If you’ve had people tell you that you’re too invested, too attached, too this or too that…ignore them. If you’ve heard experts say that your brand and work aren’t actually about you but about your ideal clients, well that’s just not true. And if you’ve been told to alter your language or anything else about you for the sake of marketability, leaving you feeling disconnected from your work, let me say that marketability is overrated.
I believe that your work is about you and for you first, and that treating it as such doesn’t mean that you’re any less invested in being of service to others. Embrace the things that make your work yours. Lean into what feels right, even if it doesn’t immediately make sense, even if people don’t get it.
I approach branding from a deeply personal place, one that honours the interplay between connection, self-expression, and the desire to make a difference. I do this for myself AND for my clients. Yes, that emotional investment can be exhausting, because the work matters and means so much—but the success of my work and my fulfillment in it has always been directly tied to whether or not I have the freedom and ability to make it mine. Is this true for you too?
The more you integrate your individual needs, abilities, boundaries, values, and messages, into the work that only you can do, and the way you do it, the better you are able to serve, and the more honestly you can show up. This alignment creates brand integrity.
And remember that making the work personal doesn’t mean that you can’t have systems in place to protect and sustain you. It just means that you care.
Your work is yours. Make it personal…because it already is.
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