To anyone who was jaded, but has since re-found their mojo: how did you do it? What made you re-fall in love with the industry?

Changing to in-house was a game changer for me. People are way more chill, work-life balance is much better, and the pay/benefits are great.

Creatively it’s not in the leagues of Mischief, Gut etc, but it’s better than most agencies out there.

Working with Creatives for Harris has been much needed for me. After spending three years in a political hierarchy hell, this completely flat structure where creatives are the decision makers and the point people has been an interesting experiment and experience thus far.

It’s freeing and I’m realizing I don’t hate what I do. I hate where I work.

I actually love making stuff and having a reason to make stuff with cool people.

Throughout my career I’ve found it comes and goes in waves. So many factors constantly in flux but for me it always comes down to the people. Am I excited and invigorated by the people around me - both agency and client partners. If you’re surrounded by people that are jaded, or worse, you resent because you feel they’re incompetent or aren’t pushing you - that’s when you start losing passion or second guessing yourself. You may not realize it for a while but when you do that’s when you need to find something new.
But when you’re around a team that are all working together for the same goals, and when you’re getting inspired by people at all levels of your team, that’s the sweet spot. It’s why I’m still in advertising.

That is an excellent question but unfortunately I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t believe in the industry as a whole anymore. I don’t think I ever did. Pretty soon in my career, I came to the realization that what we do is not specially important nor relevant. I do keep falling in love with aspects of my job and that’s what keeps me going. As an Art Director, I’m still in love with layout, typography, and the design aspects of what I do. So maybe it is not possible to fall in love again with the whole thing, but with parts of it? I guess better than nothing!

Opened my own place; started caring more about my impact on clients than about what award shows i was entering.

Get out of the bubble, and get a new perspective.

It's true that what we do as creatives isn't exactly saving the world, but: 1) we have opportunities to serve the missions of those who are, and 2) there really are many people who can't do what we can, to the level we can, and aren't deceived into thinking otherwise.

You have a skill. Take some time to put it to work doing something that you actually care about. Makes a big difference.

1- Cut out all social media.
2- Wake up early to exercise every day.
3- Set big personal goals that don’t involve advertising.

Do not, DO NOT fall in love with this industry. It will never love you back the way you desperately need it to.

Freelance paycheck

Changed my environment.

Went to a place with a good culture and GREAT people that made me excited about what we do again.

It’s always going to be chaos. But if you like the people you’re with, and you trust them to have your back, it sure as hell is a bunch more fun than accounts receivable.

Paying bills.

Firstly, try to free yourself from any of the concerns about the BS portion of the job. Don’t worry about awards or with measuring yourself against other people’s success and failures.

Do your best to enjoy the task, the doing, the thinking, the making. If you enjoy the process, it becomes less about the output.

Try to present only ideas you’ll be excited to make. You have the power to shape your job in a way most people don’t.

Live a balanced life. Spend time with loved ones. Make sure the job is not the most important thing in your life. Don’t work needlessly long hours on uninspiring work. And exercise. This is sooo important.

Managed myself. So much of this is an emotional game within yourself. Let your life part of life be what fuels you and what you put your energy into and why you get up in the morning. Takes some of the pressure off work - and the constant grind and validation seeking of it all. So much of the stress is about proving to yourself you’re good enough. Oh and follow the fun. No industry is perfect. Work is work. But we can have fun in what we do! I’ve been in the absolute pits of burn out and wouldn’t believe myself if I was given this advice then. But I’ve slowly climbed out and have realized so much of my “issues” with the job are self inflicted. Therapy helps.

Learned to let go. Spend more time w/my family and pets. Taking amazing vacations. Mojo to carry on with work, maybe not necessarily mojo to sacrifice myself for advertising.

I guess I’m jaded but I care so much less now, it feels better. I used to get so frustrated when I cared a lot. Now if someone wants to rewrite my copy worse or insists on a ridiculous design, I let it go and feel fine. It really isn’t important.

Change of scenery to know that there is an opportunity to do better work, people who respect you, more fun to be had, which in turn made me feel more appreciated and provided better creative. Distance yourself from the politics and toxicity, surround yourself with ambitious positive people and it gets better! The switch of scenery also inspired me as I respected the new leadership more and felt more motivated to want to show what I could do.

It wasn’t easy. I didn’t know it at first. I kept trying to fix the issues. But it was what was needed.

You got to find way to have fun again, try to work on a brand that is fun in what it is. Instead of trying to make something that isn’t fun, entertaining. Snack/candy brands provide a lot of perspective. It’s not really serving any great purpose, can’t get too worthy, easy to have a joke about it.

Quit my staff job and went freelance. SO freeing to skip agency pep rallies, team building, and politics. I work when I want on what I want.

Find out why you lost your mojo

WAS jaded???

Someone’s already written it in here but caring less helps a lot. Not about everything but about most things. Ask yourself “do I need to care about this?” So often the answer is no. Also a job change helps and fun outside of work and therapy.