For creative iconoclasts who want to pay their bills AND do the work they love, get insights, ideas, and next steps from a graphic novelist, author, & business coach. Find out how to build a balanced and productive creative life, and to thrive financially with simple, sustainable business foundations—without creative compromise.
creative flow vs burnout: may the right one win
I went through most of my career feeling like success was just…one…step…away, around a blind corner, and that all I needed to do to get there was…
More.
More work, more marketing, more income streams, more…everything.
At some point—or really, over and over again—I did so much more I almost broke.
I know I'm not alone. I constantly see other creatives trapped in the same cycle, which I’ve dubbed “Cyclical Burnout.”
The truth is, most of what we’re taught about having a creative career (when we're taught about it at all) is completely backwards, and leads to a state of near-constant burnout.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are different, better paths.
On this episode of the Autonomous Creative, we explore what a sustainable creative career could actually look like, and what it would take to get there.
This episode is a bit unusual in that, for once, I'm the one being interviewed. My friend Gabriela Pereira, the founder of DIY MFA, interviewed me for a project she was developing, but when she decided not to publish it, I thought this conversation was just too valuable to keep locked away.
If you're struggling with scarcity and burnout, it's going to be eye-opening for you. Gabriela and I do a major deep dive into what causes creative burnout, and how to break the cycle by designing a creative career that meets your needs.
We also discuss creative flow and how knowing that your basic needs are met—your bills are paid, you have healthcare, childcare, etc.—can make sliding into a creative flow state that much easier. Finally, I share my strategies for reducing decision fatigue and eliminating all the unnecessary friction that makes sitting down to do the work painful.
Ready to hear more?
Listen to the full episode, and check out the transcript here.
Autonomous Creative
With Jessica Abel
For creative iconoclasts who want to pay their bills AND do the work they love, get insights, ideas, and next steps from a graphic novelist, author, & business coach. Find out how to build a balanced and productive creative life, and to thrive financially with simple, sustainable business foundations—without creative compromise.
So, as of writing this email, my time tracking tells me that since January 12 I’ve spent 143 hours and 10 minutes on revising the Creative Focus Workshop. That feels like an undercount, TBH. I’ve also shut down several sources of revenue for Autonomous Creative, most notably, an entire program, Authentic Visibility. The numbers are not looking good. And just in the last 3 weeks, I’ve spent close to $5000, said goodbye to my longest serving team member (good luck, Lou! 😢), hired a whole new...
Got 5 minutes to play around with me? I’ve put together a tiny treasure hunt for you full of old, slightly embarrassing photos, art, and ephemera from my cartoonist past for you to discover. For example: Want to see me drunk in a bar in Tijuana with semi-famous cartoonists in 1999? Oh yes you do. These photos have never before been on the internets! No joke: I had to literally scan small rectangles of paper to make this for you. my weapon of choice in the 1990s Also: unpublished work! Comic...
Once, when I told her to empty the dishwasher, my daughter’s face clouded into a scowl. But it wasn’t simply that she didn’t want to empty the dishwasher. No, she told me that she had been just about to get up and empty the dishwasher on her own. As soon as I told her to do it, I stole the virtue of doing it solo, and I robbed her of her agency. And now, she wanted to sit down and NEVER empty the dishwasher. Sound familiar? Yeah, me too. But wait, there’s more: The other day, a friend said,...