If you’re a creative freelancer (an illustrator, artist, photographer, writer, designer, etc) who’s been trudging through a slow year (or let’s be honest… years?) in work, money, or career momentum — this is for you.
You might be feeling like the world — and everything you thought you knew, including your sense of self — is shifting under your feet in real time. You’re not imagining it. These are genuinely unprecedented times, and what you’re experiencing is part of a collective experience.
I’ve seen a lot of rep agents and busy illustrators pitching in to the discourse about how things are great, illustration is not dead, and they’ve never been busier. There is also a lot of encouragement about how the world will soon tire of AI and the pendulum will swing back to the appreciation of human-made storytelling and craft. All of the above is real and valid! It’s important expansion to know that it’s all not doom and gloom, so that we can collectively rise from the situation. But for those who are struggling, it can feel triggering and gaslighting, so in this article I’m going to break down what’s behind the success stories.
Since 2024, I’ve watched illustrators and design blogs sounding the alarm about industry slowdowns or the latest round of AI panic. Everyone’s experience is unique, but at some point every person questions themselves about what they’re doing wrong and what, in the name of all flying fucks, is going on.
I’ve had my own journey with it. This article is my love letter to the community, a guide to not only process what’s going on, but hack the system and thrive on the other side of it.
Grab your favourite beverage and get cosy, this is going to be worthwhile.
Every self-discovery or spiritual system I study has purported that 2025 would be a year of great shedding and stripping for the world, and boy, they were not wrong. Plus, there is every indication things will continue to be convoluted and destabilising in coming years.
Further to this, I believe that artists and creatives are going through a very specific kind of shedding process and collective rockbottom.
The key thing to note here is: the point is alignment, not punishment. We, as a collective, are shedding the layers of what no longer serves us, and are being asked to radically focus on our own authenticity. Proudly flying our freak flags. Leaning into the unique craft, message, and purpose behind our work. And feeling safe enough within ourselves to be truly seen for that.
This is why many folks have actually been busier than ever in their creative careers. They have integrated the above in their own way.
Economic recessions, slashed budgets, AI, trends in advertising (ie. moving away from illustration since the great spike in 2020 when the pandemic shut down photo shoots, so budgets were all allocated toward illustration — 2021 was the year I made most money in my career)…
Whatever the external reason outside of our individual control might be, our times have brought on a reckoning on what is even the value of the work we create.
Let me qualify the above as perceived value. External, commercial value. Commercial art is a commodity in the capitalist world we live in.
But because our identities are often so tied up in what we create, the feeling is often that the value of our very existence is being questioned. We have put our worth in our titles, jobs and bank accounts. Not only that, but we are increasingly living in more fragmented and isolated ways (especially as freelancers), not benefiting from the spirit, mutual aid and connection found in community. So as a consequence, we are questioning our very self-worth as human beings.
Nothing hits as hard as when our ability to make money is jeopardised, when we are in danger of not even being able to provide ourselves with the basic necessities, like a roof over our head and food on our table.
I want you to understand the importance of integrating and reinforcing the belief that as individual souls creating out of joy and love, anything we make — and who we are — is inherently valuable. You are valuable simply because you exist. This belief is what is going to carry us through to the other side.
Personally, 2025 has completely shaken up — and reshaped — how I view myself and my career. For me, it started a little earlier, after birthing my daughter in early 2024. Since then I’ve been in a continuum of profound identity shifts and upgrades.
Giving birth was followed by a natural slowing down in work due to caring for my daughter in her first 18 months of life, while not having a consistent support network of family around. (Folks, it truly takes a village.)
In January 2024, I also left the illustration agency that represented me, without having anything else lined up. It was a completely amiable and levelheaded parting, but in the months of utterly slow commissions that followed, I often kicked myself and questioned my sanity.
As my income plummeted, I tried to understand what was going on. I talked to my peers, I sought community, I joined group coaching sessions for creative freelancers. I audited my efforts, I made heaps of new work, I learned how to be active on LinkedIn. I made sure other streams of income were open like prints and consultations, I doubled down on my consistency in sending out prospecting emails and staying connected to my network of previous clients.
Taking all these steps were important and did bring in work, just not in the same frequency and budgets it used to.
I cast a wider net and pitched for work that was still design-related but not illustration. I applied for in-house jobs. Many of the roles I applied for, including those where I expected to advance to interview, were cancelled — which I interpreted as a sign.
I burned through my savings. I filed for paid mental health leave within Spanish social security, which didn’t last long as I got a local commission and could no longer claim the benefits (this is a hot tip: if you can claim paid leave from social security, absolutely do it). I had to rely on family for financial help.
I cried a lot. I questioned why is the universe punishing me. I downsized my lifestyle. I felt trapped and constricted. I thought my time as an illustrator was over. I feared for my future, and my daughter’s.
And all this time, the part of me that was angry, scared and despairing of all this change that I’d never asked for, kept asking: Why me? Why are you taking away the life I love and worked so hard for?
The biggest shifts started in May, deep in the mindset and reprogramming work I was doing while things looked stagnant on the outside.
Only in the last two weeks did the external pieces snap into place after months of uncertainty:
I’m currently working on a five-figure illustration + design project, about to begin another, and have two more prospective commissions in the pipeline. Together, these represent roughly a third of my target yearly income, and they all came through in November. I’ve also been selling prints, giving 1:1 consultations, hosting events & workshops, and have been approached by two universities in Barcelona to design Masters programmes for them.
I’m going to walk you through the process that brought me to this point. None of this dropped into my lap through wishful thinking, not even through working harder. It came from two years of identity shedding, learning to stay grounded during the driest and brokest AF season of my career, leaning into my authentic gifts & purpose, detaching from outcome, and learning to be truly seen.
In the midst of the deep transformations brought on by motherhood, I had delved into reading Women Who Run With The Wolves. From its infinite wisdom I understood the cycles of Life/Death/Life within nature, and within the creative spirit. Seeing it written like that — “life, death, life” — made something click in my head that hadn’t before: after death, there is always new life.
I understood that this was a Death cycle in my career, and I was soon going to experience a new Life cycle. I just didn’t know what it would look like yet.
What follows is a detailing of my process to shift my situation and patterns, in the hope it will help others.
First, I’m going to list the internal and mindset work, and then, the external and practical work. One cannot be effective without the other.
I’d love to provide a hack to instantly snap us out of this crisis, but the only way out is through, and every person will have their individual patterns and stories to sift through.
Regulate the nervous system. I’m no stranger to the concept of detaching my self-worth from my income. I’ve been wrestling with that since my burnout in 2022. But the last two years demanded that lesson on a cellular level. 2024, in particular, was slower than anything I could have imagined. I had to learn how to sit with the fear of not earning enough, how to regulate my nervous system when money wasn’t coming in, and how to trust myself in the absence of external validation. Practices I recommend for this are movement, breath-work, meditation, and overall a daily reinforcing that despite the chaos of the external world, I am safe here and now.
Be inspired by nature’s abundance. The foundation for all the change that started to happen was to take in the beauty and magnificence of nature as my main point of reference for abundance. Nature doesn’t have to prove itself or be validated by anyone or anything. Nature has cycles of bursting forth with beauty and colour and succulence, and it has cycles of stillness, death and renewal, which bring forward the next cycle of life and beauty, and so on. It does all of that whether anyone is watching or not. It does not try, it just is. Connecting with nature is also how we regulate most quickly and fundamentally. Try to notice the beauty in the trees and flowers and falling leaves and birds and insects and sea or river in your next walk. It makes such an instant difference to the mood and wellbeing. “There is never a shortage of awe and inspiration to be found outdoors… Deepening our connection to nature will serve our spirit, and what serves our spirit invariable serves our artistic output.” —Rick Rubin, The Creative Act
Cultivate a giving mindset. In my meditations I would ask, how can I be of service?, but part of me just wanted to be left alone to work on my drawings and get paid for it. Eventually, the answer came. Beauty and joy are my purpose. And my art, my word, my purpose are in service to humanity. Slowly, as I approached each brief, sale or consultation like this, I understood it more. Another way to think of it is — I don’t just want to be hired for projects, I want the people who need my work, beauty and purpose to find me as much as I want to find them. Coming at work from a mindset of “please validate my creative essence with a payday” has a cap on it. If instead I approach it from “What can I give? How I can I serve?”, the possibilities are infinite.
Understand this isn’t punishment. This rockbottom is trying to bring you back to your most authentic self, your aligned truth. For me it was nuanced, because it felt like illustration was being taken from me. It wasn’t — I was just being called to lean into my gifts and purpose in a way that was outside of my comfort zone of working as an illustrator. More on that in a second.
Grieve the change. I felt my feelings and grieved for what I’d “lost”: the ease, freedom, abundance and joy that life as a freelance illustrator brought me, when I’d felt I had finally discovered my path to a fulfilling and satisfying life and career after the challenging process of pivoting from a career in architecture. I grieved for the identity that gave me all I have today. I wrote her a letter, thanking her for everything she had given me. And then I let her go, and allowed her to shift and transform. This opened up space inside me for what wanted to come through: a new, upleveled identity that will bring just as much ease, freedom, abundance and joy, only from an evolved place.
Understanding my money story and rewriting the limiting beliefs tied to it. Through To Be Magnetic’s Money Challenge, I uncovered how much of my scarcity came from childhood: my parents’ separation when I was twelve, the sense of competition with my younger sister, watching my dad build a new family and provide for them, and subconsciously coding my stepmother’s “good saving habits” as threatening while my mother’s financial struggles felt unsafe but familiar. Those dynamics shaped my relationship with money and how I saw myself as an illustrator when work dried up. I felt in competition with my peers, convinced my time was over, and constantly compared myself to past, more “successful” versions of me, perhaps the hardest comparison of all. The real lesson underneath all of this was learning to release the old identities I was still clinging to — like an outdated crab shell I’d long outgrown — and once I began reprogramming those deep-rooted patterns, things finally started to shift in how I could receive, trust, and grow. Great tools to reprogram limiting beliefs are journalling, therapy, EFT/tapping, To Be Magnetic’s membership (use the code MARINA for 15% off) and Matthew LeBaron’s Creative Freelancers Coaching Group, both a beautiful source of support and community.
Stop hiding and giving my power away. Another limiting belief I uncovered was how much I blamed social media for the lack of reach my content was getting. But then I realised that I’d been hiding. Not in the obvious ways — I’ve been publicly visible as an illustrator for years. But I was showing only the polished parts, the client-facing parts. This summer I felt a clear ping to reclaim my voice and show up differently. That’s when Substack came in. It felt like a place where I could finally show the whole picture: the art, the process, the ideas, the truth, the experiments, the humanity behind the work. Around the same time, a conversation with my sister revealed another blind spot — I thought only my work was worth showing, but myself. That perfectionism was still keeping me small. The decision to show up more authentically wasn’t a branding or marketing move; it was a subconscious return to my actual self.
Surrender. This doesn’t mean giving up, or doing nothing. It means detachment from outcome. It’s hard to fake or force — and I’ve tried — and often it is the step that ushers in massive change. A few weeks ago I watched this video by The Illustrator’s Guide in response to this article on Creative Boom, both about how illustration as an industry, as we know it, is dying. Until recently, this type of reporting would depress and anger me. On that day, something changed. As I read the comments full of negativity and despair, something clicked, and I understood: This is not about me. This is much bigger than me. I realised two things:
Something released inside of me in terms of holding out for the illustration industry to validate me with a commission. I had to find whatever solutions necessary to pay the bills as a matter of practicality, and that was that.
This is a collective experience, and people are suffering. I want to help people understand what is going on — hence this article.
Understand where work comes from and diversify the income streams. If online/digital work is scarce (editorial illustration, many people’s bread & butter, has taken a hit in recent years), focus on murals, live-painting experiences, and hands-on projects AI can’t touch. This year I also helped with projects outside my regular style, like drawing handmade backgrounds for a series of Hermés storefronts designed by another studio, and drawing a suite of characters for a wellness and mindfulness app in a pre-established style. I also partnered with a gallery in Copenhagen to sell my art prints, aside from having my own products, digital courses and online consultations available in my shop. (If you’re even 1 step ahead in the ladder than someone else, you can provide value to them.)
Understand my gifts. This is the main reason I love self-discovery systems like astrology and Human Design: they are a clear guide for each individual’s unique gifts and talents in the world. My life’s theme, according to my Human Design, is about leading others through transition and offering the insight and resources that helps them find direction. Understanding this is pulling me toward leadership and a deeper, more collaborative creative work — not only making images, but helping people and brands understand and build the worlds they want to inhabit. If you want to learn more about your own unique gifts, I really recommend the Align app (your “Incarnation Cross”), The Pattern app (check your MC) , and you can also book a 1:1 consultation with me.
Getting really clear on skills and services. This summer, I took stock of my real skill set — not just illustration, but content creation, art & creative direction, strategy, writing, photography, graphic design, world-building, and the ways I naturally lead, guide, and hold vision for others. Seeing it all laid out showed me how much I’d been minimising my range, and the moment I owned it, even just to myself, people started reaching out out of the blue asking for brand building, creative strategy, and deeper collaborative work. It felt bigger and carried more responsibility (cue impostor syndrome), but it also made me realise I’m not meant for a narrow box — I can do all of this in my own authentic way, and use my creativity in service of something larger than a single medium.
Show up authentically and don’t be afraid of being seen. This is connected to the above item number 7; “Stop hiding”. In order to communicate our purpose and craft to the world, we need a clear narrative, whether through social media, whether we are communicating one on one with people in person and online. This is less about having a “marketing strategy” and more about having a true understanding of what the purpose is behind your authentic work. This is also connected to nervous system regulation and feeling safe to show up in this way. For me, this looked like expressing myself more authentically here on Substack and showing myself, my life and my process more on my Instagram, even when the algorithm didn’t favour my posts — I did it for me. The results have been undeniable: I’ve had much more opportunities and work enquiries since then. A great example of this was being invited to speak at Designyatra, feeling utterly safe and held on stage in front of 1,000 people, and getting everyone up for a dance party. It’s like that saying — “Luck and inspiration find those who are already working.”
Educate myself about money. One can get lost in the weeds of the internal/mindset/spiritual work, but something that actually shifts realities is learning how to actually manage money. If you don’t, it’s very hard for the money to stay. I know, because I made six figures in 2021, and I didn’t know how to manage it. Ramit Sethi’s teachings and his Netflix show are a great place to start (his tools are US-centric but the mindset shift translates anywhere). Female Invest is a great EU-centric resource. Andrea Redondo and Natalia de Santiago are great resources in Spain.
Know my numbers. Having a baby meant I got behind on my financial check-ins, and even though I had a vague idea about my total monthly expenditure, I lost track of the real numbers. Once I audited my spending and had a real understanding of how much I needed to survive, rebuild my savings and thrive through investing, it was a lot easier to understand my financial goals. That meant my brain and subconscious expanded to make room to actually receive the clear numbers I needed and desired.
Follow my joy and create a life I love, regardless of money. I love my daily routine. It keeps me grounded, whatever is happening with work or finances. It took a while to fine tune things after my daughter was born, but I’ve found a lovely rhythm to the early mornings and playtime with her, followed by my movement practice, cooking nourishing food, and walking to my shared studio, a space I love, to dream and create, while she’s in daycare. I’ve cut back on expenses with measures like sharing desk space and cooking more at home, but I still indulge myself and my senses with the occasional coffee or chai latte in a coffee shop I love, set lunch menus in the city, visit museums and galleries on their free days, and get tons of inspiration from bookshops. My pillars for an authentic life are Creativity, Connection, Movement/Expansion and Magic, and building my days around these has helped me stay anchored in who I truly am, even when everything else felt like it was falling apart.
In the end, I’ve come to understand this whole process as initiation.
This collective stripping so many illustrators and creatives are experiencing isn’t about losing our art, but about letting go of the narrow identities we attached to it. What fell away for me wasn’t illustration itself, but the limited version of creativity I was clinging to, the old crab shell I kept dragging long after I’d outgrown it.
I learned that the true source of power and agency lay within me — I am responsible for my own greatness — and I felt free and safe to show up authentically, to really be seen.
Motherhood, uncertainty, and the industry’s shifts cracked me open just enough to see that I was being called into the fullness of my gifts — into a creativity with infinite forms, and a life where authenticity isn’t a buzzword but a form of service.
📓 In the next paid post, I’ll share the practical tools that helped me rebuild — including the financial dashboard I designed to track income, expenses, savings, investments and project forecasts in a way that actually works for creative careers, and my prospecting dashboard that saves me hours each month by staying on top of my connections and automating prospecting and follow-ups. Together, these tools helped me move from panic to clarity, stay organised during slow seasons, and make confident decisions about money and workflow — and they can do the same for any artist who wants to feel more grounded, informed, and in control of their creative business.
Tell me — if you’re a creative going through your own shift, I’d love to know what you’re learning, unlearning, or questioning right now. Share it in the comments so we can learn from each other. And please share this article with anyone you think may benefit from it. 🖤
❋ Thanks for reading and supporting my work! I’m an artist & illustrator, educator, and creative guide. I share stories at the intersection of art, intuition, and career so you can build a creative life full of freedom, joy, and impact. Want to go deeper? Explore my self-led course The Creative Map, book a 1:1 creative consultation, or join my experiments and studio life on Substack. Find more of my work on Instagram, and peek at my prints and tools for creatives in my shop.
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