Ditching the 9-5 world.
My creative career, my businesses – The Creative’s Toolkit itself – were all born from these first courageous choices.
WE’RE always one decision away from a completely different life.
Every time I have stood at crossroads, I’ve had this inexplicable feeling – a pull – to change mine.
In school and university, we’re led to believe that ‘careers’ are made in the city. If you have grown up in the country, as I did, you would know most of our secondary school years are spent dreaming about the world of opportunities cities supposedly offer. Whether you loved Sex and the City or Gossip Girl, there was a glamorous allure and a whisper of a promise; dreams happen in big cities.
When I left my country hometown in 2014, bound for a new state, the city, and a new life … I was sure the sparkling city lights, TGIF drinks, and flashy corporate job would fulfil me forever. But it didn’t, and it never would – because that path wasn’t meant for me.
As I write this, back in my hometown a decade later, I’m sure my 18 year-old self would be aghast. How could you go ‘back’? But the thing is, sometimes we never know what isn’t meant for us until we have tried it, lived it. And in my pursuit of what I thought my life should be, I discovered what it was meant to be.
I’m now a full-time multi-creative: a published photographer and editorial writer, creative freelancer, business owner (The Creative’s Toolkit among others!), and artist alongside my mother Sarah in our creative studio Hope & Co.. I’ve forged a creative career on my terms, that isn’t defined by my postcode. As host of Courageous Creatives Podcast, I’m on a mission to help creatives everywhere find their courage and carve out the career of their dreams too.
FINDING MY COURAGE
Being a creative has always been my calling – but it wasn’t always something I had the courage to pursue. For so many of us, it’s never as simple as just deciding to ‘stick it to the man’ and eat 2-minute noodles until you make some money as an artist. (In fact, ‘busting the starving artist myth’ is one of the founding principles of Courageous Creatives – so we’ll work on that together.)
There are usually huge barriers holding people back – fear, money, lack of self-confidence, being scared of breaking rank, or perhaps a lack of support and belief from friends or family.
I see my break-up with the 9-5 world in two stages; the first, leaving the city, and deciding that I wasn’t going to subscribe to that way of life; the second, leaving my last 9-5 job. Severing myself from the city life was perhaps the hardest: it was like rewriting code in my brain.
From age 18 to 22, I had D.V. first boyfriend, and the misogynistic nature of that relationship and environment repeatedly put me down whenever I achieved. I was told my creative abilities were ‘hobbies’ I’d never make money from; that I would never be able to afford the things I wanted in life; and that I wasn’t supposed to be more successful than him. I found small escapes for my creativity: creating drawings for the girls I babysat to colour in, and writing uni assignments. It was a far cry from where I’d started: an A+ VCE music, art and English student, and a little protégé author of online fictions (which to this day, have a combined million reads in over 85+ countries).
I made my first ‘courageous creative’ choice to register a small business, ‘Georgina Bee’, in September of 2017 (while I studied full time and had three casual jobs). My Mum and family were the cheer squad I needed; small business and entrepreneurship runs in our blood! I started illustrating cards for country children and babies during my spare time between jobs and classes. I stowed my drawings away in folders, but eventually my ex exploded and told me I needed to ‘get a real job’ – so I stopped creating in my own time. When I was finally free of that relationship at the end of 2018, I hardly knew who I was anymore. My true creative self was dormant. (I didn’t print any of my designs or make a dollar in my business account until late 2019.)
As I rebuilt my life in the months that followed, and rediscovered who I was, I became increasingly restless.
My Mum was heading overseas to the UK April-May in 2019, and encouraged me to book a ticket and join her. It was the best decision I could have made: it helped me move on, opened up my world, inspired me creatively again, and sparked a deeper love for photography. There was something about the photos I captured then (despite being on my iPhone 8 Plus!) that to me, symbolised how I’d started to see a new beauty in the world, and finally – a sense of hope for my future.
Afterwards, every time I tried to picture my life in the city long-term, I came up blank. I had just finished my degree, and was working a great corporate job that was set to segue into a fantastic career. It was an enviable opportunity, and I felt guilty for even questioning it. But after living in the city for five years, I knew it didn’t align with me anymore.
IT STARTED WITH AN EPIPHANY
On October 15, 2019, I was driving off the West-Gate bridge at a crawl. I looked at my GPS app, and realised in the time since I had left my office, to when I would get home, that I could have driven to my hometown.
That day, I had missed my Mum making a speech at the inaugural Rural Women’s Day event. I wanted to be there to support her, I wanted to meet new women, like me – and ultimately, just wanted to be in the country. (And I wasn’t to know it then, but my future husband was there, filming the event.) I became achingly aware that I was missing out on the life I actually wanted to live. As I looked over at the other cars, I saw a lot of tired, weary people. Some pinched the bridge of their nose, others scrolled their phones, and hands tapped against steering wheels in frustration. No matter who they were – essential worker or CEO, driving a relic from the early 90s, or a flashy Mercedes, everyone was stuck in the same spot, wasting the same amount of time in traffic. And I knew that couldn’t be me. Not in 5 years, 10, or 30.
As I sat there, sandwiched between cars, I craved the country more than anything in the world. I was tired of not feeling like myself; of living a life that felt like a routine imitation, not something that spoke to my soul.
On my lunch break the next day, I chanced SEEK to see if there were any jobs available in my hometown – and came across a Journalist role for the local paper. I knew little to nothing about journalism, but I was a strong writer, and knew the town and the people. I knew it was my job.
Although I quit being a journalist after 9 months, I’m grateful for all that I learnt in it – and getting that job changed my life, because it was like signallers on an airport runway: this way, it’s time to come home.
LEAVING THE 9-5 WORLD FOREVER
‘Leaving a job is easy’ – said no-one ever.
I listened a dozen podcasts and watched umpteenth YouTube videos, on how to leave your corporate job.
How to resign without burning bridges. How to bow out professionally and peacefully with a reference in tact. How do you tell your boss?
I had worked in a fantastic team, with great opportunities, and felt like I was letting people down. At the time, one of my colleagues, who had been an amazing support and mentor, gave me invaluable advice.
“I’m disappointed you’re leaving, but I’m not disappointed in you!” she had said. “You don’t owe us anything, you have done your job and worked incredibly hard. You need to do this for yourself.”
And she was right. I was too much of a people-pleaser, and the decision had to be my own. I had to own my choice, and what I wanted.
The corporate world is designed to motor on, and there would be a replacement for me: the wheel would keep on turning. Society likes to condition us to believe that we owe everything to it, and that wanting anything different is selfish or entitled.
And I battled this again ten months later, when I resigned from my job as a journalist. I didn’t feel valued where I was, the work didn’t align with me – and although I was miserable, I was scared of making people angry, or causing any inconvenience. I felt ashamed that I had studied so hard at university, only to quit; that I was leaving a stable job in global pandemic, when so many people were losing their jobs. But everything was changing. The world was facing mortality on a global scale, and it was terrifying and sobering all at once. It made me pump the breaks hard, and get a birds-eye perspective.
Do I want this to be my life, for the rest of my life? With that sinking feeling in my chest every Sunday, knowing my ‘freedom’ was running out? Waking up each Monday morning feeling uninspired and depressed? Habitually checking the clock each hour, wanting the day to end?
Of course not. No one does.
Time is the most valuable currency we will ever have. Despite what society tells you; that if you hustle endlessly every hour outside your day job, that you can have the life of your dreams – that’s rarely how it works. It’s a mentality that is designed to keep people from pursuing the life they actually want, because barely anyone has the energy to do everything. So you end up in an endless cycle of complacency.
I was scared about money. But the thing was – I had been broke in the city, just covering living costs and working four casual jobs, and living very conservatively (and no, I wasn’t a party girl buying bottles of vodka, I wasn’t an online shopaholic, nor did I have a ridiculous car loan I couldn’t afford – but the cost of living press on Millennials and Gen Z’s is a conversation for another day).
Ultimately, I realised that I could stay on a $40-45,000 salary for the next 2 to 5 years, when there was little room to move up professionally, and burn myself out trying to side-hustle. Or, I could forsake a salary, and carve my own path towards uncapped earning.
I could help my Mum build Hope & Co., and pursue all the creative things that fuel me as a person; I could finally teach myself photography, like I’d always wanted to, and maybe even work towards that as a business. I could write features for magazines, write my book, create art, and whatever else I wanted to do. First the first time since I was a wide-eyed teenager, the world felt open again.
I was done selling my time to a business that didn’t appreciate it, because the world said that’s what I ‘had to do’.
You have to want a different life, more than the security of staying the same. You have to be willing to face what scares you, so those fears no longer define you. Find the courage to live in a way that allows you to be your truest self; a life you love living.
The creative career itself has required a deeper courage than I could ever have imagined, but if I had the choice over … ?
I would always choose this path, every time – because it’s mine.
This story was originally published 23 June 2021.
A CREATIVE CHEER SQUAD
It takes courage to choose the creative path.
Courageous Creatives Podcast was launched as a place for creatives to feel inspired, supported and empowered. I truly hope, that at whichever phase you are in your creative career, that you find something here.
Let’s kick the ‘starving artist’ stigma back into the 20th century where it belongs, and build some amazing modern careers!
