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Around this time three years ago, I was in a funk. Like a James Brown in his prime level of funk - big, loud, raw, and full of emotion. I had spent the majority of my summer starting and stopping, waiting for updates on a very new position at one of the biggest platforms in the world. I felt confident that my skills and experience along with the work I submitted and my active and engaged relationships at the company, my contributions to the Black creative eco spear on Twitter would be enough to solidify my standing.
I kiki-ed through a few interviews before I was told that I wouldn’t be moving forward to the next round and I was DEVASTATED. I just knew that position was mine, everything was lined up, why didn’t it happen? It made me start questioning every single thing I had been doing up until that point. It wasn’t just that one rejection that slapped so hard, it was the fact that I spent most of 2018 and 2019 applying for everyone’s favorite companies - companies who knew me before I clicked submit - and I was getting no after no (we’ll talk about how much I got fired/laid off during 2014-2018 another time). And #blkcreatives was not making enough to sustain me fully, the familiar pressure of my back up against started to expand in a new way. I was so down about it, that I decided to try therapy again for the third time.
What started out as frustrations about my work life, quickly morphed into more conversations about my overall well-being, how I set expectations, and my quality of life and let me tell you, I found out quickly just how unhappy I was and had been. Not just with my work life, with myself overall and that some changes needed to be made. So you know what I let myself do?
I let myself quit.
I quit pretending like I had #blkcreatives all figured out and put it on a hiatus while I pursued other work opportunities
I quit forcing myself to not be frustrated about my work situation and just let myself be honest about the disappointment
I quit trying to figure it all out on my own and asked for help
I quit knowing it all and leaned into my community and my personal spiritual disciplines
I quit staying in my own head and focused on being open in my therapy sessions
If you’re ready to quit, here’s something I want you to consider: you have options with what and how you quit. Quitting is more about preserving what works and getting rid of what doesn’t. Me pretending like I knew it all, or had it all figured out, or could do everything by myself was no longer working, not if I needed to find out what the actual next step was.
And guess what?
Those next steps did not come immediately. But what did happen is that I was able to kick start off the most important journeys of healing in my life, and I gradually learned how to accept my creative career path in its own uniqueness. Quitting constantly has given me the space to get closer and closer to what’s genuinely important to my life, I’m wishing you the same energy.
Happy adjusting,
Melissa, founder + CEO of #blkcreatives
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