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STEP ONE: CALL YOURSELF OUT
Calling all writers, producers, designers, creative directors: it’s time to reimagine what comes next on your uniquely squiggly path. You’ve done everything right: the titles, the awards, the late nights. But lately, something’s off.
Meet the usual archetypes of creative discontent:
① THE MODEL CREATIVE
Maybe you even made a certain 30 Under 30 list... that glittering participation medal of late capitalism. Your parents can finally explain what you do to the neighbors (“something with design and brands!”). You’ve got the nice title, the glowing portfolio, and a headshot with the LinkedIn Premium badge of honor.
You skip date night to finish a deck that no one will remember next quarter. You reward yourself with oat-milk lattes and an SSENSE haul your salary can comfortably support (because if you’re going to spiral, you may as well do it in private sale Margiela).
You’re not ungrateful. You’re just quietly miserable in a beautiful, adult way. You’ve mastered the system, and the system loves you for it. But every time you open a FigJam, something inside you whispers: What would I make if I didn’t need it to be good?
You know the answer lives somewhere beyond Cringe Mountain, that humiliating climb toward sincerity and risk, where you might make something honest, or worse, uncool. You want to go there. You just wish someone else would go first.
You make everything you touch look effortless.
SIGNATURE MOVE
Over-functioning with a smile.
WEAKNESS
Confusing approval for purpose.
SECRET DESIRE
To make something selfish, a project just for you.
UNHELPFUL COPING
Buying nice pens and notebooks to write ideas you’ll never let yourself start.
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② THE CREATIVE ON FIRE (IN THE BAD WAY)
Now, you’re the dependable visionary. The one who can translate chaos into clarity, who knows how to sell magic to executives. You still love the work (in theory) but lately the spark smells like a burnt Doordash order that the company covered as a thank you for another late one. Your brain is a Google Docs factory. Your heart feels like your screenshots folder.
You keep telling yourself it’s just a “busy season,” but every season seems to bloom from the same root: overextension. You can sense the joy leak but can’t quite locate it. You fantasize about finishing (or starting again) The Artist’s Way or finally taking that longer-than-a-weekend vacation, but who has the time to rest when the brand depends on you?!
You can see possibility where others see problems.
SIGNATURE MOVE
“It’s fine, I’ll just do it myself.” (It’s not fine.)
WEAKNESS
Mistaking exhaustion for lack of talent.
SECRET DESIRE
To finish The Artist’s Way
(or finally take PTO).
UNHELPFUL COPING
Scrolling and saving inspiration instead of making anything.
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③ THE CLOSET POLYMATH
Your curiosity doesn’t want a lane... it wants a labyrinth. You’ve got secret side projects, pseudonyms, dream URLs. You tell yourself you just need to focus, pick a direction, be serious for once. But the truth is: your seriousness is curiosity. You were built for range.
Still, you hesitate. You scroll. You watch others leap while you sort concepts into enigmatic Are.na channels. You keep waiting for clarity, but clarity only arrives after the jump.
You’re a natural synthesizer: your ideas connect worlds.
SIGNATURE MOVE
Secret side projects no one knows about.
WEAKNESS
Waiting for a “perfect plan” before beginning.
SECRET DESIRE
To delete your Linkedin entirely, open a shop, and start a Substack.
UNHELPFUL COPING
Redesigning your portfolio instead of your life.
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④ THE POST-AMBITION PROFESSIONAL
You’ve made it. The title looks great on paper; the paycheck’s good enough that you almost believe it’s worth it. You know how to play leader— calm in crisis, fluent in “alignment,” emotionally literate enough to make strategy feel spiritual. People say you “have presence,” but mostly you just have excellent lighting and the ability to summarize other people’s ideas in a confident tone.
You used to chase ambition like oxygen—the kind you’d gulp on a late-night bike ride home, Kids by MGMT in your ears, convinced that “making it” as a creative would feel like this forever. It doesn’t. Now it’s the same song in a company-paid Uber, the city still spinning, but the rush long gone. You fantasize about deactivating everything—Slack, LinkedIn, your entire digital footprint—and disappearing just long enough for people to start rumors. Then quietly resurfacing with a new name and a side project without an Instagram presence.
You’re craving ground. Dirt. No, not Burning Man...just a little honest mess. A plan that can’t be bullet-pointed. You want to build something with your hands that no one will ask you to present about later.
Making leadership look like friendship
SIGNATURE MOVE
Saying “no worries!” while triaging twelve worries.
WEAKNESS
Mistaking control for freedom.
SECRET DESIRE
Camera off...and to build something so small it doesn’t need strategy.
UNHELPFUL COPING
Accepting one more project so you don’t have to feel how done you are.
Feel seen? Called out? Sorry....not sorry. Whichever role you’re playing, you’re not broken—you’re just evolving! And your next chapter deserves the same creative energy you’ve given everything else.