Our best work comes from our biggest messes

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter that explores what it means to be a modern-day creative through essays, interviews, and commentary.

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In Season 4 of The Bear, Luca and Marcus have the following exchange in the pastry lab: 

Marcus: If everything in your life feels like it's a mess...

Luca: What are you thinking about?

Marcus: I'm just thinking about that feeling where if everything in your life feels like it's a mess, then your work probably does too.

Luca: I hear that. You could also say that our work tastes the way it does because we go through that mess to get there.

This struck a chord with me. 

Our work is a culmination of everything we’ve been through. Our lives serve as our muse, with every interest, encounter, and experience serving as inspiration. 

So why shouldn’t our messes and challenges be viewed any differently? 

We look at the messiness in our lives as a prohibitor. We view it as a deficit, a limitation. We feel ashamed if we show any indication that our life is a mess, instead masking it through a perfectly curated feed. We believe our work suffers if the rest of our lives feels messy. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Instead of viewing our messiness as something that negatively impacts our work, we can use it as an enabler.

Our adversities force more from us. They force us to think outside the box. They force us to gain a different perspective. They force us to become more audacious and take more risks. They force us to become different, better versions of ourselves. 

Our messes fuel some of our best creative work. The work is born out of the need to process and cope with the mess. It provides an outlet to create something without fear of failure (you could argue that’s why the work ultimately succeeds). And in many cases, we’re creating something that aligns with the highest, most authentic versions of ourselves. 

Take Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy or Sophie Miller’s Pretty Little Marketer. Both entities were born out of mess. If neither had gone through a mess (Alex was unemployed and trying to land a job, and Sophie was laid off), we wouldn’t have these bodies of work. 

Though it may not seem like it in the moment, our messes become the best thing ever to affect our work (I can speak from personal experience that some of the best content I’ve produced in a while has been a response to the messiness I’ve been coping with). 

Some could argue that we’re meant to face the messiness that we do, that it’s all part of the journey to becoming the person we’re meant to be, and go down the path we’re meant to go down. 

While the mess might be intentional, what we do in response to it is up to us. Instead of running away from it, we should lean into it and use it as an opportunity to create something from it. 

You never know what will come from it. 

Creative Corner

• 🎞️ What I’m Consuming: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

• 💡 What I’m Loving: Having fresh flowers in my house—I forgot how much I love having them around!

• 🎨 What I’m Working On: Picking my Greek studies back up

• 💭 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 Seattle-based brand consultancy and media company that helps founder-led consumer brands and creatives design brand experiences and media.

Where to find me:

• Learn more about my services 

• Listen to my recent podcast episodes.

• Follow along as I build Culture Slant, a new magazine + podcast at the intersection of brand, marketing, media, culture, commerce, and technology.

• 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.