Burned Out? How To Reignite Your Passion
I was so focused on my company being successful that I lost all inspiration. Here’s how I got it back.
Last week, I went to my very first jewelry event: The Antique Jewelry and Art Conference, which the organizers lovingly refer to as Jewelry Camp. I almost didn’t attend: it was two full days , a decent amount of money (money that could have been put towards my company!), and apart from it being about jewelry, it seemed so far away from what I’m doing: launching a direct-to-consumer high-end necklace line. So I thought “what if there isn’t any good networking?”
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In the world of launching my business, working full-time and attempting to hang out with humans other than myself, all while finding moments to just sit on the sofa and read, I confronted every coffee meeting, event and email with a clinical “is it worth it?”assuming that each choice either helped me or distracted me, that there was a right and a wrong, that life must be lived in a linear fashion, pointed towards a pinnacle of success.
I don’t think that I’m the only one: every day, we’re tweeted a Buzzfeed story or emailed some Medium (hi!) piece about maximizing our time, about the 10 Habits of Billionaire Founders Under 20, about the 2 hour work week, and a belief sets in that we will make it, that our company or career will be successful if we can just remember to check our email only at 10am and 4pm and meditate each morning. Our life shows a tinge of worry around the edges and the weird things in our sketchbooks get a little boring.
Thankfully, the fear that I might miss out on a valuable moment overcame the fear that I might be wasting time and I think that also, a tiny forgotten part of me told me to just go. So, I got on Metro North at 7am. I didn’t meditate that morning. It was okay.
There were no potential investors there or ecommerce masterminds, and I left with a grand total of four business cards, but I spent two days surrounded by people – collectors, historians, appraisers, women who simply love jewelry – who are obsessed with the very thing that I’m obsessed with. We flipped through rare books about 1960s costume jewelry, touched filigree dies from a 1920s factory in Providence, and learned that rhinestones were originally pieces of quartz discovered along the Rhine River. That feeling of finding my home, of settling into myself, was the most satisfying moment I’ve had since I decided to start a company over a year ago.
If you’re a new entrapraneur or designer or you’re bored in your career but just realized you love cooking or you just landed your dream job, go be in your new world. Find people who inspire you and hang out with them. Even though many of our pursuits — founding a startup, designing a collection, starting a blog — are inherently solitary, you can’t create incredible work in isolation. Take the time to attend events, go to classes, walk around shows and immerse ourselves. It will bring passion back to what you do and remind you of who you are, and without that understanding, success is impossible.
