Corryn Boyes – 7th June 2011
Stress.
An over used word, thrown around all over the place to provoke sympathy or understanding. A word I have used in the past to describe the feeling brought on by looming exams, deadlines, break ups, shopping, even tidying up my room. But now as the pressure of getting, and holding down a job in an industry we are deeply passionate about looms, the ‘stress’ we may have felt before has doubled…actually, make that tripled.
As we find our selves in our penultimate month of learning at the School of Communication Arts we are reminded daily of how much pressure there is on us to perform and succeed. ‘We sell or we die’ a phrase you have probably read in many of our SCAB posts is a line drilled into us all from the beginning. And with many of us getting by on borrowed money we are far too aware that we won’t survive long without landing a job after placement. This only adds to the pressure.
Over the past few weeks I have felt the ‘stress’ around the studio increase, there have been more tears, sweat and tantrums than ever before and it’s made me wonder. If working in an agency is going to involve more work and higher expectations than now, then how are we going to cope, and how do existing creatives cope in the real world without letting the pressure consume them. Perhaps they don’t. Perhaps that explains why most of the creative departments are such a young crowd!?
I put it to my Twitter followers to see how they cope with stress and whether they find it a burden or in fact a driving force. Hugh Salmon from the Salmon Agency was quick to respond. He said one of the main stresses for a creative to cope with is negative feedback from an idea and disagreeing with ideas put to them. Account teams, he mentioned, are often better at giving more diplomatic feedback whereas creatives can be a little fiery.
From my little experience as a creative I can agree that taking criticism on ideas you have ‘brought up’ for days is like someone shooting your baby. It can be hard to see past it and easy to feel like a failure, but that’s just the name of the game. So I asked Hugh how he would suggest dealing with the pressure put on us, he replied ‘Whatever you do, don’t let the thing become personal, that just makes the stress worse. This is not Big Brother. It is a professional business so try and eliminate the emotional and emphasise the rational.’
Other stress busting techniques advised by my mentors and peers included yoga or meditation, cleaning, herbal tea, exercise, vodka, a time plan, faith and ‘eating butter by the spoon, putting on a suit an talk in a deep voice’ (thank you Moolark). Of course then there are the less conventional ways such as inhaling a few packets of Marlborough lights and snorting a bit of the white stuff…perhaps not to be advised though.
Steve Henry in his blog for Brand Republic talks of his own experience facing pressure in the industry. How did he cope? “I’ve tried various things myself, from half a Natracalm to 8 grams of Ketamine. But the latter just made me lash out wildly with my fists and then fall asleep in the middle of the word”
Needless to say, he didn’t win that pitch and so advises a different approach:
‘I actually think a respect for the creative process, for the value and fragility of great ideas, for the discomfort you’re bound to feel when first hearing these ideas – should be the essence of our industry. It would change the focus from a “service” industry, where we’re reliant on intangibles like “chemistry” and drinking unfeasible amounts of alcohol in the name of client entertainment – to a product-focussed industry, where there’s a stronger sense of reality.’
Stress.
A negative word, it can bring about exhaustion, tension and panic. But what we often seem to forget is that alongside this it brings focus, adrenaline and excitement. Stress can push us into places that we might not have gone otherwise. With it we have the ability to achieve great creativity and without it we get lazy. In conclusion, I think there is both good and bad stress and somewhere in between those is our creative genius. It’s just a matter of knowing where to find it.
And after all, to quote Tim Mellors, ‘It’s only advertising. Nobody dies’
