#006: It's Okay If You're Not There Yet

A word from Freya: This one's just me. I wanted to share some honest thoughts on graduating, university, staying creative, and figuring out how to be okay with where you are right now.

I graduated this year, and I think I expected it to feel different than it did. Not necessarily huge, but at least somewhat exciting. What happened is I finished my degree, handed in a dissertation I'm genuinely proud of, and then went and got a full-time office job that has nothing to do with games, storytelling, or anything I spent three years thinking about.

Nobody really prepares you for that part. University has a way of making the ending feel like the whole point, exams, deadlines, the dissertation, all building toward this one moment, and then it's just... over, and you're expected to know what comes next. I didn't. I still don't, most days. I think that's more normal than anyone tells you while you're still in it.

If I'm honest, a lot of university was less about the subject and more about learning how to sit with not knowing things yet. I spent my final year deep in research on how games get adapted into film and TV, arguing, essentially, that games deserve to be taken seriously as storytelling. I still believe every word of that. But writing 10,000 words about why something matters to you doesn't come with a plan for what you do with that belief once you hand it in. That bit, you have to figure out yourself.

On not doing what you want right now

This is the part I really wish someone had said to me plainly, instead of me having to work it out the slow way: not having your dream job at 22, or 25, or whenever, isn't a verdict on you. It doesn't mean you're not talented enough or didn't work hard enough. The creative industries are just genuinely difficult to get into. There are more good, hungry people than there are open doors, and that's true no matter how good your dissertation was or how hard you tried.

Having a job that pays your rent while you build the other thing quietly, on the side, isn't a backup plan or something to be embarrassed about. It's just what a lot of creative careers actually look like at the start. Nobody puts that bit in the version of the story people tell afterwards, once they've made it, but it's true for more people than you'd think, including, I'd guess, more than one person on this team.

Staying motivated

I won't pretend I have this fully figured out, I don't. But here's what's actually helped, not in theory, in practice:

Small pockets of time work better than waiting for big ones. I used to think I needed a free weekend to get anything done creatively. That weekend basically never comes. What does exist is the hour after work, or half my lunch break, so that's what I use now.

Finishing something small does more for me than almost finishing something big. A published blog post moves me forward more than an unfinished ambitious project sitting untouched in a folder ever has. I had to actually let go of the idea that everything I make needs to be impressive to count.

I try to remind myself why I started, not just on the bad days, but on purpose, regularly. I still think about that dissertation, about actually meaning it when I said games deserve to be taken as seriously as anything else. That's still true, even on a Tuesday where I'm answering emails that have nothing to do with any of it.

What I've learned to actually look for

People whose eyes light up when they talk about what they're making. I've heard that phrase a few times from people at Renhet now, and it's not a coincidence, it's the clearest signal I've found of somewhere actually worth being.

Places that treat "new graduate" as a starting point rather than something to apologise for. You bring things to a room of more experienced people sometimes can't, fresh eyes, no assumptions  about how things have to be done.

Small, slightly unglamorous opportunities that let you actually make things. A blog. A community project. A tiny paid gig that isn't your dream job but lets you use the muscle. These genuinely add up in a way that waiting around for the perfect opportunity never has for me.

On staying optimistic without lying to yourself

I'm not going to pretend optimism is easy or that it shows up automatically. Some weeks it just doesn't. What actually helps isn't forcing positivity, it's refusing to treat where I am right now as permanent. A day job isn't a life sentence as it is just where you are for now, and "for now" is doing a lot of the work in that sentence.

I told myself a while ago that even when I'm not working in the games industry, I'll always keep creating. That's still the whole plan, honestly. If you're in the in-between right now, out of university, not quite where you thought you'd be, still figuring out the shape of what comes next, I promise you it's a completely normal place to stand. I'm standing there too.

• - Freya, on behalf of the crew :)

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