I STILL LOVE U!! Courageously pursue your passion

Artists don't get down to working until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working

"Regardless of the form it takes, embracing creative passion offers you the opportunity to live authentically as you increasingly accept your uniquely evolving individual identity. If offers you the opportunity to connect with yourself by truly identifying what you feel and believe about the world as your role in it. At the same time, pursuing your creative passion is almost always accompanied by challenge, the confrontation of forces within you that resist and undermine authentic being."

I am in the fashion design industry and have been for the past 6 years. What a journey it has been. I started my own little business creating custom formal dresses with fierce passion right after I graduated from design school in 2004.

The past year or so I have grown so much yet felt like I havent been actively pursuing my passion and even questioned if it even aligns with who i am now. I felt like I put so much pressure on myself to get somewhere that I felt like I wasn't doing this for myself anymore. After expressing this out loud and after letting go of all the expectations I had surrounded myself with, I started to feel lighter and I now feel my passion is growing even stronger than before. I think I just needed to find my courage again after facing plenty of personal discouragements and inner conflicts I had with myself.

When you pursues a creative career you come across a lot of fear. You feel naked, vulnerable and exposed when you put yourself out there. When you dont get the results you expected you feel inadequate about your abilities & accomplishments. You're presented with so may self doubts that sometimes it becomes paralyzing. There's so much that comes with pursuing your passion...so much discomfort, anxiety, fear, disappointment, frustrations, guilt, shame...

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes

"Regardless of the unique issues that contribute to inhibit any individual's capacity to embrace creative passion, fear and anxiety are inherent in the creative process itself. Descending into the unknown, feeling vulnerable to the reaction of others, the tension you experience as you commit to temporarily suspend critical judgment; these factors interact in such a way as to threaten your progress and full engagement in the creative moment."

At this point some ppl find it too uncomfortable to move on. Their sense of identity is directly related to what they produce. If they create something favorable they feel good but when they don't they arouse anxiety and start being critical of themselves.

I've been there. I've been where the negativity gets overwhelming and it can literally put out the fire. But its something I needed to go thru to understand myself better and practice resiliency to move forward. There's a lot of patience and practice that one needs to cultivate to be really good at something. The greatest artists, athletes, writers and musicians didnt simply get to where they are just from wishing so. They got there bcos they kept going, practiced, learned and nurtured their skills no matter how painful it gets sometimes.

♥ KNOW YOURSELF. Know what time of day you have the most energy to maximize your productivity. Know when you can keep pushing yourself and when to sit back and give yourself a break.

♥ TRUST YOURSELF. Open up to life and have faith that the decisions you make will get you to where you need to go. Confidence in your abilities goes hand in hand with trusting yourself.

♥ CULTIVATE COURAGE. It requires boldness and a fearless attitude to express yourself. Courage allows you to keep going when you feel discouragement and it pushes you to move forward. Courage helps you take the risk to put your creativity out there.

♥ REMEMBER YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS. We tend to focus on what we did wrong or could have done better. This isn't necessarily a bad thing bcos it helps us see where we can make adjustments or improvements but if you linger here it can cripple you. So dont forget to acknowledge the things you have done to have gotten you to where you are now.