The Struggles of Being a “Creative”

Based on personal experiences and after being a complete entire year being so uninspired - as I had mentioned it in my previous post. - I have slowly started to get back in track, and that inspired me to write this post today.

As you may or may not know, I'm a fashion designer, and a ocasional photographer and blogger, surrounded by lots of creatives. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be part of the creative industry, but I just didn't know excatly what I wanted to be; as I grew up, I never imagined I would end up in the fashion industry; and if you know my story, you may know that my blog helped me out to find these interests and passions of mine, ones that I started to discover right after I started blogging, and thanks to it I have had the most amazing opportunities, including brand collaborations I have had in the past that have put my creative thinking to test and thus far, those are my most viewed posts and I'm thankful for it.

I learned and tend to think that everybody is a creative person on their own way but not everything seems or it is that easy, at least not for me and here are the things that I find myself struggling with the most from time to time, so first and foremost...

LACK OF CREATIVITY: One of my main struggles if related to my career as a creative is creativity, it's not something I was born with and it's not something that comes so easy, I really have to go through to a process that sometimes even stresses me out and makes me cry BUT... but, I take my own time to think of something and develop an idea I really love and find so unique that at the same time speaks my name, who I am, etc.

INSPIRATION: I feel like this one goes hand in hand with creativity, to help you out with ideas, do some research and create mood boards to plasm that idea that popped up into your mind in the first place, for everything creative I do, I'm more visual and always opt for images of textures and rarely a very few photos of peoples, etc, just to leave it up to my imagination, depending on said project; and why, here comes part 1 of this topic.

There's a fine line between inspiration and imitation.

And that's so true, I couldn't agree more; I always know my lane when it comes to this, and try my best to stay so away of copying something else from someone else, of course there are things that already exists, like for example a pencil skirt is always going to be a pencil skirt, as a designer you just alter it, add some bonus point and you can come up with something different; although it depends from designer to designer and their own creativity, again everyone is different and not all of us think the same exact way. 

This is like a double-edged sword, and something I'm completely against of and have so much respect for, because whoever does it, it takes lots of courage to do so and claim they did it "first"; just the other day I was discussing with a few girls about this topic and how there are many "IG accounts" similar to theirs, as internet can be a good tool, it can be bad, or let's just say, "influence you in a bad way or so",  nowadays, we consume media, mostly images, I - as a creative - spend hours and hours per day scrolling down on my Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest; and back when I was a University student, I would use Google too, and I have seen it all, well almost everything; in fact I'll never forget this girl that took an image from the internet did some "photoshop" to it and claimed it was her work, when I had seen it while I was scrolling Google images looking for some inspiration to do my homework, and even if there were some mistakes in my own work and didn't get a good grade, this girl somehow did, and I wans't even the only one that noticed it, but when it comes to this, I stay away and say nothing, I want to believe our professor found that out; that's honestly one of the scariest things in my own humble opinion, and like I said, have so much respect for; and like my mom says "that person is lying non to other but themselves". 

On the other hand, there's part 2 of this, and it's that sometimes we can feel so uninspired; and it's  completely okay. I used to worry a lot about it, but like I said I've felt so uninspired for almost a entire year and this has taught me to let it happen and trust in it because I know it won't last long and it's just part  of the process and eventually good ideas and inspiration will come back again, so instead of worrying, I try to focus myself by doing other things, and never but never ever force myself in order to create something as it can been seen as I'm putting so much pressure on me and that can lead me to stress out myself way more, so I avoid it at all costs. 

INSECURITY: This is something I have slowly get better at, but still something I would struggle with the most while being at Uni, I could do my projects, homework, you name it, but I wouldn't feel 100% sure of what I had done and that's because every semester that went by, I would be "hard on myself, and be my own critic", I would hear opinions and constructive criticism from my own professors, and all I could think of is I could of have done better than this, and I would even demand more from myself, no matter what I did, if was never enough and always thought I could have come up with something better, but that was part of a learning process, and like I said, I'm so proud that I have somewhat overcome this and now, I trust and follow my instincts.

But these insecurities didn't came on its own, because they came whenever I would compare my work with others, as a student, you always ask between your classmates, what you did and everyone starts showing their work, and that type of things was something I would see and made me felt like my work was never enough, but an advice for you all is, your work is the best, again everyone is different and we all do not think the same ways, it took me a lot to learn this but finally overcame it. 

Now, that I have shared it all, I'm going to give you some tips to keep in mind next time:

1. Take your time and don't rush, breathe in and out, and don't put so much thinking into an idea, it will come out at some point.

2. Understand that it's okay, to also feel uninspired; when you go through this phase, stay away from anything creative, and instead opt for doing things you usually don't do that often, enjoy that moment and surround yourself with other people, that really can help you in one way or another; for example, I have a friend who is a filmmaker, and even if he makes videos, I always learn something new and get inspired by it. 

3. Don't be insecure like I was, trust yourself always and know that your work is good the way it is. This may be a classic, because now that I think of this, the first thing that came to my mind, is my parents telling me these words whenever I had those type of projects, but like I said it took me a while to realize and learn from it, and now that I have, I want to pass it onto you all. 

Outfits details:

Earrings, top and skirt: stradivarius

Let me know in the comment box below: as a creative yourself, what would you consider are the things you struggle with from time to time? Even as a blogger, you're considered a creative, and if your career is related to the creative industry, I want to know your opinion still. Wishing you all have an amazing day and start of the week! Until next time! xx