PS. I like you is a newsletter for creative humans with self-doubt. Subscribe and read along to get answers to all the questions you didn’t know you had about self-doubt and making a creative life 🌿
I found it hard to write something for this newsletter.
It’s not that I didn’t have any ideas… I just kept running out of momentum. I would start something, and then run out of steam.
Perhaps this was because I wasn’t focused properly — or I hadn’t left myself enough time to give it the space and attention it needs.
Or perhaps I just wanted to write something other than the stuff I thought I should be writing. (It happens!)
Either way, my main focus now is just writing this newsletter.
It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t need to be perfect; I just need to say something.
And this ‘something’ — is firstly for me; but also for you — or anyone who has ever struggled with the idea of how to start, and be useful, and not be completely self-indulgent, all at the same time.
I spent a lot of the last few months asking myself how I could be helpful.
What did my clients need to know? What might be useful for someone to hear right now? What is a useful tool for someone, that they can apply to their life right now?
This is all well and good. And I stand by the idea of being helpful!
But also, it has to be for yourself — just a little bit.
And this feels different, as you move through seasons.
Sometimes the body of work shifts outwards; sometimes it shifts inwards.
When you are creating, there is the dance of what lights you up, and what will reach people.
And if you are lucky, you will work out how to find it again and again.
And in the meantime, you have to keep practising.
You have to be willing to accept that sometimes the work feels like it’s more for you; and you have to hope — and trust — that someone out there, gets it.
Sometimes you speak directly to camera;
Sometimes you speak from the side, to yourself
— and it is a different way of speaking, and you might not always share it.
But you also have a hunch that someone out there understands (exactly) where you are coming from.
And this is enough to share it — even if you know it is 90% less digestible or packageable than your other work.
You don’t always need to be ‘expert.’ You don’t always need to be ‘artist.’
Sometimes you can just be human.
That is. enough.
Love,
Kathryn
PS. I like you
— Creating when you are out of practice.
— Your creativity is so much more than your to-do list.
— My favourite playlist. (On Apple Music / Spotify.)
— Want to get into the habit of creating? Work with me.