Angela Ferrari has always lived a creative life. When she was young she lived in a rural area where she figured out creative ways to play. She would build tree forts, spray paint plants, and turn her mundane environment into stories.

Angela continued that creative streak in college where she studied studio art and painting. After college, she moved to Portland, Maine and started working at a restaurant. While working as a waitress, Angela forged relationships with the restaurant owners and patrons. After a while, Angela was able to quit her job as a waitress to work on her art full-time.

For some, having a successful business as an artist would be enough, but that wasn’t the case for Angela. One day while doing yoga,  she had a vision about a dog doing yoga. This would eventually turn into her first children’s book Digger’s Daily Routine. Even with three completed books and a newly released podcast, it still feels like Angela has more creativity to share with the world.

In this episode Angela talks about believing in yourself, having fun, and how struggles can lead to success.

Here are three things you can learn from Angela:

When we are first starting out in our creative careers, a lot of self-doubt creeps in. “I’m not a professional artist, why would anyone buy from me?” we ask ourselves. We believe in our work, but don’t believe in ourselves.

That’s why it’s so important to believe in who you are and what you are doing. That’s what Angela did when she went from being a painter to also being a writer.

“A big part of it too was I was afraid of the impostor syndrome, especially transitioning from painter to writer. I was afraid to call myself a writer, and therefore I was afraid to promote myself as a writer. Once I got established painting, I liked being called a painter. I liked that being part of my identity, but it was a little harder when I was unpublished or before I launched a podcast, calling myself a podcaster. It’s hard to almost validate yourself when you don’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything. But then I realized the action of doing it is what makes me a writer. The action of recording and creating episodes is what made me a podcaster.”

The only way you can overcome the impostor syndrome is by believing in what you do. You have to own it.

“Once I started being kinda comfortable with myself and saying yes, I do belong in this space, and I can put myself out there, not just my work, but myself into my work, and that’s now part of my identity.”

Many of us believe we just have to reach our goals and we’ll have “made it.” The truth is, there’s no such thing as making it. The bar is constantly moving. You have to evolve with that sliding scale.

“You never really arrive. You’re always going to be growing in this creative space. You’re always going to be evolving in staying current in your field. So once you start that initial page in the book, you now are a writer. The more you say to yourself, “I am this. I am doing this.” Then it kind of positively reinforces and motivates you to say “I need to follow through because this is now part of who I am.”

Most creative people discover their love for art early in life because they had a blast while creating. We enjoyed every moment of the creative process from dipping the brush into the paints to wrapping up a finished painting.

But along the way, we lose sight of that fun and joy. We let the business side of creativity distract us. We become discouraged when we don’t see immediate results. Angela found a way around this by making sure everything she does is fun.

“For me, I don’t like doing something if it’s not fun. I like to have fun and it’s everything from cooking to working out, once I find a method of ‘Oh, this is a creative way I can do this. This works for me.”

This was especially true for the way she approached marketing. She found a way to make marketing fun.

“My approach to marketing, I knew it’s necessary and it feeds into that big picture goal I have of ‘Okay, I want to tell stories. That’s my big goal.’ So I start telling stories when I market. I find really fun images to use when I create campaigns for social media. And starting a podcast was a way I could promote myself in an authentic way or I could use my voice and speak directly to people. I knew that was something I could have fun with for marketing.”

Sure there are some tedious elements to starting and maintaining a business, but the best way to get around the tedium is to have fun with it.

“The business side, yeah there are definitely some tedious things that are hard to do, but once you learn something, you can find a way to have fun with it because the learning part of it is definitely I think the hard part of any part of a business.”

We’ve all faced struggles in our creative careers. It’s why the term “starving artist” exists. No one said living a fulfilling creative life would be easy. You will face ups and downs. You will soar to the highest highs and hit rock bottom. That’s just how the uncertain life of a creative goes.

Those same struggles are also what makes success so sweet. We might dread them in the moment, but when we look back, we are usually glad we found our way through them. That’s exactly what happened to Angela when she went from being a painter to being a writer too.

“A lot of times I look back and things that felt like struggles or hardships, I look back and think, ‘Oh thank goodness that happened.’ I mean, I’ve had a lot of rejection and failure… starting out as a painter and going and working my way up as a writer. Any time I’m submitting a piece I’d get feedback that, a lot of times I just didn’t feel like I could do it. I didn’t realize I had it in me.”

Those struggles push us to achieve more. They help us determine determine if we want to forge on. They help us ask ourselves the right questions. They help keep us honest.

“So those struggles, they definitely push me. They definitely make me check in and say ‘Do I want this enough? Is this what I want?’ And the answer has always been yes. So I’ve always had to push through by again asking the questions. Keep that goal in mind. I do have a lot of visual images in my work space… Those kinds of things are those kind of reminders that really help push me forward when I’m going through an area where I just don’t think I can do it.”

Read more shownotes from episode 80 with Angela Ferrari