The life I was living a few months ago was eating me up. No drive, no will to take on new challenges.

What you just read was a journal entry I wrote a few weeks ago.

I had stopped educating myself for months. I was letting myself be told what to do in every aspect of life.

I gave away my control. Including the one on my own growth.

What a terrible mistake to do.

If you can relate to that, you know how miserable you can feel.

The moment you start sacrificing your development for comfort and pleasure is the moment you initiate your own suffering.

And objectively speaking I am no one to complain. And probably neither are you.

But when you lack something to go after, no matter how good your situation is, you start regressing and entropy takes over.

This letter is for those who feel they are meant for more than the current state they are in.

The ones that have a burning flame but don’t know how to ignite it.

This letter is about how your creative pursuit can save you (as it did and does for me) from chaos and inner misery.

The importance of a creative pursuit

A creative pursuit is just finding unique ways to express ideas and information, and spending extensive time doing so.

It is not limited to “art”.

It’s about connecting the dots in a way that makes sense to you, and hopefully to others.

Most people don’t realize what it can do for you:

• Focus Improvement: It allows you to put your mind on one thing, helping you to divert your thoughts from daily stress and anxiety that can be blockers for task completion.

• Mental Fitness: It serves as an emotional outlet, offering you a way to express feelings that might be difficult to communicate otherwise.

• Enhanced Problem-Solving Skills: Most creative pursuits will require you innovative thinking to overcome challenges you will encounter on the way, which you can leverage in other areas of life.

• Physical Health Benefits: Pursuits like landscape photography can require you A LOT of physical effort (which is my case). And it can be all the drive you need to improve your physical abilities.

• Sense of Purpose and Fulfillment: For many, it is a deeply fulfilling part of life, providing a sense of purpose and a way for you to contribute something unique to the world.

How to find your own creative pursuit

Everyone has something that brings them to a higher state of existence.

But not everyone finds it at an early age (if at all).

If you haven’t yet, it’s okay.

And if you have, be open to finding something even higher.

What’s beautiful about this process is that you are using external elements available to you to trigger internal stimuli.

What looks like an outside quest actually turns out to be an inner discovery.

Some people think that “photography” in itself is a creative pursuit. And in many cases, it can be.

However, I don’t have the same drive and joy doing photography types (such as portraits or events) other than landscape and astro.

And so here are a few tips I have tested myself to get to the point I am now.

1. Explore. Leave away any assumptions you may have on things you might like or not like. Be open to trying stuff and adopt a “fuck yes I’ll try that” mindset.

2. Reflect. Trying new things will inevitably make you produce dopamine. But try to go beyond that and get to the emotions. They are here to provide you with signals and feedback. Treat them as such.

3. Find Inspiration. Finding people who are great at what they do and from whom you enjoy what they produce might be a signal for you to try it out yourself.

4. Set Aside Time to Practice. If you don’t put time when you can focus on that self-discovery, there is no way you’ll be able to reflect and figure out what works for you. This is a process and a practice to implement. It doesn’t mean you need to block hours to do so unless you want to, but dedicated time will have a significant impact on your search.

5. Document. For me, writing is my way of documenting what I do. And this is the most straightforward way I see. Awesome if you can find any other way, but do it. It’s a vessel for your emotions, and your mind, and it will bring you clarity.

6. Don’t Fear Failure. Failure is admittedly my biggest fear. I know what I am talking about here. I have hours of work on projects that never saw the light of day because I was afraid of “failing”. Well, guess what? It never helped me improve in anything. So do your best to go beyond that.

7. Exchange. Communicate with people what you are doing. Not only can you get new ideas from them, but you will be able to notice HOW you speak about what you’re doing. This is a goldmine of information telling you if you should persevere or not.

If you’re a perfectionist like me, try to remember this:

It’s a process. Remember that the goal is to find cues of what you enjoy.

Not things you can be perfect at.

It’s less about becoming an expert and more about expressing yourself in different ways and enjoying the journey.

Be mindful of that process and practice.

I promise you’ll see results.

Thank you for reading.

See you in the next one,

Angel