maturing as a creative...

beating the algorithmic despair, it's time to grow tf up <3

there comes a time in every content creator and creative’s journey when you have to untether yourself from your old ways of thinking and simply grow the F up.

sorry for not holding your hand before I said that, but — some of the things that frustrate us, the cycles of “consistent inconsistency,” have to wear us down enough that we finally evolve into a more composed and self-assured version of ourselves.

and I, for one, have reached that point.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11 

you don’t get here overnight.

it usually takes a series of rejections, Instagram deactivations, and social media sabbaticals to wake you up.

but once you’ve found yourself back at that same crossroads again and again, a switch eventually flips in your mind that says, ‘hey, maybe it’s time to adopt a new mindset about this whole thing.”

because the truth is—creativity doesn’t begin when you log into a social media app. it’s a lifelong commitment to expression and end-date-less process.

you don’t “arrive” as a creative, you grow — again and again.

you were creative the moment you picked up a crayon and drew your first stick figure. you were creative when you sketched outfit designs at six years old that no one ever saw. you were creative when you filled your journals with high school love stories, plotlines, and daydreams.

you were creative before dial-up. before cable. before Google. and long before photo-sharing apps, reels, or CapCut ever entered the chat. you were creative before deepfakes, AI art, and the endless tech that tries to imitate what we do so effortlessly.

and you d*mn sure will be creative after all of that too.

maturing as a creative is realizing that you—the human—sparked the trends before brands, ad agencies, or software engineers ever tried to replicate them. you build this!

it means realizing that without our genius, our gifts, and our minds, the world doesn’t move forward.

so while it’s frustrating to navigate the desire to be seen and share your ideas with as many people as possible, only to be met with restriction… remember: no matter how far or wide your reach stretches on any given day, it doesn’t diminish your contribution to the creative ecosystem we’re all a part of.

resist the urge to measure your talent as a creative against the understanding of a trained computer, because it could never feel this.

stay curious,

— ya girl, Aley

IG: yagirlaley

TT: yagirlaley