Tips for Freelancers : Finding the Courage to Forge Your Own Path with Meg Sheeley

Forging your own path will make you happier than listening to what anyone else thinks you should be doing That’s a major takeaway from my interview with Meg Summerfield, the founder of Summerfield Delight and SquareSpace Design Guild. Meg and I have had similar journeys in our careers, even attending the same design school although she studied online and I was in the in-person program. She shares so many powerful insights for staying true to your own path and designing a career that makes you happy. I’m so excited to share it with you!

Topics we cover:

— Meg’s journey of enrolling in architecture for practical reasons to realizing that her heart was in graphic design and following that path
— Why Meg decided to go to grad school and why her circumstances might be different from other designers
— Our experiences of traveling on very tight budgets
— Meg’s first experience of working with a client and the fundamental lessons it taught her
— Her career path from working corporate jobs that weren’t quite the right fit for her to starting her own business
— Tips for choosing a school program that will support you in establishing the career you desire
— Why Meg initially started her food blog and how it evolved to become a bigger part of her career
— Reflecting on what you’ve liked about your career and what you haven’t so that you can get intentional about finding (or creating) your design job
— How Meg revolutionized SquareSpace design and really focused in on that area as her niche
— Learning code as the key to working with SquareSpace in a really dynamic way
— Working to deadlines while also honoring your creative cycles
— Hiring a VA not just to delegate tasks to but to expand your knowledge base and generate new ideas in your business
— The importance of being able to take a critique for growing in your creative work
— Using your Myers-Briggs personality for better understanding your own working needs
— Staying true to your own path rather than getting caught up in what other people think about it
— The course about food blogging that Meg is developing
— The importance of stopping work at a specific time each day
— Don’t forget to go to Audibletrial.com/PinegateRoad and sign up for your free trial

Show Links:

— The Slight Edge
— SACI College of Art & Design Florence
— Florence University of the Arts
— Savannah College of Art and Design
— Myers Briggs http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
— Local is Lovely
— My Open Kitchen podcast
— NOPI: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi
— A Modern Way to Cook by Anna Jones

Tweet it!

Tweet: “I don’t like to consider myself artist sometimes because of the stigma that comes with it.” http://ctt.ec/eeIcc+

Tweet: Choose a design school that will help you establish the career you desire. http://ctt.ec/hEZc5+

Tweet: Reflect on what’s worked and what hasn’t in your career to figure out what your dream job really is. http://ctt.ec/z16y8+

Tweet: Stay true to your path no matter what anyone else thinks. That’s where the magic is. http://ctt.ec/46gLN+

Tweet: “As a creative, being happy in your job is a high five!” http://ctt.ec/3V4T8+

Tweet: “Following your creative inside gut is the most important thing if you’re creative.” http://ctt.ec/dQs7e+

Connect with Meg:

— Summerfield Delight
— SquareSpace Design Guild https://www.squaredesignguild.com/
— Instagram

Connect with Pinegate Road:

— Instagram: I’ve been LOVING sharing some daily happenings with the new stories feature — hope you’ll follow along there!
— Pinterest
— Facebook
— Twitter
— Are you interested in becoming a client? Get in touch about working with Pinegate Road to build your brand foundation!