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I’ve made no secret about the fact I’m here, on Substack, to figure out how I want to use my own voice and what stories I want to tell. I spent so long telling other people’s stories and not using my own voice that I kind of lost it. (You can read more about that here if you like.)

I’m a good storyteller and I’m great at information architecture (it makes my nerdy brain so happeee) and figuring out angles for other people’s work.

But for my own? I was a baby deer in the headlights. On roller skates. In the rain.

So that’s been super fun figuring it out in public.

I wobbled across paths: Am I writing poetry? Maybe. Will I share random short stories? Maybe. What about deep, vulnerable overshares? Erm, have we met?

Even the name here itself has changed twice before just deciding to put it under my own name. Three name changes and here I am…supposed to be good at this stuff.

I’ve also recently completely pivoted careers, moving away from marketing into studying floristry. I’m in the process of changing my whole business focus and quite giddy about it actually.

But I couldn’t shake this feeling that I should know better. I shouldn’t be needing to pivot so much, right? Changes feel wrong or like other people will see the truth: I don’t know what I’m doing.

I see this come up a lot in clients and past students too, where changing our minds feels like we’ve a) failed and b) we’re just the worst person in the world for messing everybody up like that.

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Let’s address the “failing” situation.

Have we? If we start doing something and then decide it’s not quite right, have we failed?

No. The reality is we’ve just shared the creative process publicly.

The normally hidden, quiet-hours-of-the-unseen-night process of art is on show.

We don’t usually see the scratched blueprints or crumpled bits of paper or the 5 versions of splodge before the final sculpture. We see finished designs, polished artworks and stunning illustrations.

But here, online, we’re sharing the splodges.

And it feels gross. But we would be doing the work a disservice if we left it as a splodge simply because we told everyone this was the splodge we were going with.

That’s not our job. We need to respond to the work and unsplodge it and then resplodge it until it forms into a shape that doesn’t need quite so many huge changes.

And by the way, a creative change could mean anything: your topic focus, your branding, an offer you’ve created or anything else you’ve shared with the world wide web and then decided, actually, how ‘bout no.

When we’re starting out, learning how to share our creativity or maybe just being curious: “Can I do this? Could I even write a blog? Make a podcast?” etcetera, we don’t know exactly what it needs to look like or sound like, especially if you’re just finding your feet and learning to release your voice. Doesn’t mean you’re not an expert on the subject matter or your beautiful work, but the way you want to package that that takes time (and mistakes) to shape.

You can have containers and general ideas to help you get started, but if you want to wait until you know exactly what you’re doing or want to say or write about or share, you’re going to be disappointed because that’s not how the work…works.

This photo was taken inside Sky Space, by James Turrell. (My favourite artist.)

And are we the worst person ever? Did we stuff everyone up?

No. People won’t notice as much as you think they will. Changing direction doesn’t make it wrong or mean you’re not worth listening to.

It simply means you’re doing the work.

And anyone that can’t support that deserves a lumpy pillow tonight and a luke-warm coffee in the morning.

If you’re a big brand (with a big budget) then there’s probably a more narrow, clear path to follow with less obvious pivots and changes. But, if like me, you’re just one human who wants to create stuff and share that stuff with the other humans, then you’re going to be figuring this stuff out with everyone watching.

Dammit.

So, guess what? You’re brave. It takes chutzpah to do the behind-the-scenes of art, on centre stage under bright lights instead. Highest of fives to you.

But maybe now, while the robots begin to dominate our world, this is even in our advantage. What looks more human than having a go, iterating, falling over, laughing at ourselves and trying again?

We get to make mistakes. To show our brush strokes. Our crumpled bits of paper aren’t discarded but published with big shiny “subscribe” buttons, backing ourselves all the way.

A robot can’t compete with a human that isn’t afraid to get messy (or is but does it anyway let’s be real), figure it out in public and lets people watch as they chomp on their popcorn in comfy seats.

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Changing direction means you’re paying attention

Every piece of work starts out as a giant chaos blob that becomes less chaos-blobbish as we give it the time and energy to become a glittery bit of goodness.

Refining our work is critical because nothing says ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ more than having 67 slightly-different-but-almost-the-same offers at any one time. The process of doing the work should be giving us enough feedback for us to respond and decide on what’s working, what isn’t and where we expand or cull.

Iteration is part of creating great work. And that means change is unavoidable.

We will have to ditch ideas we’ve publicly said we’re bringing to life. We might have told everyone we’re going to turn left just up ahead but then realise nope, we need to go ‘round the roundabout and go back the other way.

That’s ok.

Is it cringe? Yeah. Join the club.

Howeverrrr…

This doesn’t mean we change our minds just because we’re bored, afraid, or we just want to follow the trends.

And it doesn’t mean we act on every shiny idea.

It means we pivot from a response to the work and how the work has changed us. We curate in conversation with the work, unafraid of what “they” will say when we change our minds because we understand this isn’t a glitch in the matrix.

This is the process.

Snippets from my new flower shed. AKA: Keeley’s Happy Place.

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I write about undoing old stories and telling ourselves new ones that help us face The Big Bad of being seen. Sharing my own behind-the-scenes from marketer to florist and finally smashing the seashell and claiming my voice back. There’s fear. There’s courage. There’s definitely more than one adventure on Facebook Marketplace. And I’m hoping there’s you too. Would love to see you ‘round. Click subscribe button below to stay and hang.

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PS: If you’re thinking, “Woah, Keels you forgot to change the title” don’t worry, it was intentional. Originally it was just a placeholder and then I realised that for an article about figuring it out in public, it was kind of great. So I left it. But thanks for looking out for me.

PPS: How do we feel about the new highlighter options? I can’t decide if I like them or not.