Creatures of Habit & Other Mythical Stooges

Are you a creature of habit, or a slave to patterns?

Guilty as charged for being the latter, even though for years, I tried to convince (console, delude, comfort – pick your poison) myself that that was not the case.

I haven’t posted anything on LinkedIn for nearly a month, and you’d think that something horrible happened in the meantime, but it’s quite the opposite, actually.

Apart from business as usual, this is what I’ve done:

• Made a functional and usable version of my blog redesign/rebranding I can actually work with (much to my surprise and contrary to my belief that I would never be able to do it)
• Finally finished the last edits of the book – Cross-Referencing Creativity (no more excuses left, I guess)
• Made super cute & useful playing blocks for my grandma to hone her cognitive and motor skills (huge success!!!)
• Made my first fully functional widget called “I Did It” (I have no idea what possessed me to do that, I just wanted a clickable button, yet here we are 😁)
• Made earrings for my friend that match the necklace I made her nearly three years ago (I thought she was joking every time she hinted she wanted them (ergo, people – just say what you want, otherwise you might have to wait for years… or never get what you want))
• Made my first 3D earrings that are a representation of a beach (yet everyone mistakes them for the Ukrainian flag?!)
• And last but not least – made my very first earrings with a stamping technique with ink (I love them so much I can’t even 😁)
• Oh, yeah – I also had to pre-launch &TAQ (because not even I can say no to the pressure of the same people asking “can we order yet?!” over and over again)
• Turned a poem I wrote two years ago into a picture book, and then into a video (that I actually like this time – I did this before once, but I wasn’t satisfied with it)
• Aaaand… made an awesome improv game for being late on Mondays.

Which has me thinking – there’s probably more that I’ve done, and that makes things even worse.

Let me explain.

A few years ago, when I had those horrible health issues, I promised myself I would share more of what I do with the world (make every day count, and stuff like that), because it’s quite annoying to constantly explain to new people what I actually do. How I do it. And why.

And the worst thing is that most people who actually do know me well have no idea about the scope of all the things I do.

And though the plan seemed foolproof, I forgot about a tiny detail – the fact I suffered from a severe case of the finest blend of impostor syndrome and fear of visibility. Which, you can only assume, has kinda hindered me in my attempts to do so.

However, recently I found myself surrounded by some truly impressive people, and for the first time I realized that this is the place I belong. And the only thing that’s stopping me from being there is… myself.

And like many times before, I was faced with the eternal dilemma: tell my fears to shove it, or occupy myself with something else and wait “until I’m ready.”

And I guess we all know the answer to what happened next.

So… I finally decided to tackle the thing that scares me the most, head-first, and I will be posting more (videos) about my creative process from the “inside”, as it happens, including all aspects of what I do, on TikTok and Instagram

Some of the things from the list above are already there, if you’re curious how they came to life.

Hope to see you there @wearebiljka! 🤗