What's your light up moment?
Are you lighting up with creativity and ideas or greyed out by "I should" obligations?
I’ve talked to, coached, and taught a lot of freelancers since I started the Freelance Jungle in 2012. One thing that makes me sad is when people start thinking freelancing, marketing, or creativity has to look a certain way. The moment becomes heavy with obligation. Online, on Zoom, or in person, there is a tendency to forgo the light up moments for the I should moments.
A light up moment is when a freelancer or creative lights up as they share their idea with you. You can hear it in the way they talk about it, or see the joy in their face or the way they describe it in a comment or email. It is a moment that their body and mind says, “I care about this idea, it means something” without physically needing to say it.
An I should moment is different. They usually come in the light up moment’s afterglow. A freelancer feels so uncomfortable or unworthy or not business enough by sharing their idea, they anchor themselves to the rock of adulting, jumping headlong into the murky grey of I should waters. Shoulders hunched and dreams clipped, they punish themselves for being optimistic.
I should <do whatever the latest thing is on social media>.
I should <tend to this sensible aspect of business in a sensible way instead of my idea>.
I should <do some hideously unappealing task because this is what freelancing, marketing, or being creative has to look like>.
It worked for Bob, so that’s how I should do it, too! Even if I secretly hate the idea.
How incredibly deflating. So deflating in fact, most freelancers procrastinate. Uninspired, they can’t connect with the idea in a meaningful way and do anything worth doing.
They sink and become trapped by the I should monster, and that’s where they stay.
Choose the light up moment, I say
The internet doesn’t need more regurgitated beige. It needs original ideas and winsome optimism. And less ideas resembling a reluctant year eleven kid’s business studies homework.
Give yourself permission to experiment:
What’s your light up moment?
What ideas follow you around, begging to be experimented with?
What ideas make the challenges you might face look worth the risk? Even determined to face that risk head on?
What are you discussing when you feel yourself getting excited, intrigued, curious, passionate or happily engaged?
What ideas keep you warm at night when you’re dreaming of a better life?
Image: white writing on black square reads, “What's your light up moment?”
