Letter From the Editor: Creative Block or Fear?
Recently, I was exploring through old footage that my friend Jessica and I created while running our nonprofit organization, The PeekABoo PrettyGirl Foundation, and I came across an old promotional video. We now use the organization to solely focus on teen mentorship, but back then, we were all about building community. It was 2014. Blogs were very popular — but they weren’t careers. And we were creating content before we knew we could put “Content Creator” in our bios.
The video I found was a cute Saturday Night Live inspired promo for our fundraising mixer that was approaching. It was conceptual, engaging, and truly ahead of it’s time. It was one of our many projects that I am proud of today — like our meet the founders intro video, our Top 20 under 30 Bachelorette List, our Pretty Girl Packages monthly prize, or the campaign we produced for our Beauty and Business Brunch.
All of these things were before the women’s empowerment wave was oversaturated and before our #goals came from Instagram. I don’t say this to boast, I say this to point to how fearless we were! We were truly in a time where we created without fear. Likes didn’t matter, because it wasn’t a time when we viewed them as a measure of our success. We didn’t have to go viral to feel that someone appreciated our work, so we didn’t filter and edit every idea that we had until they became mute.
Have you been in a creative block? Are you seeking more discipline to accomplish your goals without realizing that all you actually need is more freedom?
Let’s challenge ourselves to take a deeper dive into our relationships with our work and become realigned with our motive. Your main reason for saying something should be the fact that you have something to say! May your work reach who it is supposed to, and leave the rest up to the world.
This year, I’ve decided that I will create without hesitation. I will only edit myself to the point of improvement, and I refuse to be so caught up in the perfect version of my work that I never even give birth to Volume 1. I hope you’ll join me in this and allow the ideas on your mind and in your heart to manifest.
I can’t wait to see what you’ll produce!
With Style + Soul