Year in review 2024

As 2024 comes to an end, I'm taking time to reflect on my professional journey.

For years, I balanced full-time work with freelancing. Moving to Canada two years ago, that full-time job was my safety net. This year changed everything - I lost that job and transitioned to full-time freelancing. While I'd done this before, I always sought that "illusory" stability of full-time employment. Now, I've finally committed fully to my creative business. After all, this is what I love doing most – working for myself and creating beautiful things 🙂

My biggest failure? Inaction. Despite loving what I do – creating and running my own business – I found myself drifting, paralyzed by comfort. This affected both my illustration work and Deeply studio. When you're floating with the current, at some point you hit a standstill, and it becomes obvious only when you start moving again. Inaction leads to the absence of everything I wanted when opening my studio. And if those things aren't there, why continue, right? Stepping out of my comfort zone and realizing everything now depends solely on my actions scares me. The imposter syndrome often wins, making everything more challenging. But I'm learning to live with it as part of my growth process.

After 5 years as an illustrator (though I've loved it since childhood – I should write a blog post about my journey!), I still make mistakes. This year's key lesson was ignoring red flags with clients. Call it intuition or not, I had a feeling something would go wrong, and for some reason, I chose to ignore it. I always try to follow the rule of 3 P's (which I learned from The Illustrator's Guide video) – Price, Pleasure, Promotion – a project should fulfill at least one. Yet I took on work that met none of these criteria, plus came with several red flags during communication. While I completed it professionally, that time could have been better spent.

There were other failures too – underpricing my work, offering too many unprofitable bonuses, waiting for inspiration while sitting idle. But there were also significant wins: transitioning to full-time freelance, breaking my financial ceiling (yet taxes in Canada are insane and I should definitely keep it in mind always), landing a major brand project, earning awards and interviews, launching studio Deeply, and finally starting that blog and newsletter I'd been thinking about for so long!

We all learn from our mistakes, and everyone's path and achievements are unique. There's no universal formula – what works for me might not work for others. But by having this experience, we become more aware of what lies ahead. That's why I'm happy to share not just the good and positive aspects, but also the behind-the-scenes reality of being a self-taught freelance illustrator that people don't usually talk about.

If you're curious about anything specific, please reach out!

But for now, thank you for reading and happy holidays ❤️🎄

Xmas illustration by Irene Neyman