Talking Self Care and Pursuing Your Passion at The Maven Circle #lml

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The ever-fabulous Jen Neitzel and Jena Coray (aka Ms. Modish) just launched The Maven Circle: an awesome new project aimed at helping creative peeps find and follow your passion. They’re sharing all kinds of inspirational goodness, including desktop wallpapers and videos, and they asked me to submit an article about self care. Here’s an excerpt:

When you’re making a living from your creativity, there’s a tendency to push yourself, isn’t there? You want to do it all, and you kind of feel like you have to do it all. You’re living your dream, so you should be making sacrifices, right? I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard. I work my tail off, but I also set aside the time to tend to my mental health, and that’s what self care is all about.

You can read the whole article over at The Maven Circle.

I’m also loving the videos they’re putting out. This one – The Truthiness of Pursuing Your Passion – really struck me, and I thought I’d share it with you guys.

They are so right. From the outside, someone pursuing her passion can look picture perfect, but nothing worthwhile is that easy. You work hard, and sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do to make it happen.

I hate accounting. I know that hate is a strong word, but really. Entering receipts and figuring out quarterly taxes completely sucks, but it’s one of the tradeoffs that comes with working for myself. Making a living from your creativity is not always easy, either. Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and the words won’t come. I stare at a blank screen and maybe have a moment of panic. Working through a creative block is tough, but I’ve written some of my favorite pieces while pushing through a block like that.

You work through those things you don’t love doing or the tough times, because the payoff on the other side is so worth it. Not every moment is full of ecstatic joy, but would you really appreciate the highs if there weren’t some lows?

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