Some Days I Feel Like Quitting.
By: Sharonda Harris-Marshall
Tags: Quitting, Freelancing, Creative Process, Creativity, Motivation

Sometimes you can do all the planning and preparation in the world and still fuck up. That’s what happened to me today. Plan Z also didn’t work as planned. I was already nervous about getting everything right that I allowed a fixable mistake to snowball into a subpar outcome.

It was a fuck up at a time I shouldn’t and couldn’t fuck up. Why am I even doing this? Why am I here?

I’m mourning the loss hard.

I have to. As a creative professional, so much of my identity is tied to what goes on in my brain. I make mistakes all the time, as what comes with getting better. That doesn’t mean those mistakes get easier to dismiss. The better I get at my craft the harder it is to get over a mistake. I obsess over them and it ruins my whole day. So, I have to mourn through my “big fraud” phase.

Today is especially hard. I cried in my car until I felt numb. Then I realized I needed to correct that mistake with the world’s best apology…

Mistakes sometimes come with a price tag.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but there’s a pandemic out there eating into every creative business. And while there are new revenue streams to explore, we are all still figuring it out. Stuff doesn’t come on-time. Payments are slow. Deliverables are slower. Crews are small. Someone gets COVID. Work isn’t completed as expected.

Eventually, I have to eat the cost of my mistakes, either by a loss of revenue or via expense to correct the mistake. Today, it was both.

When you are staring at an empty bank account with expenses and personal bills to pay, it’s difficult to shake the feeling of just quitting. Unlike some other entrepreneurs, I didn’t decide to freelance because I hated my 9–5 or was sick of office life. I started my unconventional career because I had no other options other than to marry rich.

I didn’t marry rich.

I can blame technology. I can blame COVID. I can blame Murphy. Or I can take responsibility.

I’m supposedly an expert. At least that’s what my educated-related employer says (insert unimaginative joke about those who can’t, teach). And yes, things happen. Technical difficulties will happen to everyone at some point. But no one hires you to make mistakes or allow uncontrollable circumstances to dictate outcomes. Clients hire you to come up with a solution for every possible scenario, even during a pandemic when nothing arrives on-time or as expected.

The least I can do is improve my customer service skills. I don’t have the luxury of just slapping “oops, COVID” on all my correspondence to clients.

Redundancy saved me.

Creative professionals need a redundancy plan. I happened to have one that worked. It saved my ass today. I can’t undo the past but at least I recorded it.

Then I remember all the rejections that also happened this year.

I fall flat on my face a lot. Even though I consider myself a lifelong creative and artist, I struggle with living up to the hype I created for myself.

The rejections don’t help. While I recognize the rejections I do receive have immense value in my overall career story, rejections never get easier. Rejections + major mistakes = feelings of quitting it all and figuring out something else with my life. It’s thrown me into my old anxiety-depression cycle where I can’t even be bothered to eat or sleep (Don’t worry: I’m pro-therapy for artists and creative professionals).

I received a rejection earlier this week for something I don't even remember submitting and I still was wondering why I wasn’t good enough for them. So for this week, I just decided I suck at photography, video, and film, and I just need to improve.

Whatever gets me to move on so I can tackle next week’s mounting tasks.

Can I forgive myself?

With time, yes. It’s possible I see my mistakes as larger than they are, but my heart and mind don’t know the difference at the moment.

Trying again and learning from it.

I’ve learned more in two days than I have in the past five years. I failed at something I do all the time. But I failed anyway. What can I learn from it?

You should always be learning something. If not, you’ll make the same mistake again and to my credit, I don’t make the same mistake twice.

Learning from my mistakes gives my life and my career purpose. That prevents me from quitting.