Losing the creative flame

One thing that has kept me busy the last few months is when do you stop with something? Every project has good days and bad days, when the bad days start overtaking the good days and you have a hard time finding the energy to start your work I think it might be time to rethink if you actually want to continue.

I’m not saying you should give up, but you do need to find a balance that keeps you happy. Last week Chris Hynes posted a series of blogposts about his time at Apple. His time there sounds amazing, he’s been part of some amazing projects and has some great stories to tell. It’s also something that resonated with my thoughts over the past few months.

The Aperture story is an amazing rollercoaster that sadly won’t suprise many people that have worked at a big corporte before. Fixed deadlines, throwing limitless amounts of engineers at the problem, scrapping features and dropping the ball on UX are just some of the quick fixes that will pass by you.

One bit specifically stood out to me:

Many people, including myself, developed long-term health problems. One person, as I mentioned, had a nervous breakdown, others just took forever to get any spark back in their careers. I would look these people in the eyes, and they had this look like someone close to them died.

When you’re in it I think it’s really hard to see if you’ve reached a tipping point or not. You either need very good self reflection skills or have a support system around you to notify you of changes in your behaviour.

I just hope I made the right choice.