Does other peoples creativity make you question your own creativity? If yes, then you’re just like me.
I run a “creative” business that’s very similar to what other people run. Here’s the thing, while Instagram is an avenue for me to reach more people and potential customers, I get to see a lot of new and exciting things that many other people are creating and advertising for their own business and it make we wonder. Am I truly creative? Or am I just copying other people with a touch of spice here and there?
When I see others do things supposedly creative and interesting things, it makes me feel behind and pressured to also do more. This pressure in turn makes me want to invest my profits back into the business and sometimes I feel like maybe I’m launching too many products too soon without proper planning or strategy. Of course this makes the product flop but that doesn’t mean I don’t try to still market it. It just makes me have mixed feelings and doubts about what I know, what I want and what I should do.
I’m not writing this because I know what to do now, but I’ve identified a problem that I think I have which is something I’m very good at doing. I just never really know how to approach the problem to solve it.
With this particular situation, I sometimes think the solution is to take a step back from social media because of how overwhelming and overstimulating it can be. But you can’t step away from your main channel of reach and distribution because the content and products of other similar businesses makes you feel behind, less creative or overwhelmed. I think the best thing is to have a roadmap for myself and to ignore a lot of things.
Truly this can be more difficult or challenging to do especially with how trendy everything gets. Yes, “trendy”. Businesses make money off of trends. That’s why when Kai Collective started selling basic branded tank tops for over a $100 and doing a turn-over of over $1million in revenue, every other fashion brand came out with their own tank tops. Those brands also made money from the trend. It’s social media of course.
Anyway, am I trying to build a trendy business or am I trying to build a sustainable brand? That’s a question for me.
Creative pressure is good but there are good and bad pressures that as creatives we should be aware else least we fall victim to the latter.
- Self-criticism because we’re the biggest and worse judge of our own creative work.
- Self comparison- comparing your progress with that of others because you see them constantly online not calculating how long those people have been in business.
- Launch failure- like me who unsuccessfully attempts to launch a product that no one gives af about until an influencer posts about it.
- Following trends or someone else’s creative vision
There’s always going to be pressure even if I have all the necessary resources needed to launch mind blowing products.
Having a vision of my own, a roadmap and direction would help me reduce the pressure. The only kind of acceptable pressure are those we set for ourselves like our goals and deadlines. They’re more manageable and doable.