Something not talked about a lot in creative circles is creative burn out. it doesn’t happen overnight, it tends to be a long, slow burn, where it gets harder and harder to do work you’re proud of.

And most every Designer, Animator, Copywriter, etc. has had a time when you get away with it as far as the client is concerned BUT….

YOU know. You know you could have done better and that just feels soooooo unfulfilling, right?

In this post,  I share with you some thoughts on how to avoid this ever happening to you too Not only that you’ll learn how to increase your creativity - and your quality of life to boot! 

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What You Will Learn In this Show:

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Key Take Aways

Show Notes:

Why am I talking about inner peace? You might be thinking, "What has that got to do with having a successful business?"

And you might even be thinking, "Oh, yeah. Well, when I've got loads of money, that's when I'm going to have inner peace."

No, no, no. It doesn't quite work like that. In fact, it kind of works the other way around.

Now, somebody can to all intents and purposes look fine, think that they're fine.

But what's happening is is that over time it's getting harder and harder for them to be able to produce work that they're really proud of. And look, you know what it's like.

You can often get away with this, at least for a while with clients, but you know on the inside how that feels, and I don't ever want you to be in that situation. A lot of people can get quite down about it in fact, and I don't want you to be in that. So the reason why I wanted to talk about this is to help ensure that this doesn't happen. So, yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Now, I want to share with you a little bit of my story.

My mind used to look like a big ball of sticky wool. I had so much going on in there, and I don't necessarily mean in a good way, right?

I was consumed by what did other people think of me, trying to prove myself good enough. I just felt less than adequate. I certainly felt powerless.

I didn't feel I was empowered to create the life that I wanted, and even though I took action to kind of try and get what I wanted in life, it was hard work. It was draining, and it wasn't inspired. I was just stressed up to the eyeballs.

And do you know what? I think until a certain point, I didn't even realise that I was.

I just thought, "This is how life is." And it's interesting, actually just today on LinkedIn I've seen a post where somebody was talking about someone who served them in a shop, and they had a quick conversation.

Unfortunately, they couldn't finish it because there was a massive queue behind them at this time of year, and this person was saying, "Oh, yeah. Well, I started trying to think about goals and how it could change my life and blah, blah, blah, but then I thought, 'I'm better off just ... If I don't set any goals, then I don't get disappointed.'" 

So let me ask you a question: Do you think this was me at my most creative?

Because at this point, I was working in a creative agency. So how creative do you think I was at that time? Let me know below.

If you have ever felt like that, how creative have you been?

You see, the thing is is that stress, it's like it strangles creativity, and that is what can lead to burnout.

Now, my journey has got me to a place where my creativity is pretty much on tap. In fact, yesterday, oh my gosh, I was actually stunned yesterday when I got to the end of the day and looked at what I'd managed to achieve. It was on a whole other level, and this wasn't an overnight thing, but it actually is something that I've been working on as I go along.

Let me just explain to you as well what do I mean by inner peace.

Let's look at the word "peace". What does it mean? It means an absence of conflict. It means freedom from disturbance.

That means you need to have that within you, and if you are having negative thoughts about yourself and about other people and about situations in life, then how could you be in harmony?

You can't. In fact, that's interesting I use the word "harmony".

Today, I pulled a wisdom card. Let me just read this for you.

This is what I'm talking about.

It takes practise for everyone to resonate together, but harmony in a group of people is immensely powerful.

Choosing this card suggests it's your task to nurture it carefully and wisely knowing that it's the key to lasting success." Isn't that interesting that that's what has come up for today?

This is how in tune and in flow things kind of have been for me.

So what I want to do, I want to share with you some quotes, and I'm going to pick kind of my interpretation of these and give you some ideas as to what it is that you can be looking at in your life, because here's the thing.

I've been writing some copy today, and I talked about how our saboteurs, those voices that say all those things, it's like they cloud us. It's like they confuse us with fog so that we forget who we are, and you can't see what's really going on.

Now, when you get specific, and I'm talking about super specific, then you actually can see what is going on, you can recognise the truth in a situation objectively, and you can actually do something about it, right?

Here's the first quote.

the thing is is that ...what is it that causes us to go, "Well, life should be like this," or we can have a feeling that things should be fair.

 But you know what? Life isn't fair.

We can blame people for how things are instead of taking responsibility to make them the way that we want to be. Fear can stop us because we're kind of worried about, "Well, what would other people think? Will I fail, or maybe will I be successful?"

And that's just as scary. I know it was for me. The minute I got rid of fear of failure, boom, up popped fear of success. It was so interesting. Pressure, stress, and worry are all created by the expectations that should create.

So where are you seeing this showing up in your life or in your business? Comment below. I'd love to know what this is bringing up for you.

The next quote is... 

He wrote The Power of Now, and he also wrote another book called A New Earth.

Funny story, I was on my way back to Ireland to visit my parents. This has gone back a few years. They've both passed now. RIP.

I bought this book in the airport, and I started reading it, and it said, "If you think you're enlightened, spend a week with your parents." I thought, "Hmm, I'm just on my way there now." It is quite funny.

Okay. So realising who we are.

As I said, we forget who we truly are.

You are immense. You are powerful. You are a visionary. You're a leader, and anything that stops you from being that is not of who you are.

You weren't born thinking that you're not good enough, taking things personally, being insecure, carrying what other people think. You weren't born like that. 

That was just crap that you acquired along the way, and the great thing is with the right tool, you can get rid of that stuff so fantastically and so thoroughly. It is brilliant. So when you do that, that is what allows you to find peace because you're remembering who you are. You're being that person.

I love it.

So what stops that? It's things like not being able to say no, which means that you don't have healthy boundaries.

 Looking to please others, feeling obligated to others. Feeling like you actually don't deserve, because sometimes I meet people and think, "Well, no, I do think ... I know I'm talented. I know I'm good."

In fact, it's really frustrating when I see other people doing better than me and I know that I'm actually better at this particular thing than they are.

Addiction and abuse and not necessarily addiction to substances, we can be addicted to our thoughts, feeling like a victim. You know that feeling of powerlessness that I talked addiction and abuse and not necessarily addiction to substances.

We can be addicted to our thoughts, feeling like a victim.

You know that feeling of powerlessness that I talked about in the beginning when I was talking about my story, and not being able to let go of the past, because I don't think you can create ... Of course you have to look to the future in terms of your vision and what it is you're looking to create, but you're doing that from here. 

It's not like you're in the future worrying about it or it's not like you're in the past with guilt and regrets and wanting things to be different. You're here. You've got to be totally present, and that's a big part of peace as well, isn't it, that you're able to be present.

So I just want to finish with a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert. I really like her work. Here book Big Magic is fantastic. I would highly recommend it if you haven't read that already.

She says...

That bit, "eternally at peace". 

When we remember who we really are, when we clear this crap out of the way, then we're able to do that, and the more we do it, we're able to do that for longer and longer periods. So we can really tap into not just us but the connected us.

So what do you think of this?

Do you think this is a load of baloney?

Do you think, "Wow, I've never thought of it like that, but actually there's some truth"?

Are you thinking, "Well, yeah, Una, that's bleeding obvious"?

 You know, I want to know. I want to know. Let's get a conversation going. I will be here same time next week.

Just note that for Christmas week I will not be doing a show because I will be spending time with my new husband and doing Christmas-y things.

Have a fantastic day and week, and I will see you same time next week.

Bye!