It's My Mission To Help You Do It
“Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Our unlimited potential to create – the ability to bring something new into the world, to turn something that only exists in our imagination into something real – is our greatest gift.
We all have it. Some of us sometimes get a glimpse of it, some can feel it clearly trying to burst through, some know they must build their life around it.
The thing is, society as we know it doesn't encourage us to nurture it. We grow up with well meaning lessons along the lines of:
- study something useful/practical,
- get a real job with a steady salary,
- grow up and stop dreaming,
- be responsible and function
.. basically encouraging us to value security over passion.
But ..
Nobody has ever come to the end of their life regretting having lived with too much passion and creativity ..
(Don't even get me started on the subject of “security”, that's another article. Only so much, I started to work for myself because I wanted to be in control of my professional future.)
If your creative passion is too strong to ignore and you've gone (or are planning to go) out to build your life around it chances are you've found that your upbringing hasn't prepared you well for the journey.
- being unsure how to make money from it
- feelings of self doubt, worry & anxiety (we tend to be unprepared for dealing with the uncertainty that comes with moving into unexplored territory)
- friends and family not taking you and your “hobby” seriously
- feelings of guilt if you have a partner and/or children who may feel neglected
- a sense of overwhelm and exhaustion .. so much information, so much to do, so little time
Life feels like you're pushing a heavy cart up a hill, with no end in sight.
How I know that?
You guessed it: It's been my experience. But I also know that it doesn't have to be like that.
As a little girl I would watch other kids play the usual stuff kids play and not understand the fun in it. I was happy when I was creating – sewing, knitting, drawing, legos .. whatever, I was fascinated by bringing something into being, turning something into something else, something more beautiful, more useful. The feeling of flow I used to love then is still what makes me tick today..
So when in 2002 I came to Granada in the south of Spain on a holiday and fell in love with the place, at a time when felt the IT industry was going into a direction I didn't like, I asked myself what I would do if I didn't have to worry about anything at all.
I Knew Instantly What I Would Do
I'd live in Spain and have my own sewing studio, offering made to measure garments, somehow inspired by flamenco.
Once the idea was out in the world I simply couldn't find a “show stopper”, there didn't seem to be anything that made it impossible.
In 2004 I moved to Spain. I wanted to know. I'd rather try and fall flat on my face than for ever be wondering what it would have been like to sew for a living ..
It soon turned out that it's flamenco dancers who have their costumes made to measure, and that there aren't too many people out there doing it. Still, it took time and hustle before I got my first big order and with it the sense that this could turn into an actual business.
Earlier this year ..
I drove home from delivering an order to a group of teenage flamenco dancers. I felt a calm sense of satisfaction. Things had gone well – the girls loved their dresses, the mums were happy, the group's teacher was happy too, the group ended up winning the competition the costumes were made for. These are the moments we work for, the moments that make it all worthwhile.
Suddenly I remembered that I had made dresses for that very same group before, in 2012. Not just a group like this .. this very same group, the same teacher, the same mothers, the same girls, the same place. I remember it as if it happened yesterday:
- time pressure and worked through nights
- mothers turning the dresses inside out desperately trying to find something to complain about
- mothers arguing over the price
- the stressed out teacher passing the parents' pressure on to me
- the girls bossing me around
- me in tears
What's different now?
Everything on the outside is the same. What's different is me, my experience of the things going on around me.
What lies between 2012 and 2017 is
- realizing that the only person I can change is myself
- plenty of reflection and “soul searching”, diving into the world of personal development
- lots of time spent exploring how the mind works
- coach training with the amazing Jamie Smart
- understanding that it was all worth it if it helps other creative souls flourish (you?)
So if you want to build your life around your creative passion but life feels like an uphill battle I'd love you to get in touch:
Join my facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/whatmakesyoucomealive/
If you sew for a living: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ingenioussewingprofessionals/
Or right here at https://www.ankeherrmann.com/
How I Can Help?
I'm the queen of patterns. Funny, I never saw that until my friend Ali Meehan, founder of Costa Women (a place to connect for women living and working in Spain), pointed it out to me. But it's true. Being great at recognizing patterns and structures is what made me love studying languages. Being able to see patterns and finding a way to simplify and streamline processes in order to achieve more with less effort is what I got paid for (rather well :-)) while working as a software developer. My sewing patterns are responsible for the fit of the flamenco costumes that has clients come back and recommend me to others. It's also what I bring to the table for my coaching clients:
My thing is helping you
- identify and overcome the bottlenecks in your business and life – the practical and the emotional ones,
- get rid of unhelpful stuff – off your to-do list and off your mind ..
- open up and expand the sense of what's possible for you
- really understand, at the bottom of your heart, that it's ok for you to do things your way
.. so you get to spend less time feeling stressed and frantic and more time in this beautiful state of creative flow that started it all in the first place and where absolutely everything is possible, just waiting for you to create it.
Look forward to connecting <3
