A Mixtape from Allison Filice for Transmitting Your Creative Beacon
ALLISON FILICE / WNW Member & Illustrator
As creatives, how do we get the jobs we really want? How do we get the right clients to notice us? How do we find customers to buy our work? How do we get more followers on social media? How do we make an impact on the world? These are questions I often find myself asking.
What I’ve realized is that these are all external things that we don’t actually have much control over. The only thing we really have control over is ourselves. What we should focus on is understanding who we truly are, what our unique message is, and creating our beacon that we transmit out into the world so that other people can find us.
Your message is inside of you, calling out to you. If you can’t hear it right now, it’s because there is too much noise around you. Get quiet, take time for yourself, meditate, make a list of things that bring you joy and help you feel most like yourself and do those things every day. Maybe it’s going for walks in the park, making music, going to museums, drinking tea, reading science fiction, writing poetry, writing a blog, writing nice things on sticky notes and leaving them for people you love, or leaving them on the bus for complete strangers. Whatever brings you joy, follow it, and prioritize it. Taking care of yourself and following your joy will lead the way to where your purpose and message resides within you.
“What we should focus on is understanding who we truly are, what our unique message is, and creating our beacon that we transmit out into the world so that other people can find us.”
Your beacon is the touch points you send out into the word so that people can find you. We each have a wonderful message, but if we don’t have a beacon, how will people find us? As creatives, we’re fortunate that we have skill and passion for our craft. Our beacons are our illustrations, our blogs, our paintings, our photographs, our sketches, our videos. Your beacon will be most vibrant and magnetic when it transmits who you truly are. You don’t need everyone to like your work; there are over seven billion people in the world. You only need to connect with a tiny fraction of that to make everything work. So really put yourself in everything you do, and let your beacon shine. Let it evolve as you evolve. Let it be personal and true.
Each of us has a unique message we bring to the world, one that the universe will never see the likes of again. Allow yourself to explore what yours is, be confident in it, have fun with it, and let go of the limitations in your mind that are holding you back from sharing it. When you show up as your true self, the world will begin to take shape around you. You will attract the right jobs and the right people into your life, and you will make the world a better place.
Look around, the world needs you to be you.
Here are some musical beacons that I find inspiring. Maybe they’ll resonate with you as well. I encourage you to make a list of songs that bring you joy, and listen to them often.