You’re a Creative With No Work. What Now?
If you’re a freelance creative professional then there’s a good chance that 2025 has sucked. It’s been a terrible year for anyone who makes a living through their creativity. A confluence of factors - the rise of AI, global economic uncertainty and a vague, ill-defined sense that what used to work no longer does - has left huge swathes of the creative workforce wondering where the fuck their next rent cheque or mortgage payment is coming from. So egregious has this downturn been that it’s become a headline topic; a ‘crisis’ in the Guardian, a ‘meltdown’ in the New York Times.
I’ve become aware of it in my own work too. While there have been fewer workshop bookings as HR departments become more focused on drafting P45’s than on inspiring their teams, enquiries for 1 to 1 coaching have increased dramatically. People are being engulfed by the chaos and wondering what on earth to do next.
How do you repackage yourself when the role you’ve done for the last 15 years no longer exists? How do you stop your self-esteem haemorrhaging away to nothing if you can no longer do the thing that defined you? And how do you stay creative when your head is full of woe?
Alas, there are no easy answers or quick fixes. But I do know from working with creatives in all kinds of predicaments that there are strategies and ways of thinking that can help bring a little light amid the gloom. And I’d like to share them here in the hope that they may help you too.
First up, I’m guessing you probably feel a little at sea - storm tossed and queasy, with no idea how to locate dry land - so we need to set a course. And this is going to require some introspection. In my coaching work I often use a modified version of the Ikigai model. Ikigai is a Japanese concept predicated on the idea that if you align your work with your values you’re more likely to be fulfilled and successful. In brief, you consider four questions …
What am I good at?
What do I love to do?
What impact would I like my work to have in the world?
What can I be paid for?
And then you try and find the intersection between the four responses.
Now, a few words about this … it’s an ongoing process: you’re unlikely to land on a notion of a perfect role at the first attempt. But looking inwards and going through a period of self-examination is a really important exercise as you work out what happens next. Many people jump on board a career train in their twenties. But now you’re in thirties, forties, fifties; you’re a different person - and the train has run out of steam. What you’re going through is painful and humbling, but it is also an opportunity to realign what you do with the person you’ve become.
The other thing I’d encourage is that if you’re not in a position to afford coaching - and maybe even if you are - you talk through your Ikigai with a close friend or partner. Someone who is supportive and knows you well and but isn’t afraid to be frank. Having an outside perspective on what you do best, what you enjoy and what matters to you can be really helpful when the chips are down and your ego has taken a battering (of which more later).
Another powerful question to ask yourself is ‘If money were no object what would I do?’ Lord, I wish money were no object but it is, and, as a result, often becomes the first thing we think about when considering work. By removing it from the equation you stand a better chance of discovering how you’d really like to be spending your time. And once you know this - while you’re not going to be able to do it 24/7 - you can look for or filter opportunities accordingly. Let’s say you’d love to write a book, then you look for jobs that allow the headspace to write when you’re not at work.
The trick I think is to really lean into the particularities of your experience, your values and your sensibility. Dr Seuss put it best: ‘Today you are you, that is truer than true, there is no one alive who is youer than you.’ If you’re older, what advantage do your age and the hard knocks you’ve taken give you over someone younger? Sure, you may not know much about making the most of the TikTok algorithm, but I bet you have a bunch of hard won insights about human behaviour.
Now if this all sounds a little simplistic, and the voice in your head is screaming, “Yeah, yeah, but what about paying the mortgage?” I should probably mention the concept of the A job and the B job. I first heard this from the poet Murray Lachlan Young. He was on the radio talking about how hard it is to make a living as a poet - unless you’re unusually successful you have to take a job doing something less creative.
The breakthrough for Murray came when he started to think of his day job, the thing that took up most of his working hours and paid the bills, as his ‘B’ job; and poetry, the thing which made no money and happened only in the evenings, as his ‘A’ job.
It’s a subtle but powerful reframing. Even if you’re having to spend hours doing something you don’t love, you make the thing you are genuinely passionate about your priority. Stacking shelves or delivering parcels becomes just a little easier to stomach. And with a little bit of luck, if you keep going, maybe one day you can ditch the ‘B’ job. It worked for Murray.
Just this morning I was speaking with a former promo producer who, a month ago, swallowed his pride and took a job delivering food in an electric van around his local university campus. He no longer sits alone in a room desperately drafting cover letters; he’s out in the sunshine meeting people. He has a wage, albeit a modest one. And for the first time in his life he feels like he has the creative headspace to embark on a personal project outside work.
Ok, time for us to deal with one of the biggest struggles you’re probably going through right now - the battle for your self-esteem. You’ve seen the articles and the LinkedIn posts looking for work, you’ve heard just how widespread redundancies are, and you know rationally that it’s never been harder to make a living from your creativity, but that doesn’t stop a little voice whispering in your ear that the reason you’re out of work is cause you’re just not good enough. Even if I tell you right now, in black and white, that YOU’RE NOT SHORT OF WORK BECAUSE YOU’RE SHIT AT WHAT YOU DO, IT’S THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AFFECTING EVERYONE, DUMMY, you still won’t believe me. So let’s see if we can shore up your ego some other way.
Try keeping a ‘nice messages folder’. An unfortunate truth about human psychology is that whenever we receive criticism it tends to lodge in our brains like a poisonous shard, but when we get a compliment it evaporates and is soon forgotten. So next time someone says something positive about you or your work in an email or text pop it in a folder on your desktop called something like ‘nice messages’. And when the chips are down read through all the messages again. It’s not a cure-all but it will raise your spirits by a notch or two, just enough to get you through the day. And if you’re no longer receiving any nice messages cause you’re not, y’know, working, then pick out two or three past projects that were successful. Remind yourself of the challenges you overcame, or the positive difference they made, maybe even go back and ask your client for an endorsement.
Another human truth is that we tend to be much kinder to our friends and loved ones than we are to ourselves. Especially when we’re feeling rubbish. So next time you’re having one of those horrendous long dark nights of the soul, when you can’t sleep, and you’re suffocating beneath a barrage of negative thoughts, get up and find yourself a piece of paper and a pen. Write down as clearly and concisely as you can a list of the things that are bugging you. In the morning, with a cup of good coffee, think of a colleague or friend who works in a similar field to you. Imagine that they had come to you with this set of problems. What would you say to them?
It's very easy when you’ve lost the thing that gave you your sense of self to become enveloped in negative thoughts. An endless and vicious cycle of soul-kicking self-harm. One way to break out of this is to take control of it. Next time a negative thought flits across your consciousness ask yourself A. Is it true? B. Is it helpful? And if the answer to either question is ‘no’, be like Elsa and let it go.
And now you’ve got a bit more time on your hands what about some volunteering? The psychology benefits of altruism are well documented, but what could be really helpful right now would be using some of the skills you’ve learned to help others, for no other reason than it’ll remind you how much you actually know. Working Options is a UK based charity looking for creative professionals to go into schools and talk about their careers.
Whatever happens, don’t let the downturn smother the thing that you got you started in your profession and may well see you through to its next phase: your creativity. Now is probably not the time though to begin work on some magnum opus; for that you’ll need a mind less cluttered with concerns. You could try a simple regular practice like photographing the same location every day. Or a more structured creative self-examination using Julia Cameron’s 12 week programme ‘The Artist’s Way’. Or just allow yourself to be led by your attention; to follow your fascination and see where it leads. No matter what you do, make it easy to achieve, do it regularly and promise yourself at the outset that you won’t be showing it to anyone, so you don’t need to worry about whether it’s any good or not and can just get on with the act of making.
Finally, the thought I want to leave you with is this: THINGS WILL GET BETTER. Right now, that’s hard to comprehend: today is painful and stressful and disorientating and your self-esteem is on the floor. But this is an opportunity for you to look inwards and decide what really matters to you. Begin building your new life around your values, one small step at a time. Progress will not be linear and those long dark nights of the soul may never disappear completely, but you can get through this. And who knows, one day the life you create may end up being better than the one you’ve left behind …