Making it or breaking it: Mental health in the creative industry
At the top of the year, I set goals for myself like I do every year. Is it a new year's resolution? I don’t like to call it that but I just like to see what I can accomplish in a year’s time so I do that in January. This year, I said I wanted to accomplish a few different things - some to do with my career, some to do with my mental health and happiness. What I’ve learned about my mental health this year is that my career is actually extremely detrimental to that.
I don’t even think people need to ask why at this point; it’s clear to see that many artists struggle to get by and make a living. More and more, we see artists reinventing new pathways to success but sometimes, we see artists “fall off” and change career paths. The truth is, I think about the latter a lot. Almost every day. I jokingly ask myself why didn’t I just finish my degree in science and then go on to do a master’s and get a “proper job.” The real reason why I wish this alternative existence could be an easy choice for me is because of how much work it takes to be an artist.
Right now, I’m working nearly full time in a dead-end job, fulfilling content creation of different campaigns I’m on, working for a music sync library writing, producing and recording music and trying to find time to do my own music as well. It’s a lot and most of the time I want to quit but I just tell myself I have to sacrifice this time to become successful. But what does success look like? I still don’t know. I hope I find that out on the way there.
If working like this wasn’t bad enough, as a lot of artists do, I also have to make my own promotional content, drive ticket sales to gigs, hire my own creative team, use my own money to pay for photos, artwork, assets and then try to make a digital marketing strategy that is going to help me become more “successful”. Music has always been my biggest passion but being an artist is not for the faint of heart. If I didn’t have so many side hustles, I would probably quit doing music. It’s too expensive, time-consuming and a huge role to fulfil. You automatically have to become your own manager, agent, digital marketer, promoter, hype man, graphic designer, sound engineer….the list goes on. While trying to tackle all this, I keep asking myself, what does success look like to me?
This year, I’ve been trying to find more things that bring me joy, rest, and relaxation…because frankly, I get none of that doing what I do from day to day unless I’ve miraculously gotten a brand collab for something relaxing and still then, it’s work. I’ve finally started to realise that the things that bring me joy are not related to my career. No matter how much I love music and performing, it becomes overwhelming and stressful at the point where I am now. I feel like I’ve come to this crossroads where something has to change. Maybe I need to stop looking at music as my career and start having more fun with it. Maybe I just make my living making content and ad music (which is good money, I’m not complaining about that) but I so desperately want to be able to share my creativity with the world and inspire people like me. I wanna make little Ky proud and represent a positive image of a Queer, Blasian, Neuro-divergent artist. But it comes at such a high cost. I’m standing at this crossroads but I don’t know which way to go.
