How to survive the waiting season

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Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter that explores what it means to be a modern-day creative. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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Throughout our lives, we experience seasons of growth and seasons of being. 

But there is a third season that’s seldom talked about: the waiting season. 

The waiting season is when you wait to see the fruits of your labor and the growth from the seeds you’ve planted. 

I’m willing to argue that the waiting season is harder than taking action. While putting in the reps is hard, waiting to see progress is harder. 

It’s because surviving the waiting season is a mental game. 

It’s the biggest test of our patience. As one of my friends often reminds me, quoting Tolstoy, “The two greatest warriors are patience and time.”

We don’t know how long our waiting season is. Some are weeks, others months, or even years. 

We have to wait for our moment, even though we can taste it. We know we’re on the precipice of something big. We can see the stars align, but we don’t have any tangible evidence that they have yet. 

It’s hard to stay consistent and put in the reps when we don’t see progress. As human beings, we need the validation that we’re on the right track to give us the momentum to keep going. Even when we can’t see the light at the other end of the tunnel, we want to know what there is. 

Quite frankly, it becomes exhausting to show up day after day and week after week with nothing to show for it. 

When you’re in a waiting season, it feels like a drought. You feel stuck as if you’re not making progress but not digressing either. 

When doubt starts to creep in, you begin to wonder if and when things will start to happen for you. You begin to doubt whether you know what you’re doing and whether you’re on the right path in the first place. The waiting season makes you reevaluate all of your life choices. 

And it’s enough to break you.

The waiting season can be uncomfortable. We feel like we’re in the in-between, between where we want to go and where we want to be. Often, this is because we’re in a transition period.

I came across this TikTok that explains the phenomenon perfectly. The creator describes this as the idea of “bug soup.” You’re not a caterpillar anymore, but you’re not yet a butterfly. When you’re in your bug soup phase, you are uncomfortable yet at peace at the same time. Because you know that even though you haven’t had your moment yet, you’re still headed in the right direction. 

But the thing about waiting seasons is that they come to an end sooner or later. 

And while the waiting season is difficult, it also has a way of revealing vital information to us. 

They say that the worse you want something, it’s because a future version of you already has it. We are often placed in a waiting season because we’re not yet ready to receive the thing we want the most. We still have some work to do and some growing. We need to put in the work on ourselves to become the person worthy of receiving whatever is coming to us. 

The only way to get out of the waiting season is to go through it. 

It means putting in the reps and being disciplined to stay consistent, no matter how much or little progress we see. 

It’s about not wavering when things get tough, no matter how much you want to give up and quit. 

It’s about being grateful for the opportunities you have in front of you. 

It’s about reflection and looking at things through a different lens. The opportunities we think we want might not be the right path for us to take. 

Instead of rushing the waiting season, we need to lean into it. 

We need to enjoy the journey and the process of introspection. We can look at it positively, that we’re preparing ourselves for what’s to come rather than being held back from our opportunities. 

And once our moment does come, it’ll make the waiting season worth it. 

Creative Corner

• 🎞️ What I’m Consuming: Cobra Kai season 6 part 3. 10/10 no notes.

• 💡 What I’m Loving: The app Google Photo Scan to digitize physical photos.

• 🎨 What I’m Working On: Doing a story analysis of the Star Wars franchise. I’ve done this with Harry Potter and the Avengers, two of my favorite franchises.

• 💭 Weekly Musing:

Thank you 💕

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I’m so grateful for all of your support!

Alexa Phillips is a writer, brand strategist, and multi-passionate creative. She is the founder of Bright Eyes Creative, a creative studio helping creative brand leaders become tastemakers by turning their POV into content-driven brands

Where to find me:

• Join the waitlist for Content Kickstart, my 8-week blog intensive, where you’ll learn how to use your POV to streamline your blog writing process to create more content in less time—without sacrificing optimization.

• Listen to my recent podcast episodes.

• Subscribe to my other newsletter, The Underground, a weekly zine that teaches creative brand leaders to become tastemakers by creating unforgettable content that breaks through the noise and leaves a mark.

• Join Write Club, free weekly 90-minute co-writing sessions dedicated to helping you knock out all the content you have to write for your business.