Let’s try this again.
I’m probably about to sound like a one-trick pony by using the exact spiel I used almost exactly a year ago, but here goes:
In case you’re thinking to yourself, “Who the heck is this Mica Gonzalez and why is she emailing me?” you might have stumbled upon then signed up for something from my YouTube channel, my blog, my quiz, or my online course. You might also know me as the girl who went on that podcast that one time (or that podcast…or, okay, there were quite a few podcasts).
But now that that’s out of the way (again)…
Hi again, friend.
I’m writing this with the honest intention to become a regular newsletter writer offering cool stories, examples, and essays, but I won’t lie when I say between now and my last edition, a lot’s happened in my life.
Some of you do enjoy the personal tidbits, so despite there being a million updates I could share, let me limit that to just two things:
The biggest event I’d been planning all of last year, my wedding, finally happened. Yay! 👰🏻♀️
I found a new calling being a consultant for startups, working with a tech accelerator program to reach and help more companies. It’s been awesome so far 🤓
I’m a bit disappointed I’ve ghosted (again), but I’m gonna breeze right past that.
Tiny Essay
Man…creative consistency is hard, yo.
I’d by lying if I said I ghosted my newsletter (and my YouTube channel for most of the year) because I conveniently “forgot” about it, given the wedding.
(I genuinely wish I could use that as an excuse, but I won’t.)
But tell me if this has ever happened to you:
You have a creative project—maybe a blog, maybe a podcast—you start going at it, and maybe it goes good for a while; you’re actually publishing and putting things out there, then…
You hit a wall.
Maybe it’s the lack of ideas.
Maybe it’s too many ideas.
Maybe life got in the way (my personal go-to excuse). Maybe you just got bored.
I’d been publicly blogging/writing/recording/creating since 2018.
I stayed pretty consistent for maybe a solid 3.5-4 years.
Built a business from that where I earned significantly enough to allow me to pivot and explore and find “the next thing” (mine being tech of all things!).
And when I did find that next thing, suddenly…
I hit my wall.
My wall was—almost embarrassing to admit—feeling like I no longer had anything to create about.
Without a creative business, I found myself staring at my once-full content calendar, thinking…
What can I even say about creativity now?
What can I even share now that this isn’t my full-time life?
It wasn’t that I got too busy or just never made time for creating, it’s that living in a new reality—planning a wedding, working in a completely new industry—made it really hard to remember how to do the things I did for like 4 years.
Only recently did I slap myself on the wrist and say, “Well, figure it out, Mica.”
So here we are.
Back to one. From the top. Ready or not.
I don’t know where you, dear reader, are at with your own creative life.
I don’t know if you’re thriving and creating constantly and absolutely killing it—which is awesome, by the way, you go yo!
Or if you’re like me and you’re wanting to restart and fall back in love with the things that used to give you so much joy—but you just…don’t know…how.
To me, it’s almost a curse to have accumulated so much knowledge and gotten on so many channels because lately it’d begun to feel like “well, now I have to get back to all of them, right?!”
Wrong.
I’m not sure if this resonates with you today, but maybe all you really need to get your creative mojo back is to go back to one.
Start with the basics.
Why’d you start creating in the first place? What did you enjoy the most? Figure out that one thing, and go do that.
To me, it’s free-writing just like this.
No thinking about SEO, no thinking about a distribution plan, not even worrying about open rates and unsubscribes that are inevitably coming.
Just letting my words fill a page, and crossing my fingers somebody—anybody—finds it meaningful.
If you had to find that one thing to come back to, what would yours be?
There’s a big power in starting small. In starting scared. In starting unsure.
I’d almost forgotten that.
But I’ve been revisiting a lot of my old work recently, and the Wisdom of The Past Self reminded me of that incredible fact.
Creator Toolkit Corner
Here’s 1 tool that I’m keeping an eye out as a creator, in the hopes you’d find it useful:
Typedream—build a website with AI
It’s no secret I love Notion—and Typedream is a Notion-esque website builder that’s been hovering in my stratosphere lately.
In My (Internet) History
Here’s an amazing thing I found and fell in love with on the internet this week:
Why I love it: Spoiler alert, the best advice he received was to focus on getting 100 people who love you instead of thousands who only kinda like you.
This resonated a lot and is the reason I’m putting out another newsletter again, even though I’m terrified half of you don’t know who I am anymore.
Try This At Home
In case you’re on the S.S. Consistency Is Hard like me, try to create just one thing you used to love to create this week. (A song, a dance cover, a poem, a blog, a book review—anything!)
Don’t worry about details or about sharing it.
Just look at it like riding a bike; maybe you need a little practice again.
No promises this time
Unlike the naïveté I had when I first penned this update almost exactly one year ago, I won’t promise a consistent creation schedule.
I can only promise that if you’re on the same boat as I am, that I’m going to start showing up again, no matter how hard.
In the off-chance you are going through the same thing I am, I’d love if you replied and maybe we could exchange some encouraging messages. 🙂
Now, I’m off to figure out this whole value-adding thing again. Bear with me—but also let me know what you want to see or learn from me; I’m an open book!
Your (struggling) creator friend,
Mica
P.S. If you’ve enjoyed any of my writing thus far, refer a friend!
As a thank you, if you refer one person who signs up, I’ll send you a copy of my Daily Check-In Tracker, a free interactive worksheet that lets you check in with yourself kindly. Perfect if you need something to help you unwind each day and reset.