A dose of my own 'Medicine'?

A few weeks, nay, months ago, actually, I started designing some flyers and business cards for FlowState - Find Yours!

The designs were coming together reasonably well until I heard the sound of laboured breathing behind me, felt hot breath on my neck and the caught evil stench of stale sweat and cigarettes hitting my nose. A paunchy, red-faced, moustached man, with grey receding greasy hair, known as 'TM', had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, hovering behind me. He leaned over my right shoulder. I froze.

Paralysed, I waited for the usual rage-venting to commence. I felt the urge to dive sideways before the usual screaming started and Pantone markers, Rotring ink pens, rulers, and even sharp scalpels started flying across the orange-walled studio.

I was certain he'd seen something bad, there on the artboard I was working on. Something half a millimetre out of whack. Or a piece of typesetting slightly fainter than the rest.

Weirdly this time, TM kept schtum. I closed my eyes, praying he'd pass by and pick on one of my colleagues,  just as he regularly did.

Where was I?

Back in the graphic design studio at Tattersall Advertising in Harrogate? No of course not! This is 2026, not 1991!

I wasn't working on an artboard with pens and scalpels, columns of typesetting and fancy Letraset headlines. I was working alone in my own studio, in Keighley. Just me, sitting at my laptop, mouse under my right hand, design software open, flyer design almost finished. There was no-one else here for TM to pick on!

That evil bully hung about though, shrinking back a little now, as if slightly confused that I wasn't preparing to duck. Eventually he hopped up onto the back of my chair and took up residence on my shoulder, swinging his navy blue pinstripe clad legs to and fro, watching and waiting for me to misalign a bit of text, or not leave enough space, so the overall balance was 'off'.

My own doubts started creeping in then. My inner critic piped up. This design isn't working. I've picked the wrong font. There's too much text. Why the heck did I choose purple?! I need a better image. The message isn't clear. It doesn't flow right. No-one's going to read it. I'm wasting my time. I'm wasting my money. I shouldn't be doing this. It's been too long. I should pay someone to do this for me...Yada, yada, blah, blah...

We all know what happens when the perfectionism and self-doubt demons catch us out! There's a lot of negative talk goes on between our ears. And guess what? Progress is halted. Projects get shelved. Those business cards and flyers got pushed down to the very bottom of my priority list.

Can you believe it? That lunatic of a boss, the 'Ghost of Studio Past' is still haunting me! After 35 years!

Getting past the 'Ghost of Studio Past'

In the few weeks that followed, I found lots of other, more pressing, things to be doing to move FlowState forwards. I told myself the flyers could wait. I wouldn't need the business cards yet. Anything to avoid going back and finishing the job.

Sad, right? But it's our memories, sometimes buried deep, and our inner critic, so just thoughts really, which get in the way of us humans exercising the natural creativity that's inside everyone.

Just as a belief that you can't draw, or a fear of making a mistake, might prevent you ever getting started on, or finishing, a creative project, so it does me too from time to time.

But I am 35 years older, and maybe a teensy bit wiser than 21 year old me now. I recognise TM (that phantom evil boss from my time working in an advertising agency) and Mr Butler (my grumpy, bitter drawing teacher), for what they are. Just ghosts from my past.

They have no place in the here and now. They are just memories. They have no substance. They are in my thoughts, yes, but I can choose which thoughts I pay attention to and which ones I can allow to pass me by.

So last week I gave myself a little pep talk (I do this a lot), persuaded myself to open up those design files, got them finished and then uploaded them to the printing company's website.

I will admit, I still dithered a bit (OK, I went back and forth, checking, rechecking and rechecking I'd rechecked, stopped dead, went off to make a cuppa, came back, checked again) before I dared hit the 'Checkout' button, just in case I'd missed something being a 'little bit out of whack'.

But I did it!!!!! I pulled up my big girl's knickers and did it!!!!! And it felt flipping amazing!

It's a big thing getting your first flyers and business cards ready for a new business! Once they make it into real life there's no going back! An event horizon, as the Action Leads on my Masters course refer to. Ooh! Scary! But not as scary as the real TM used to seem!

The FlowState - Find Yours! business cards have arrived. I shouldn't have worried. Don't they look gorgeous? The flyers are due to arrive tomorrow. I can't wait!

But. I may still cover my eyes as I open the box...

...just in case TM leaps out and screeches at me that they look utterly hideous!