Growing as a creator
The ins and outs of being a creative.
Creativity is a tug-of-war on your mental health, but you can win.
I know you want to make it. We all do. Everyone wants to succeed in life, but sadly not everyone will. That's life. Would it be nice if everyone succeeds? Yes. If everyone won't make it as a creator, what then makes you, me, and us stand out from everyone else to succeed without losing our minds?
Many of you are talented, skilled, and passionate, but growing as a creator requires much more than dreams and passion. This I’ve learned from my years as a talent manager, creative consultant, writer, editorial contributor, and spaces host. The reason many creators struggle with stress and other mental health issues is that being a creator is highly demanding. Many creators also dabble in many pots to make it out of the trenches to achieve financial freedom.
It's not an easy career path but it can be lucrative if played smart. To grow as a creator in this fast-paced world, there are certain things we must do to not only stand out but succeed.
Determine your niche.
Who are you, what do you stand for, and what are you good at doing? In our current age of civilization, it’s not news that under 18 individuals are making millions from social media, content creation, trading meme coins, YouTube classes, and selling digital products. While everyone won’t make millions, nothing stops you from getting rewarded for doing what you love and are good at.
When you define what field or industry you want to venture into, you've crossed the first stage of your journey as a creator. Then comes the next.
Define your style and practice every day.
I'm sure you've heard of the saying, practice makes perfect. However, in growing as a creator, we aren't striving for perfection but shining through authenticity. You won't be the first AI artist, space host, writer, video creator, or designer, but you can be the only one doing it your way. The idea is to craft your content authentically to meet the needs of your audience so they can find it valuable. As my music artist friend Oxlade said in our latest interview, we sell emotions as artists.
Take some time to define how you want to present your skill and artistry and work on it every day. Thousands of followers are great, but what puts you in the faces of your audience is consistency.
Understand your audience and service them with value.
It's important to track your content as you grow to understand which ones resonate more with your audience's needs, and how best to create value for them. if you understand specific challenges your audience faces, you can use that information to create valuable content for them as a solution. For instance, if you run a cooking blog and know that your readers struggle with meal planning, you can create a blog post sharing tips for meals for different seasons.
You can also provide more value when you understand your audience and grow by;
Incorporating different mediums of content within a piece, such as embedding a video in a blog post,
Telling your audience a story, if it helps drive the message across and reach more listeners or readers,
Linking to external sources for your audience to learn more about you and your content.
Embrace failure and grow with it.
Many creators give up due to slow growth, failed expectations, or a series of losses or shortcomings in their goals. It's frustrating to work daily and see little to no growth, I get it. However, if every plant decides to die when it doesn't rain for a few days or when we pour debris over it, we would barely have any that bear fruits or flowers.
The hack is to take a step back when the way forward looks unclear or unreachable, practice mindfulness to ground yourself, learn from the failures and regroup with new skills to push forward.
Be open to learning and trying new things.
The climber plant doesn't let any door stop it from growing and neither should we. There’s always room to grow as long as you are willing to put in the work to grow.
There’s no limit to growing as a creative, and one of the things that gives me joy is seeing creators grow and outdo themselves. Try these, journal feedback, track your progress, and see where you are this time next year.
we sell emotions as artists. ⬅️ True! 👍🙏😊