We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Xochilt Garcia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Xochilt, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Deciding to go into a creative career forced me to become resilient faster. I wouldn’t say I got it from anywhere in particular. I grew resiliency through life experiences and dealing with different types of people. Going into a creative career you have to have resiliency to get somewhere. If you don’t have thick skin, then you learn to make it. You learn to use your passion to power your strength. I think that alone is what has made me such a determined individual.
Being resilient is all about accepting your reality and moving forward ten times stronger. You solve the problem, you learn from it, and keep going, because nothing worth having ever comes easy.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a digital artist who’s been creating art longer than I can remember. The most special thing about making art is knowing all the technicalities that come with it. Art is far more complex than people often imagine. Having the ability of creating something out of nothing is magic in itself. I always encourage those who are gifted with any sort of creative talent to continue to develop it.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I believe the three most important qualities that have been the most impactful in my journey so far has been perseverance, keeping an open mind, and being ambitious. My advice would be to speak to others in your field who are experienced and spend some time learning from them. People are open to guiding you through their process. When it comes to receiving criticism, really take it, it teaches you to detatch yourself from your creation and see it through a new perspective. Finally, stay ambitious, it is easy to give up and sometime you don’t have the energy to keep going. It’s okay to take a break, the life of a creative can be draining but after your hiatus always promise yourself to come back strong and better than before.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
When I feel overwhelmed I stop what I am doing. The only reason why one gets overwhelmed is because you’re thinking of multiple tasks, or issues all at once. I write down whatever is overwhelming me and do each task one by one. For me, it is easier to digest these task if I can physically see them.
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Image Credits
Portrait by Michael Sorensen
