LEARNING IS THE JOURNEY
I’ve been getting a few emails lately from young women asking for guidance as they prepare to start their journeys as creative entrepreneurs. It’s a topic I’ve become really passionate about and something I’m going to be exploring some more on the blog year.
I’ll start with a premise: I think a lot of us harbour a creative entrepreneur deep down inside, but figuring out how to realise that vision out in the real world can be a tricky process.
Has that ever been true for you?
For years it was definitely true for me!
Last March I swapped my life as an underemployed academic to become a self-employed blogger, shop owner, and freelance writer. In some ways the traditional education I’ve been lucky enough to receive prepared me well for my new roles – I’m confident when it comes to writing, researching, analysing situations critically, and working independently. In other more technical areas I’ve felt much less capable; when it’s come to fixing code on my websites, editing photos for submission to glossy magazines, inventing new marketing strategies, or in the earliest days just figuring out how to set up my Oztrail gazebo at the markets, there’s usually something on my to-do list that challenges me to the point that it feels like I’m reinventing the wheel.
And I know I’m not the only one who gets this way.
Everyone who sets out to do things they’ve never done before necessarily has to figure out all kinds of big and small things along the way. Usually a few minutes (or a few hours!) searching Google and/or Youtube yields solutions… but some of the problems we come up against are more complicated.
When it comes to creating the life we want, I reckon there are real and perceived barriers that stand in our way. Thinking there isn’t enough time in a day to work on becoming who we know we’re meant to be is usually a perceived barrier. On the other hand, not having the right core skills to materialise our brightest ideas in heads can be a very real problem indeed.
While I firmly believe that everything is ultimately figure-outable, sometimes we need more than just a good search engine to get from where we are to where our big dreams are taking us. After a year of building my own DIY dream, I’ve finally realised that for some things, it really does make sense to ask for help from the experts.
If any of this resonates, I’d encourage having a look at what the Australian Open University has to offer. Further study on a flexible, part-time basis can help catalyse a career change or helpfully smooth some of the rough spots on a creative entrepreneur’s road. And unlike private academies, AOU courses come with a whole host of student support and counselling programmes as well as fee help. For me their Unit in Digital Video would be perfect as I really want to start creating great video content for the blog this year… ideally without having to subject my readers to unfortunate production values as I struggle to slowly learn the ropes all on my own.
Learning really is the journey, so what would you like to find out about this year? What does the career of your dreams look like, and what are the small steps along the way to making it happen?
* This post is sponsored by Nuffnang. Thanks for supporting the brands that help support my family!
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