Staying Inspired When the Muse Hibernates | Creative Life & Entrepreneurship

Staying Inspired When the Muse Decides to Hibernate | Creative Life & Entrepreneurship

Throughout my life and my career as a creative entrepreneur, I’ve gone through long bouts of low inspiration. Clinically, you might call it depression, avoidance, procrastination, or freeze mode.

At around 24, I made a decision.

I was working for a small manufacturing company. Still rolling in the mud as a rebel—which I’m still in, pretty sure (and I’ll be 46 next week, by the way).

I found myself resistant to working for others. I found reasons to be mad at the boss, the situation. I couldn’t force myself to fall in love with the work—even though I was casting gold and silver all day on the centrifuge. Somehow, it wasn’t enough.

I would stay up too late, come in late, come and go as I pleased. And while I did good work when I was there, I wasn’t exactly the most reliable dream employee.

Toward Christmas one year, the boss decided to let me go.

I remember being so angry. I felt mistreated. Looking back? I was pretty entitled.

My boss had two kids. He was always scrambling around, head down, looking serious. He seemed like he was constantly counting numbers in his head. I get it now—that’s what you do when the weight of other people’s livelihoods, your family, and your clients is on your shoulders.

(Funny enough, that whole head-down, counting-numbers thing he used to do? That became me. I turned into that boss I used to get so annoyed with.)

That moment—when I was laid off (or let’s just say fired with ease)—I made a choice.

I’ll never forget the moment I made that decision—standing next to the freshly spun old centrifuge in that 25-year-old shop. Talking to a coworker and friend at the time. That’s when I made the permanent choice to go out on my own.

I would start my own business in my garage and never go back to working for anyone else.

Fuck this... basically.

That anger, rebellion, and desire to feel independent—and make my own schedule—outweighed everything else. That fuel accelerated the action.

I did it. I started making pendants, wedding rings, and whatever else I could muster up from my friend group and people I met.

I rented out rooms in the house I was living in, which lowered my rent and utilities. And it happened—I became my own boss.

I struggled a lot, though. My kitchen was right next to my garage, which was now my place of employment. And I quickly realized there was zero accountability for me to show up to work now.

Except for the necessity to pay my bills—and deliver jewelry on time if I wanted to keep this going.

I’m super fortunate to have fallen into the custom design world and to have created the necessity to work for myself at such a young age.

It allowed me to live a creative life and learn some really tough lessons early on. Later, in my 30s, people my age who worked with me couldn’t imagine having come so far at that stage in life.

For me, there was no other way.

But what do you do when your paycheck now relies on your own creativity and inspiration—and the muse decides it’s time to hibernate?

I would have long spells of severe procrastination and lack of inspiration.

The same underlying habits were still there, even though I’d made that ballsy choice to work for myself. Some days, I didn’t want to show up. I wanted to sleep in. Stay cozy in bed.

I’m still trying to figure out what driving force pushed me through those long rest periods.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’d sit and sketch for hours. Doodle in my notebook/planner. Work on branding my business (which, at the time, I called Hard Court Studios—a nickname I was given while working at Whole Foods in my teens).

I made a lot of stuff. I had a casting setup in my garage and landed some cool gigs—like pendants for bridesmaids, graduation gifts, and more.

I still have all those old notebooks.

But like clockwork, seasonally, I’d go through long periods where nothing inspired me. I’d beat myself up. What’s wrong with me?

And yet, somehow, I’d push through and make ends meet.

I don’t think I saw a steady paycheck until I was about 29. That’s when I started my school—and figured out I should probably put myself on a payroll to avoid the stress of month-to-month living.

So how do we power through the messy parts—when creativity crawls into its cave for a long hibernation?

How do we make ends meet when that bear sleeps... and we refuse to take a job under someone else’s rules?

Looking back, all I can say is:

From necessity, we create the recipe.

We get scrappy. We force it into fruition.

But now, years later, I realize that’s not the healthiest approach.

Here’s a hard fact:

**If the need isn’t there, we can put things off forever