Pivot Party!

🎵 It’s my party, I can try if I want to 🎵

Welcome (or welcome back!) to Multifaceted. I’m Jess Barker, here exploring what it means to find direction and fulfillment in a multi-passionate creative life. ✨

Digital collage featuring onstage Jess!

Maybe you’ve been boogie-ing down with a big creative project for a while now. The one you thought would finally become Your One True Thing.

But before the dance number’s over, you find yourself wandering off, drawn away by a totally different tune off in the distance. You’re changing what you’re doing – again.

Been there?

Hey, welcome to the Pivot Party!

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of other creatives calling out where they’re shifting their approach: One writer who started with a focus on entrepreneurship but eventually began weaving stories about motherhood. Another expert who made it seem like they had all the answers in their field – then expressed doubts about whether it’s even the right field for them.

I’ve seen folks renaming and rebranding their Substack newsletters. Launching and tweaking websites over and over again. Hoarding new Instagram handles for every pet project.

I see you – and I am you! 😅 I’m constantly trying, exploring, and evolving, too – 100% of the time, always. Sometimes I literally cannot stop the multi-passionate madness.

Following your creative curiosity sometimes feels like dancing along to a wildly unpredictable DJ. You never quite know if they’ll stick with the same beat for a while, switch it around, or maybe drop in a wild flashback that lights you up.

As the tempo shifts, you find yourself in that weird liminal space, bopping your way through the unknown until you reach the next comfortable chorus. But that’s all part of the fun of letting your unique creative experience unfold.

At least, it’s fun until we overthink it.

I don’t know where it comes from, but it seems like the moment we start dancing to a different creative beat, an apology reflex kicks in.

Brilliant creative people will slump into saying sorry whenever they change direction: Sorry I haven’t posted here in a while… Thanks for being patient as this evolves… Things are changing around here – is this okay?

We do this awkward song-and-dance when we feel like we’ve messed up. When we put on our best “fake-it-til-ya-make-it” faces, wrote our best “I-know-what-I’m-talking-about” bios, and gave it a shot… Only to feel our creativity pulling us in another direction. To a new place where we’re NOT experts by any stretch of the imagination. On this unfamiliar ground, we have to learn the moves along the way.

That’s not messing up, though. Pivoting in our creative practice is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s more than okay.

As followers and fellow humans, we don’t care so much that So-and-So, who was officially doing this before, has officially started doing that. Instead, we love to see what others are in the process of exploring and how they’re evolving. We appreciate when they divulge their processes and reveal their mistakes. We enjoy hearing from people who travel to new places, try hobbies they’ve never done before, and share what they’re learning.

Because the rest of us are just trying to figure it all out, too. We’re all beginners at some point. None of us knows what we’re doing! We’re just out here creating and exploring together.

It feels good to see someone else step onto unfamiliar territory because it reminds us we can do it, too.

And it’s helpful to remember that the value isn’t in the visibility. We can share our progress if it energises us, or else enjoy quietly creating on our own.

Either way, we don’t have to treat detours and changes in direction as missteps to apologize for. Instead, let’s celebrate them as the natural rhythms of a well-rounded creative life.

Here’s your official invite: Pick one curiosity that’s been tapping you on the shoulder and give it the next dance. Don’t worry about apologizing for it or wondering how it might permanently alter your entire trajectory. Just give it a whirl.

After all, it’s your Pivot Party. Why not make it fun?