The Real Mistake I Made in My Tattoo Career
How losing touch with my creativity almost cost me everything—and what I learned as a tattoo artist discovering his passion.
I didn’t burn out because I worked too hard.
I burned out because I stopped doing the thing that made me fall in love with tattooing—and art— in the first place.
I stopped creating for the joy of it.
For me.
Let me tell you how I lost it… and how I’m finally getting it back.
Creativity flows through me.
Money flows through me.
My only job?
Don’t block the flow.
My only job is to NOT BLOCK the flow. (white text over black background)
As a kid, I created simply because I could.
Had a story idea? I wrote it down.
Had a picture in my head? I grabbed a pencil and brought it to life—as fast as I could.
I didn’t worry if it was good. I didn’t care if it made sense to anyone else.
What mattered was the urge to make.
And I followed it. Every day.
By the time I was a teenager, I’d developed real skills.
Not because I was naturally gifted—but because I kept showing up.
Drawing on paper lit me up.
The way the pencil felt.
The sound of quick sketching.
The escape of it all.
My mind went somewhere far away. And I liked it there.
So what happened?
I grew up.
Life hit.
Hard.
I started tying my self-worth to what others thought of my work.
And when the validation didn’t come, or didn’t feel loud enough…
I took it personally.
But Validation… is for parking.
Validation is for parking (white text over black background)
But that’s not what the world teaches artists.
No—we’re told to mold ourselves.
Be marketable. Be consistent. Be humble.
Make work that always exceeds expectations, even if you’re already burnt out.
Oh, and don’t celebrate yourself. No one likes that.
But here’s the part no one talks about:
The unspoken needs of an artist.
Why did we become artists in the first place?
Because we see the world differently.
We feel it differently.
And a lot of the time… the world doesn’t see or feel us the same way in return. We don’t fit in.
You ever stop and think how heavy that is?
How lonely?
Of course not.
Because in the tattoo industry—and in a lot of creative spaces—we're told to suck it up.
Have another drink.
Push through.
Keep creating.
But I’ve missed it.
I’ve missed creating just to create.
No deadlines. No client expectations. No pressure to post it.
Just making because I can.
That’s the magic I wanted back.
And every time I give myself permission to go there again—
even just for an hour—it feels like a breath of fresh air.
You should try it.
More often than you think.
💬 If this resonated with you…
Drop a comment. Share it with a fellow artist. Or just go pick up your pencil and make something today—just because.
