has been impossible for me. I feel like I could be doing more with my photography and filmmaking but so much is array and it's hard to cipher everything out. I want to be able to share all aspects of my experience as a freelancer; the good, the bad, and the really ugly. Everything isn't always okay, and I don't want to portray it that way. However, I will always choose to transmute these harsher feelings into something more aspirational and shift my perspective to achieve the goals I want.
Looking Inward
So, when I'm finally done letting the perfectly curated social media feeds and highlight reels ruin my own sense of self confidence, I start to access what I really felt like I was lacking in my work. I take inspiration from the people who I thought I envied. They were able to reflect something to me I wanted for myself and am more than capable of achieving. I like to take a moment and silently appreciate those people; I actually have a deep appreciation for them to be able to do that for me. If I feel like I need to add more depth and creative consciousness to my portraits and videos I will start creating better storyboards and breathing more life into my creative direction to make sure I'm really nailing my concepts. Because it could be true that what I'm lacking is range in my portraits and videos. Which I learned is okay to admit. It is that honesty that I'm able to have with myself that has brought me this far. It's a gift to realize sometimes these lows are necessary and can work in our favor. Humility is something every artist, me included, has experienced at some point and helps us all to become better artists.
The Silver Lining in Envy
Sharing my personal feelings and thoughts with experiencing career envy on the internet is not easy. Yet, I find it extremely necessary to have honest and open discussions about it in this community. It can be such an isolating and relentless burden to shoulder self-doubt alone out of fear and embarrassment. Something I find a lot of comfort in is knowing that other people experience emotions just like this and that I'm not alone in this struggle. No one can make me feel ashamed about my truth because at least I own it and actively use it to my own betterment. Envy is only a reflection of your desires and your determination in achieving them.
I hope you found this blog insightful in trying to find the silver lining in hard times. It's been hard for me, and it may be like that for a while. Although, I'm sure I'll find my own footing soon. If you find yourself in the same situation, I know that you can do it too. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you will join me in the next read! Bye.
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