At the beginning of the year, I set myself the goal of working on my editorial illustration portfolio. But there were other things I also wanted to pursue, such as teaching and my long-held dream of subtitling movies. I needed to pick one thing because if I tried to juggle many things at once, I wouldn’t make any progress.
However, choosing what to focus on felt impossible, and it caused me to have decision paralysis. Some days, I was determined, “This is it; I’m focusing on illustration,” and the next day, I was doubting my decision. “Is there even work on illustration now that AI has bloomed?” “Can I break into subtitling?” “Maybe I should take the safe route and get a teaching job.”
A friend once told me a story she read in Tim Ferris’s book about a donkey who was hungry and thirsty. He was standing between a stack of hay and a bucket of water and kept looking left and right, trying to decide. Hay or water? But he was unable to decide, so he died of both hunger and thirst. Well, I was like the donkey. Not choosing one career path was killing me.
What set me free was this interview with Elizabeth Gilbert and Marie Forleo. There, Liz Gilbert shares what she does when she has multiple ideas and one energy stream. She says she has a team meeting with her ideas and interrogates them. “What’s your idea, and how formed are you?” The idea tries to explain itself, but admits it’s not formulated yet. So she says, “Well, come back when you’re more formulated because right now, there’s an idea that’s pretty formulated, and it’s ready to go.” It sounds silly, but you must watch the interview for it to make sense.
Sometimes, there are exciting ideas, but unfortunately, they are vague or take longer to be ready, which got me thinking. In order to teach, I first needed to improve my Dutch, follow a short educational program, pass a test, and apply for teaching jobs. In Mexico, my home country, I worked as a teacher for five years, but here in the Netherlands, I had to begin from scratch. So, it would take me at least two years to get back to teaching.
To be a subtitler, I needed to buy the software (the specific one that I liked wasn’t on my budget at that moment) and take a course or two to dust off what I learned two years ago. To work on my editorial illustration portfolio, I needed to sit down and create art. I had all the art supplies I needed. Furthermore, we recently moved to a new house with my dream studio—a small, cozy room with a great view. Nothing was stopping me from becoming an editorial illustrator, and I had a long list of people I had been wanting to draw, including Elizabeth Gilbert!
So, I went with the career path (or rather the skillset) that was ready to go. Once I got into a drawing routine, I gained momentum, and it felt good! I knew in my heart that this was the right thing to do at this moment. After all, as Marie Forleo said, “Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.”
Choosing one thing now doesn’t mean that the others won’t happen. I can do one thing for a few years, and then do another for a few years, and so on. When it comes to career paths, it’s best to think long-term.
What about you? Have you ever been in a position where you become paralyzed by too many ideas? What helped you decide what to focus on? Tell me in the comments.
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