Suffering From Creative Block

 

Hi everyone! Hope you are all having an awesome week so far.  I am both excited and optimistic because in the past few days I feel as though I have conquered a particularly nasty case of creative block.  This block was in regards to my stationery and invitation business, which incase you didn’t know, was my original entrepreneurial brain child.  I did incredibly well with this business back in Philadelphia, but it just didn’t transfer to LA smoothly.  For the past year I have been trying all different strategies to get it off the ground here, but nothing seemed to work.  When I first moved to LA, I cold-called and emailed dozens of different stationery and invitation shops and designers to see if they would be interested in hiring me to design for them or carry my work in their stores.  I did not make any headway and it was very discouraging.  However, a few days ago I came to the important realization that I had not reached out to companies again after I had rephotographed my portfolio a couple months ago.  Perhaps they would now be able to see me in a different light.  It took me a bit of time that day to work up the nerve to actually send the emails and make the calls.  I don’t know about you, but I find cold-calls and emails very nerve-wracking.  They are uncomfortably humbling, kind of like asking someone you hardly know on a date.  You are basically saying, “Hi, I like you.  Do you like me? And by the way, do you like me enough to pay me?”.  But I sucked it up and did it anyway, and by forcing myself to look at an old problem at a new angle, I broke through that pesky creative block.   I scored two interviews (which are hardly even interviews because they already told me they want me).  Hopefully exciting things are on the horizon for my design business.

This year has been the year of forcing myself to do things that make me very uncomfortable.  Moving away from home, being an entrepreneur in a new city, starting a blog, and suing someone.  Taking unpleasant risks is scary and so much of the time they don’t even pay off.  But you just have to do it anyway because every once in a while they really do, and that is so so sweet.

xoxo

Emily

 

Outfit:

Jumpsuit – Ripley Rader

Necklace & shoes – Forever21

Lipstick  – Colour Pop Lippie Stix “Sweet Thing” (current fave)