7 Things That Made Me Stop And Think This Week.
Creative Sparks: #10
Wow. It’s been 10 straight weeks of doing these weekly roundups. Small victories, but I love sticking with these intentional reflections of what I read each week. I hope they’ve been useful to you as they’ve been for me!
1. Should You Become A Manager? by Cap Watkins
This is one of the most insightful pieces of career advice I’ve read here.
Becoming a manager usually follows a period of sustained excellence (and recognition) as an individual contributor.
Everyone wants to be a manager. Everyone wants to become a leader. But what does being a manager really mean?
“Being a manager is not a higher-level version of the job you had before — it’s an entirely new job and an entirely new way of working.”
2. Are You Putting Too Much Pressure on Yourself to Keep Moving Forward? by Aimee Pearcy
This served as an important reminder for me at work while tackling all my different side projects.
“Sometimes we need to take a breather to stop and reconsider whether we’re even on the right ladder, and if we really want the thing that’s at the top or if we’re just mindlessly climbing because we’ve got nothing better to do.”
It’s like cruising down the highway at 120km per hour and putting the pedal to the metal all the time. If you don’t slow down to navigate curves and bends or stop for pedestrians, you’re going to get yourself killed.
Take time to slow down, evaluate and reflect. Moving forward and making progress all the time is the ideal reality, but is it really healthy?
3. When We Have to Write for Money by Erika Sauter
I’ve always admired how Erika writes about her experiences with depression so openly and honestly like in the article below.
Here, she writes about the omnipresent struggle of most creatives — you need money to create, but taking money for your creations, especially if you write about your own personal experiences sometimes feels strange.
As she rightly points out:
“We need to be on social media platforms. We need to market our books. Nothing sells unless we sell it. We need to share our stories. No one reads them unless we share them. It’s a constant process and a creative one at that.”
4. Fundamental Attribution Error: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices By Nir Eyal
Reading this article makes my psychology major self happy — summarised succinctly into these two images within this article:
Scary isn’t it?
I’ve seen myself thinking these exact same ways before. Why do we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, but refuse to extend that same privilege to others?
“When someone else screws up, we see them as the most obvious cause of the problem. We don’t see all the things that might also be going on. When it comes to our own mistakes, we’re fully aware of the factors outside our control, so we understand the context of why we tripped up.”
5. When Hobbies Become Jobs by Maliha Mannan
What is the difference between an amateur and a professional? Maliha Mannan has a succinct description — it’s when your skills make you money.
And professionals deliver on time.
No need to give yourself barely-there descriptions like amateur, aspiring, hobbyist, etc.
If you get paid for a skill, you are a professional. Plain and simple.
6. Does Taking Pictures on Our Smartphones Have Any Effect on Our Memory? by Tali Orad
We take photos to remember events, things or moments, but do we go back and refer to these photos?
Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure if I do. I don’t even remember I took those photos sometimes.
Tali Orad examines why this is so in her article.
By taking photos, you’re “outsourcing the effort of remembering the moment from your brain to your phone”.
Hmm. Food for thought!
7. When Life Gets Overwhelming, Remember to Breathe by Lindsey Lazarte
This is a simple, but much needed reminder for anyone facing a stressful situation:
“You can’t properly assess situations or make sound decisions when you are tired, under stress, or are feeling fatigued.”
Take a step back, breathe, step away from the situation if you need to.
Each week, I compile 7 articles, videos or other thoughts from books and write out my thoughts on them. Want to get them as they’re released? Follow the publication! You can have a look at the previous editions here.
