We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gina Parrish. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gina below.
Gina, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
I have always been passionate about the arts and consider myself to be an artist at heart, but being an artist comes with a certain amount of sensitivity and insecurity that can be difficult to overcome. Any sort of creative field, whether blogging or theatre or anything else you can think of, comes with competition and competing against others who you perceive to be more successful or more talented can make it difficult to have healthy confidence and self-esteem.
I’ve learned over many years, and I am still learning, that success comes through failure. Making mistakes and finding ways to fix them has taught me that I don’t have to be perfect the first time, every time. I’ve also learned that every artist has something different to offer, so comparisons are often a waste of time. Instead I try spend that time finding ways to collaborate with people whose talent I respect.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I created a website and community called Make a Date of It, where my husband and I come up with out-of-the-box date, travel, and gift ideas. What excites me most about it is that it encourages people to break free of their everyday patterns to find time for fun and romance. Even if you’re doing something ordinary, like watching a movie, our blog inspires you to take it a step further to make time together special.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back at my journey, I think creativity, patience, and reflection really drove me to where I am today. The creativity happened first. I found myself thinking, “what if I tried this?” or “wouldn’t it be fun if I did this?” But sometimes the things I tried weren’t immediately successful when looking at the analytics. Over time I would go back and tweak my past ideas and find that they could be successful when given time, or when changed up a bit.
If I were to give advice to someone early in their journey it would be to start now. Ideas can only do so much floating around in the ether. Apply those ideas into something tangible, then give yourself the freedom to go back and fix things you don’t like. Also, set boundaries for yourself. Don’t let the less fun parts of your journey make you miserable.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Not so much a book, but an author whose journey that I have come to respect is Agatha Christie. Over a hundred years ago she decided she could write a mystery novel just as well as everyone else and so she did. Her works were known, but not that well known, until she mysteriously disappeared and reappeared. A publicity stunt? Who knows. Now she’s a legend. She travelled the world and devoted her life to writing. Some of her books are truly terrible, but no one mentions those because her best books are wonderful and defied all the rules of the genre.
Some nuggets of wisdom I take away from her are that not everything you create has to be genius and sometimes it’s worth it to take a risk and do something out of the ordinary. Success itself is a mystery.
Contact Info:
- Website: makeadateofit.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/makeadateofit
- Facebook: facebook.com/makeadateofit
