66: Why You Should Cherish Your Early Work

Take your sweet, sweet time and just nourish this very, very necessary stage of your, you know, upcoming career and future life.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life.

But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. Success.

I'm here to help you spend your

life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom

you want, and is wildly profitable.

Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

Early work. We've all got it. Every professional creative, from artist to musician to writer to illustrator, has this time in their career. Just think about it that time before anyone knows who you are or what you're up to, when you're creating work and only hoping that the future will pay you back for all of your time and all of your effort. And I just get feels like yesterday when I was in this same exact point in my career and today I get to see many, many, many students come into this time period as well, the early work period. And I just want to wrap everyone up in my arms and say, okay, it's part of the process and we must embrace it. But I know that this stage is hard and it can be really difficult to stay motivated and stay inspired because there's not a lot of feedback happening or even tangible career progress being made in a way that's very visible and it's easy. And it's so normal to just want to rush through it, like get the stage over with and get on out there and become a professional already. But I say cherish this stage. Take your sweet, sweet time and just nourish this very, very necessary stage of your, you know, upcoming career and future life. Take 12 months, take two years, take five years and, and really pour yourself into your work. Because here's the unique thing. This is most likely the only time in your entire career that you'll be purely creating from your heart. Meaning there are no deadlines, there's no briefs, there's no pressure, no one's giving you feedback and you're not worried about what people are going to think it's permission to play and explore and make bad work and. And work that, you know, you don't want to make more work like this in the future. It's that discovery phase that we really all have to go through. This is the time where you establish your signature style of creating and listen. It cannot be rushed. This is when you'll discover who you really are as a creative and what your main goals are and what your mission is. And as a creative, if you take the necessary time to really nourish this stage, you will end up with a body of work that you are so incredibly proud of. It will feel finished, and it will feel, most importantly, like a direct reflection of your very soul. This is when you'll know that it's time to show it, to share it with the world and scream it from the rooftops. You'll know it's time to submit your portfolio or turn in your book proposal or announce your new album, whatever it is. You will feel so ready and so proud to share it with the world. You know, it's fairly obvious for me, when I can tell someone has just rushed this stage, they come out of it. They don't really have a clear mission, they don't have a clear voice, they don't have a clear style. They're so excited about what they've created, but they rushed to start their career. But if you can resist the urge and just keep creating, your work will get better and better and more refined and more refined. And there will be this knowing that the time has come and it will be something that truly stands out from the crowd. Let me tell you about this time for me. This came for me right after I finished piecemealing my education together around Adobe Illustrator and learning that program. Took me almost two years. This was back in 2010. And then I took an entire year to do nothing but create patterns. And this was the year of 2010. And I spent 12 whole months just nourishing my creativity and figuring out my design style. And this is when the magic happened. I took all the pressure off. And you need to know that it wasn't very easy. We were struggling financially. I wasn't making any income. We were trying to make ends meet. But I still refused to rush this process because I know that I just needed time. I wasn't wasting time. I was working really hard every day. But I still still needed time to get what I was putting out, like, what was coming out of my hands to match what I had in my head. And my heart, and it just takes time. My signature style slowly began to peek through and my work just got better and better. And this period was just filled with permission, permission to go explore and gather inspiration and visit botanical gardens and sketch and draw. And you know, for me, I was playing with different mediums like paint and charcoal and pencil and pen, and just had to figure out what I liked and most importantly, what I didn't like. This is when I learned the most about how to use Adobe Illustrator. And, and it was through all of this trial and error, trial and error, I made hundreds of patterns. And you know what else? It just so happens that some of my all time favorite work came out of this time period. And I know that to be true for many other artists and creatives as well. So if you're in this early time, I want you to hold on to it, embrace it, know that it's intended to be there, and it will serve you well in the future. There is no race, there is no closing window of opportunity. I believe that the right window of opportunity will be waiting for you at the exact moment that you're ready. And it won't be open even a moment too soon. So, my friends, continue creating the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And don't you ever forget. There's room for you,

Sam.