Treading Through Treacle
A brief history
For those who don’t know my name is Dan Edwards. I’m a 26 year old freelance designer from the UK.
I’ve been a freelance designer for about 5/6 years. I’ve been pretty successful at it, too. I’ve worked with some great companies and even been lucky enough to win a couple of awards. I live in a beautiful city on the South Coast of the UK and I’m surrounded by great friends and family.
Where I’m at today
However, over the last couple of months I’ve been feeling at an all time low (professionally). I’ve become uninterested in design, particularly web design and have been battling with staying motivated enough to work on client projects.
I’ve constantly been asking myself “why?” and feeling stupid at not being able to find an answer. I certainly don’t hate design, I cannot imagine doing anything else. I’m still in awe of some of the work my peers are producing and have found a renewed love for printed products. It’s like I’m feeling inspired but unable to translate that into anything.
Financially, I’m unstable. I’ve had a projects coming in the door consistently but I have been working month to month. Projects are covering my rent and bills with a bit left over to enjoy myself. I’m currently in and out of my overdraft like I’m doing the Hokey Cokey with my bank and I’ve had 2 projects where I’ve not been paid on time (one being months late due to the company suffering a financial crisis) so yeah, definitely not rolling in cash.
Everything feels temporary
A few months back Ryan and I launched oozled, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this and I hope to give a talk about it soon. I also love the fact that thousands of people use oozled and tell us every day how much they enjoy it. But no matter what I do, and how many of these kind comments I get the warm fuzzy feeling soon dissolves into nothing and I’m back to my unmotivated state.
Right now I’ve got one of my dream clients, I can’t say anything more about it right now but I can’t ask for a better project. With this in my mind I ask myself, “Why the fuck are you so unmotivated Dan?” and to be honest - I don’t know. I’m temporarily excited and motivated to work on the project, and I feel like I’m producing good work but it’s a real struggle.
I’m lucky enough to have a group of friends that are very sociable and this allows me to go out and forget about everything for a short while. But again. before long I’m back to where I was.
Right now it just feels as though I’m treading through treacle, the simplest of projects become mountains and I’ve not got the energy to climb.
What needs to change?
Right now, I don’t know. There are several options open to me and I’m going to discuss them along with much more in future posts. All I know is, I’m going to push to create my own oppourtunies and see where that takes me.
That’s it for now. I’ve started this series of posts in an attempt to share where my head is at each week and with the support of others I hope to get back to being myself again.
Love,
Dan x
