The beginning of a brand new yr has a means of demanding certainty. There may be an unstated expectation that in January you need to have perspective, power, and a transparent sense of the place you might be heading – not simply personally, however creatively. You are alleged to arrive with solutions, with confidence, with momentum.
It’s February now, and I’m nonetheless not fully satisfied that certainty arrived on schedule.
If I’m trustworthy, I’ve felt that stress yearly, however this yr it landed in a different way.
The previous twelve months weren’t outlined by collapse or burnout, however by one thing quieter and more durable to call. Nothing was damaged, but one thing wanted consideration.
2025 was a yr of near-misses and missed pitches. We encountered sturdy conversations that didn’t convert, and had trustworthy (and typically uncomfortable) debriefs between co-founders after calls that didn’t land as we had hoped. These moments do not make headlines, however they do form you. They drive you to ask whether or not the way in which you might be working remains to be aligned with why you began within the first place.
What grew to become clear over time was the price of saying sure too typically. Not recklessly, however subtly, and infrequently for comprehensible causes.
When you find yourself constructing a studio, there’s a interval the place alignment and survival don’t at all times overlap. You say sure as a result of the work pays, as a result of momentum issues and you are feeling a duty to maintain issues transferring. You say sure to tasks which can be adjoining somewhat than actually aligned; to work that drains focus, power, or conviction; to momentum for momentum’s sake. None of it’s improper in isolation, however over time it begins to blur the sides of the work you truly care about, and the explanations you began within the first place.
Inventive confidence doesn’t disappear in a single day. It thins out quietly when an excessive amount of of your consideration is spent performing, changing, producing somewhat than constructing and connecting.
On the similar time, we have been watching acquainted patterns throughout the business. Content material for content material’s sake, exercise with out substance, the sense that when you merely did extra, one thing would ultimately break by (although it hardly ever did).
Audiences usually are not brief on data, however they’re brief on endurance. They’ll spot noise shortly, they usually transfer on simply as quick. That realisation pressured us to pause and reset.
As a substitute of doubling down on output, we doubled down on relationships. We spent extra time in rooms, in conversations, and in locations that required presence not simply efficiency. From London to New York, we confirmed as much as pay attention, to study, and to reconnect with why we do that work in any respect. After all, none of this was free. It required time, useful resource, and a willingness to speculate with out instant return, nevertheless it mattered greater than any marketing campaign or piece of content material we produced, as a result of it reoriented the work round folks.
We additionally started defending the work extra intentionally. Publishing cultural perception to not chase relevance, however to articulate what we genuinely see and care about. Sharing extra of the actual story behind constructing a studio, together with the uncertainty, the stress, and the lengthy conversations that form selections behind the scenes.
Not solely did it assist us keep trustworthy with ourselves, it additionally slowly motivated returns. Not essentially by large wins, however by alignment. Confidence adopted as a result of the work began to really feel true once more because of a change in tempo and a clearer sense of function. That is the place I discover myself now, transferring into 2026 with much less noise, extra intention, and much more confidence in how the work is taking form.
What the final season jogged my memory is that falling again in love along with your inventive work doesn’t at all times require a dramatic reinvention. Generally it requires restraint and the braveness to say no. It requires the self-discipline to decide on depth over noise and the humility to confess when one thing not matches.
For small studios and freelancers particularly, resilience typically issues greater than seen success. The flexibility to maintain going with out hardening and to remain curious with out changing into cynical. You at all times want to guard the connection with the work itself, not simply the outcomes it produces.
As we transfer ahead, I’m much less enthusiastic about chasing certainty and extra dedicated to defending that means. That doesn’t come naturally, and it’s not one thing you determine as soon as. It requires selecting a sustainable tempo, prioritising human connection, and being extra deliberate in regards to the work we tackle. Selecting tasks that ask one thing of us creatively, not simply commercially. Letting the work earn its place somewhat than filling house, even when the stress to do in any other case remains to be very actual.
The outdated formulation are loosening their grip. You possibly can select to see that as an invite to construct extra deliberately, create with care, and do not forget that creativity, like all relationship price retaining, wants consideration, honesty, and time.
