Two weekends ago I had the honor of attending the Gather
Workshop. If you have not heard of it yet, you should absolutely check it out here. If you are a budding creative or in need of some creative
entrepreneurial encouragement, just go ahead & buy a ticket to the next
workshop.
I went into the weekend open-minded with no set goal of what
I wanted to come out with at the end of the workshop. I wanted to be a blank
canvas open with expectation of being filled with encouragement and educational
tips. Our meeting location was the
gorgeous Foster ATL, which so appropriately meets the vision of Gather to
build a culture of balance and freedom among Atlanta’s creative community. We tackled a range of topics from finances,
branding, and marketing to staying inspired and avoiding burnout (my FAVORITE
part) by inspirational speakers Mattie Tiegreen, Kaitie Bryant, Haley Sheffield, Britt Bass Turner and Shanna Skidmore.
During Shanna’s session, one thing she said that stuck most
to me was, “We need to know what we have to have (personally & for our
business), versus what we think we should be doing.”
I loved this quote most because as we forge this new
territory in the creative world, I think we forget how to take care of
ourselves and if we cannot do that well, then we are not going to take care of
the people around us well either. Yes, we have fun jobs and yes, it may seem
like we have a lot of freedom in our work but in reality I do not think we are
setting boundaries for ourselves to experience true freedom. This does not happen because we think that we have to work all day every day to get our name
‘out there’ so we can actually be successful or that we have to say yes to
every wedding/consultation/styled shoot/collaboration so someone else does not get it and then we miss out on what could have sky rocketed our business. We
can become so discouraged thinking that we are not doing ENOUGH and even more
discouraged when we think about all that we SHOULD be doing. Our
richness of life does not come from pressuring ourselves to do more and be
more.
Being at Foster with 30 other courageous women reminded me
of something I think we as creative entrepreneurs struggle to remember: life is
to be enjoyed. The way we run our businesses, the high rate of burnout, and how
we define ‘what is enough’ for us is different when we remember that this life
is to be enjoyed.
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