Reflecting on the Past Few Years
Gratitude - Uncertainty of Creative Work - Trusting My Intuition
The end of October marks 6 months of running my bakery studio full-time again. My baking journey first started back at my parents home during the height of the pandemic and a lot has happened during these past few years. From landing my first and only bakery job at Clark Street in 2021 to starting By Jiyoon with pastry box drops in 2022 to getting hired to open + operate Mil Bakery from 2022-2023. There’s been a lot of experiences that I’ve learned and grown from. I’m grateful for every single one of them.
Reflecting on the past few years, I just feel incredibly thankful for every single person that’s supported and encouraged my work. I’ve definitely had lots of down days filled with stress, anxiety, self-doubt and imposter syndrome— more days than not. It’s definitely difficult to feel stable when self-employment isn’t a linear process and when creative work is highly comparitive and subjective. But there are a lot of people I’ve met along my journey that have helped me to grow in my work and have instilled confidence in me that I just didn’t have for myself for a long time. If I’m being honest, self-employment tends to always feels unstable and I’m not sure where this work will take me in the future. But I’m learning to embrace the uncertainty and to be patient with myself in the process. It feels like I’m still figuring things out every day but this is really just the beginning and I’m excited about that.
I feel like for the first time in my career— a sense of stability and confidence in what I’ve done and what I’m doing. I’m proud that I’ve taken on opportunities and creative endeavors while trusting my intuitions and staying genuine to myself, my work and my timeline. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do work that’s fulfilling in the way it has been, especially the past few month. Receiving all this love and validation that I have from you all has made every single day of this journey worth it. I don’t take any of it for granted so thank you for being here to cheer me on as I continue to learn, evolve and create.
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JIYOON