Momentum.
The past couple months have been filled with a mixed bag of emotions. Mostly feeling overwhelmed, but never feeling like I’ve actually done anything. The monotonous days turn into monotonous weeks and so on. Graphic design work is sparse, and the AI talk has me excited, worried, and uncertain about the future of my overall prosperity. The underlying theme of the way I’ve been feeling is bordering burnout, and overthinking my way through it.
Sometimes the best way to tackle something is by not doing the thing at all. When you devote yourself to something everyday, only to feel like you're stagnating, the best thing to do is absolutely nothing. Whether that be a trip, taking a week off, or picking up a new hobby, it’s incredibly important to take a step back and reassess the situation you’ve managed to get yourself in. In a roundabout way it makes you more productive, and genuinely gives you more opportunities to pick up the sails and find a new gust of wind to get you going.
Once you’re at full mast, you have to expect the wind to die down eventually. It is essential to maintain that momentum, even if it feels like you're not moving, there is still the soft current that drags you along if you allow it to.
Let me give you a real example of what’s been happening and how I have been managing it. I have a handful of awesome clients, usually I work with them simultaneously, acting more as a renaissance man than a graphic designer. I find joy in being able to try and solve problems that are way over my head, usually saying yes to the thing, then figuring out how to make it work after the fact. Anyway, my client has made this amazing product to learn how to play chords on a guitar. We’ve worked together for the last eight or so months building this product (mostly him explaining to me how music theory works, and I being ignorant enough to try and give him advice). Together we make a pretty good duo, if roundabout conversation where the metric. He’s done some questionable things (maybe he’s a clairvoyant) that have actually made me more stressed out than I should be, considering it isn’t my product and I don't have any equity. I poured a lot of my energy into figuring out ways to market his product on a low budget. Going back to the sailing analogy, my mast was high and it was ready to catch some fair winds. What ended up happening is that I was getting more and more frustrated by my clients lack of business awareness (like I have any also) and the care that I was putting into trying to sell his product was not being met with the same emotion. This led to deflation, ultimately me having to sit and have a conversation with him about the realistic nature of business. It had been eight months, he hadn’t sold any product, and was more focused on getting a website put together than getting the product into other people’s hands to play with. After a couple of failed attempts to put together a basic video explaining how the product started, I sat down with him and told him how I was feeling. I gave him some advice, (basically said he should teach guitar classes with his product) and ended up telling him I had to step aside and that maybe I wasn’t the right fit for his business.
This was tough for me, but I felt it was the right thing to do. I felt he needed to take on the responsibility himself and learn the ropes in a way where I wasn’t pressuring him, and where he could learn the harsh realities of business (mostly, just because you have a website doesn’t mean that people are going to buy your product). What he did next was amazing, he went on to a local guitar shop and put together a stunning display. It was amazing and definitely a step in the right direction. As I was pursuing other things, I slowly let him do his own thing, always keeping my door open for him if he needed me.
Skip forward a couple months and I happened to catch another gust. I was feeling good about graphic design again, having worked on some projects with a couple of different clients, it felt right to reach back out to him again and check up on his progress. We set up a meeting and caught up on some things. I came to realize he basically hadn’t made much progress, but he had some work for me, and I had a new lens to look through to get it done for him. He said his display wasn’t doing much and that he was going to pick it up from the guitar shop later that week. Overall, pretty neutral discussion in terms of the trajectory of this business.
The day after our meeting, he sent me an exciting text. He said that the display was actually gaining a lot of attention, and right before he went in to pick it up, a couple of sets had sold. I cannot express how excited I was for him. Not only did he get an organic sale, he was actually making progress without realizing he was doing so. This moment defines momentum, it’s not that you actually need to have a full gust of wind to keep you moving, it's that soft current of small wins, lessons, growth that keep you moving forward.
Momentum is key, it’s the tunnel that takes you to the light, as long as you know you’re on a path it can do wonders for growth. The reason I was writing about the sailing analogy is because I watched an amazing documentary about a professional surfer Torren Martyn, his wife Aiyana and a couple of amazing friends, embark on a sailing journey chasing waves around Indonesia. If you’re a surfer, it’s a must watch, if you aren’t a surfer, it’s a must watch. There are too many life lessons in one film, it should be illegal. Here’s the link to that if you want to check it out (https://youtu.be/hmEN57EJEm4?si=BGK9I4r2b8v1qlPG) .
If you want to learn to play the guitar and pick up an awesome product that you can use well into the guitar journey check out my clients website (https://chordconnectors.com/).
Thank you for reading.
With love,
Kai
Weekly Poem:
When there’s no one around to see
When there’s no one around to speak
When there’s no one around to listen
There’s only yourself to drive ambitions
