Creative Reset

August always does something strange to my thinking. Less noise, fewer meetings stacked on meetings, and suddenly there's room for questions I've been quietly avoiding for months.

This year the question that surfaced was an old one - am I doing what I should be doing, or what's actually right for me? It's a distinction I had to learn the hard way, long before Creative Reset existed - and one I still have to relearn every time the pace drops enough to hear myself think.

If you're in a similar stretch right now - more space than usual, and a question you've been putting off - I wrote about exactly this shift a while back.

📖 Read: What Nobody Tells You About Creative Leadership → www.creativereset.co.uk/blog/what-nobody-tells-you-about-creative-leadership

👉 Where has a bit of quiet space taken you this August, whether you wanted it to or not?

For over a decade in my career, across completely different roles - production, digital platforms, global partnerships - one thing kept repeating. People would often turn to me. For support. For a sounding board. For anchoring, when things got difficult.

I didn’t clock it as a pattern for a long time. It just felt like part of whatever job I happened to be doing.

It was only once I stopped treating that as incidental - just something that came with the job - that I saw what it was actually pointing to. That recognition is what led me to build Creative Reset: turning something I’d always done instinctively into an actual practice.

If you’re starting to notice your own pattern - the thread running under everything you’ve done - this piece might help you make sense of it: ‘The Pivot Point’ → www.creativereset.co.uk/blog/the-pivot-point-how-to-know-when-its-time-to-change-direction

👉 What's the thread that keeps showing up in your work, whether you've chosen it or not?

Last week I delivered a Masterclass on burnout to a room full of people who make their living from digital media. The irony wasn't lost on anyone.

I led this Masterclass, ‘Preventing Burnout in the Digital Media World’ for the National Film and Television School, YouTube and BBC's Create x Connect platform - and that experience changed my focus for August.

I’ve written up what happened, and why the quiet stretch of summer might be the best window all year to recalibrate.

Read it here → www.creativereset.co.uk/workshops/preventing-burnout-choosing-what-stays

👉 Where in your working life have you stopped questioning what's actually optional?

On paper, it looked like a step backwards. In reality, it's how I ended up in Palestine - one of the most meaningful chapters of my career.

After finishing my master's in education, I applied for a production manager role with BBC Media Action in - a step down in title from where I'd been as a producer and line producer. On paper, it looked like the wrong move. I took it because of what I knew the experience itself would give me.

It's a place, and a project, I still feel strongly about. Working with BBC Media Action alongside the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, building something together rather than simply directing from outside, taught me things I still carry into my work today.

This month at Creative Reset, we're looking at what it really means to own your capability - and, related to that, how to lead a team when you're still finding your own feet in the role. I'll be sharing more of the Palestine story, and what it taught me about both, this week.

I've written a bit more about the wider idea in one of my earlier blog posts, The Pivot Point. Full post at: www.creativereset.co.uk/blog/the-pivot-point-how-to-know-when-its-time-to-change-direction.

✨ Have you ever taken a step that looked like less, on paper, because you knew it would give you more?

Sixteen-year-olds and senior creative directors ask the same question. Only one group says it out loud.

Earlier this month, I delivered a workshop for New City College at their Ardleigh Green Campus, working with a group of sixteen-to-eighteen year old students just starting to think about a career in media production. It struck me how early the question of “do I actually belong here?” starts showing up - and how little it really changes, even decades into a career.

What mattered most wasn't naming the doubt - it was what we did with it. We spent real time helping them recognise their own strengths, understand that self-worth isn't something you have to earn through experience alone and get comfortable actually showing what they can do, rather than downplaying it. By the end, the shift in the room was tangible - from quiet uncertainty to a much clearer sense of what they already had to offer.

I've written more about it on the blog this week, alongside a look at how the same doubt shows up at senior level and what's usually actually going on when it does.

Full post at: www.creativereset.co.uk/workshops/what-16-year-olds-can-teach-the-industry-about-its-own-future.

👉 When did you first notice that feeling of not quite belonging - and has it changed shape since?

Starting my own business taught me more about myself in two years than working for others did in twenty-five.

That's not something I expected going in. I thought I understood independence after twenty-five years freelance and thirty years in this industry. Running a business showed me a different layer of it entirely.

Suddenly, every decision - direction, risk, what to try, what to walk away from - was mine alone. No senior sign-off, no shared accountability. Just me and the choice in front of me.

If you've made a similar leap - stepping out on your own for the first time, or moving from freelancing into actually running something - you'll know that mix of freedom and exposure. What's carried me through it hasn't been finding confidence from nowhere. It's been getting genuinely clear on what I value and won't compromise on, so decisions have something solid to rest against, even when I'm the only one making them.

This month at Creative Reset, we're exploring exactly that: what it actually takes to lead yourself, and how your own values can act as a compass when there's no one left to check your choices against.

If you’re navigating a similar shift and think that coaching could be of use, I’d love to talk it through with you - book a free discovery call at: https://calendly.com/coach-emmadobinson/let-s-talk.

💬 What's been the most surprising thing you've learned about yourself from taking on more responsibility?

This month I'm exploring something that took me years to properly understand - before you can lead anyone else, you have to lead yourself.

It sounds simple. It isn't.

I spent a long time believing that good leadership meant holding everything together - for the team, for the project, for everyone but myself. It took one particularly bruising production experience to teach me the difference between being responsible for a project and being responsible for myself within it.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be sharing what that shift actually looked like in practice - starting with the day I stopped waiting for permission to lead, and what changed once I did.

Full story on the blog this week: www.creativereset.co.uk/blog/what-nobody-tells-you-about-creative-leadership

👉 Where in your own work have you felt the pull to lead everyone else before you'd sorted yourself out first?

Writing this from Espinho, Portugal, where FEST - New Directors New Films Festival - is in full swing 🎬

What has struck me most isn't any single film or masterclass. It's the camaraderie.

There's a genuine sense of teamwork here - filmmakers, students and industry professionals from all over the world, drawing energy from one another. People celebrating not just their own work but the work of others, including those whose films are being shown but who couldn't be here in person.

Earlier this week I saw a wonderful programme of shorts under the banner ‘Tales of Womanhood’, a real, global voice for women's experiences told with honesty and range. I’ve also attended masterclasses with people who've taken completely different routes to where they are. funded his feature through NFTs as the traditional paths weren't open to him and he made the case that not being able to follow the well-worn road can actually push you towards more innovative thinking. and - one of the most accomplished production design teams in the industry having worked across everything from period drama to Barbie - shared decades of insight built through collaboration.

There isn't one direction in this industry. There are as many directions as there are people in the room. And the courage to follow your own - even when it doesn't look like anyone else's - is what makes the work that comes out of it so alive.

It's exactly the kind of environment I try to create in my own coaching and group work - spaces where people feel supported enough to be honest and energised by each other rather than in competition.

🌟 What's a moment when not following the obvious path actually worked in your favour?

Today I am working on something I've been looking forward to for a while.

A three day Film London workshop - Production Levelling Up - coaching a group of media professionals from different levels in the industry. People who are at that stage where the next step feels uncertain and the path forward isn't always clear.

I know that feeling. I remember it.

The workshop is about resilience, self-confidence and self-worth. About helping people recognise the strengths and values they already have - not as abstract concepts but as real, practical tools they can use to build their
careers with intention. Career planning. Career mapping. A plan that's actually theirs - rooted in who they are, not just what the industry expects them to be.

This is the work I find most meaningful. Not because it's comfortable - it rarely is - but because it matters.

Because the creative industries are better, richer and more vital when they genuinely reflect the range of voices and experiences that exist in the world. And because early investment in people - real investment, the kind that
sees them clearly and helps them see themselves clearly - changes the trajectory of careers in ways that last.

I'll be sharing some reflections as the week goes on. For now I'm just grateful to be in the room.

👉 What's the most valuable thing someone did for you early in your career and have you had the chance to pass it on?

Not every role works out. And that's not always about you.

I've been thinking this week about a job I took some years ago - during a period when I was genuinely excited about what it could be. A new company, fresh ideas, a real sense of purpose behind the work. The kind of opportunity that looks, from the outside, like exactly the right move.

I went in with energy, with transferable skills built over years across different fields, and with a genuine belief that I could contribute something meaningful. The intentions - mine and the organisation's - were good. I have no doubt about that.

But good intentions, it turns out, aren't enough on their own. What was missing was the infrastructure to support them. The systems, the management, the clarity of purpose that allows talented people to actually do what they've been brought in to do.

And here's what I've learned, and what I share with the creative professionals I coach - when the infrastructure isn't there, it's not your job to become the infrastructure. You can contribute. You can adapt. You can bring everything you have. But you cannot build the foundation of an organisation from inside it, especially when the people responsible for that foundation aren't ready to build it themselves.

Recognising that - clearly, without self-blame - is one of the most useful things you can learn in a creative career.

Not every role that doesn't work out is a failure. Sometimes it's information. Sometimes it's direction. Sometimes it's the thing that teaches you, more precisely than anything else could, what you actually need in order to do your best work.

👉 Has there been a role that looked right from the outside but didn't work from the inside and what did it tell you about what you actually need?