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This may be one of my most important articles yet written.
I’ve spoken to many people in the creative field recently and they all admitted feeling the emptiness or pressure of not producing like gear — especially after a rapid rise and intense production phase.
When this happends It feels terribly personal because the work is personal.
But, having thought about this quite intensely, it is one of the most uncomfortable yet beautiful and challenging transition there ever could be. Moving from acceleration into construction.
Ouh! How nice!
In my experience, for a period of time, everything moved quickly. I shot constantly, meet new people, discovered my visual language, built visibility almost by accumulation. It felt like expansion, and it was. It was also intense, sometimes addictive, because the feedback was immediate: messages, collaborations, reposts, invitations, attention.
But what I didn’t know and what a lot of creatives don’t know, especially in the early stages it’s that it was only Phase 1.
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But then comes a second phase.
And, in this phase, your standards begin to evolve.
When the goal shifts from speed to depth, to longevity.
The people you want to work with become more specific. The exchanges you are looking for become deeper. The speed you were once comfortable with starts to feel too shallow. What you crave is even more meaning, even more coherence, and even more intention.
In a sense it’s “less” but “more”.
The quiet periods are the most powerful forms of reorientations. It’s where direction becomes clear, precisely because external noise decreases.
You start thinking differently. You begin to notice to bigger picture. You expand your network more intentionally. You question not just what you produce, but why and how it connects across time.
You start wanting coherence instead of constant output.
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Because the real challenge here is not talent or potential anymore.
It is ENDURANCE.
Structure.
And emotional detachment from the fluctuations of external feedback.
Continuing to build even when access is uncertain.
Thinking in terms of years, not moments.
And allowing your work to become slower, but more coherent, is the best way to see this through.
This topic is very dear to me in this period of time and will now echo my desire to shift the posting pace of this newsletter.
Our weekly rendez-vous will now be every Thursdays.
I’ll naturally allow myself any spontaneous follow-ups throughout the other days of the week. But the main topics will be shared on Thursdays.
Have a beautiful day,
With love,
Chanel.