The Epiphanies

On inspiration, ideas and content creation

Jan 31, 2025

I didn’t start 2025 with New Year’s resolutions. They usually get neglected because life happens, and new resolutions turn into old disappointments. The last thing I need at the end of the year is another list of things to do.

On the 6th of January, Epiphany Day, I coincidentally had a few epiphanies while sharing a chocolate cake for our middle sister’s birthday. To spark conversation, I asked my sisters if they had any New Year’s resolutions. My youngest sister said she wanted to move away from platforms like Pinterest because they made her feel bad about her artwork. In her search for inspiration, she found herself spiralling into comparison.

Pinterest isn’t for inspiration; it’s for copying.

I don’t mean this in a bad way. Pinterest is a great visual platform for understanding which colours go well together before you paint your living room electric blue or for deciding what to wear to a job interview. These are ideas you can harmlessly copy for personal use. But when it comes to your creative work, I don’t think Pinterest is a reliable source of inspiration—rather it’s an excellent source of successful executions.

I remember a photography teacher once saw me browsing Pinterest for ideas and asked me what I was doing. "Inspiration can only be found in your work," they said. "Search for inspiration in your past creative projects and use what worked before to evolve." I was baffled. During my career in fashion design—a very fast-paced industry—finding “inspiration” on Pinterest, comparing ourselves to competitors, and iterating on their formulas for success were standard practices.

Over time, I’ve learned that inspiration comes in two ways: when I’m busy and restrained from creating—working, running errands, taking public transport, or taking care of my child—or when I don’t have an immediate need to create. Activities like reading a book, following a recipe, going to an exhibition, walking down a street I’ve never explored, talking to someone with a completely different perspective, and (my favourite) travelling to a culture far from my own all inspire me. The epiphany here is this: if you’re looking for inspiration, don’t seek it in the final product of the exact project you’re working on.

My middle sister mentioned that she wanted to start saving money. Without sounding harsh, I told her:

Stop wasting your money on fast fashion.

Had I saved all the money I spent on fast fashion, I could probably afford new photography gear now. Money shouldn’t be squandered on momentary gains that will end up in a landfill in two to five years; it should be set aside for a long-term goal. But it’s important to define what that long-term goal is because, without one, it’s easy to justify spending money on things that don’t matter. My youngest sister chimed in, saying, “And quit TikTok and Instagram so you stop thinking you want things you don’t need.”

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The difference between doing something and not… is doing it.

It’s a simple mindset I want to embrace in life. A "just do it" mentality. Skip all the faff and overthinking, quiet the inner critic, and simply say, “Oh, just do it.” My word for the year is committed. I’m committing to this way of thinking.

Ideas are a form of delusion.

My brain is constantly buzzing with ideas and concepts, to the point where they paralyse me. Other times, I’ll draft what my husband calls the “scribbles of a mad woman,” connecting dots obsessively until I exhaust myself and give up on the idea entirely. The truth is that value lies in execution—whether it’s good or bad. Everyone has ideas; they’re not special. If ideas sit for too long, they become heavy, draining the energy needed to act on them. I’m working on recognising this by finding time to execute new ideas, even if it’s just fifteen minutes a day. Sometimes, that’s enough to see whether an idea will work or not. (I waited two years to start a vlog only to realise vlogging isn’t for me!)

Don’t sacrifice your mental health for an online audience that doesn’t exist.

I’ve spent far too long—longer than I care to admit—trying to figure out how to become a content creator. Whether it was Blogspot, Tumblr, WordPress, Instagram, or Squarespace, I’ve tried it all. Only now am I beginning to understand: create for yourself and ignore the rest.

I used to hate that advice because I didn’t get it. If there are rules and guides to succeeding on these platforms, why not follow them? But this mindset caused me immense stress and analysis paralysis. Why didn’t I ever “make it”? Because I was constantly iterating on someone else’s version of success.

It’s incredibly hard to succeed online unless you go viral overnight or have connections to boost your visibility. And even then, there’s the illusion of talking to an audience that may never exist—all at the expense of time that could have been spent creating for the pure joy of it. The internet is so crowded that “making it” has become a gamble, reliant on a mix of luck and knowing how and when to play your cards right.

Growing up, I was taught a “practice over perfection” approach, which allowed me to develop skills at my own pace, not at the pace demanded by online platforms. The contradictory tagline “weekly quality and consistency” has left me feeling like a failure for years.

I’ve juggled career, health, and family alongside this constant sense of falling short. So, I’m going to start creating content that nurtures my soul—content that feels true to me. It’s time to dance like nobody’s watching because honestly… no one is!

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That night, talking to my sisters felt warm and comforting. It reminded me how grateful I am for them. Saying these things out loud lit a small flame of inspiration within me.

Perhaps the key to resolutions is not setting rules but having intimate conversations about what we’ve learned, letting those lessons pass through us, and then letting them go. I’m leaving behind rigid creative expectations, platonic online connections, and the weight of ideas that go nowhere. I’m dreaming of a 2025 focused on the things that truly matter.