Before you can create anything, you must first create yourself. The process of changing your life—of pursuing a vocation, finding a true love, even making a career transition—always begins with an understanding of who you are. But it doesn’t stop there.

What if the point of becoming a professional artist or writer was not what you thought it was? What if success wasn’t the ultimate goal? What if each phase of your journey, even the frustrating ones, was a necessary stage to better understand what it is you’re here to do?

In creative work, there is a spectrum from “starving” to “sellout,” and somewhere in the middle is where most of us find ourselves. How do we make sense of this? When you give yourself fully to your vocation, I think, what unfolds is a lifelong process of self-discovery. And so, this work reveals itself to us in stages.

The world is in crisis, and many people are telling you to do something new. But what if you didn’t have to do that?

What if, instead of pivoting into new and exciting opportunities, we who make things considered this a call to our true work?

What if we doubled down on our strengths, taking these familiar skills deeper than we thought they could go, seeking new ways to do old things?

What if we asked, “What role is being required of me right now?”—and then did that?