MOVING THROUGH A WORK WINTER
There's a cycle and rhythm to the work worlds we create. Just like nature, our work ebbs and flows, because we ebb and flow. Sometimes we hit walls of our own making. Things slow, maybe plateau, you've hustled through all the folks you know and the opportunities start to, uh, go.
The space between where you are and where you'd like to be, widens.
What worked before doesn't quite do it, socials feel flat flat flat and it can be hard to know what to know what move to make. You meet an edge, an impasse.
A yearning, gnawing feeling that this, this ain't it.
A visceral gap filled with more questions than answers.
WTF next?
Winter.
I know this season, this part of the cycle well. It's where I meet most of my clients.
It's also where I've probably spent the past two years, in and out. Not a length of stay I'd recommend ofc, but it came with the aforementioned unexpected and really annoying, gifts.
Turns out there's a hidden magic to all that time contemplating, exploring, figuring shit out, noodling it around, whatever you want to call it, which for me is two-fold. When we're lost in the liminals or a ‘work winter’ our creativity deepens, it has to. Even when, especially when it doesn't feel like it and you're staring at a metaphorical blank page or blinking cursor. The second is, courage, flip me, the courage to doubt it all and keep going. The courage to burn things down and turnaround. The courage to change things you have poured your entire being into and find a new way. You are a constant source of inspiration and fantastic conversation. I'm here to hand you all your flowers 💐
If you've found yourself in the slow slide of late, here's a few creative tonics that have helped me move through a work winter. You're in fine company that's for sure.
My Work Winter Tonics 🌳 Out of the liminals and into the light 🕯
• Get out. Get out of the house, out of your head. Stop looking for answers.
I started a silly little Friday outing with Syd, that I've called Feels Trips to do this.
Mama got no time for the Artist's Way or eight-week creative containers these days. Come join me sometime and you can tick off the next one🤍
• Go hang out with someone you haven't seen in ages, the one who always has your back and the good good chats. Better still, go meet someone new. Go slide into their DMs right now.
• Step away from Chat GPT business advice, no judgement here but we all know what it told you to do is still in notes because it's really hard to action something it's just spewed instead of working with someone who can hold it all with you.
