Ep #33: Justine Hwang: How to Overcome Burnout, Self-Criticism and Your Fear of Failure with Art and Creativity

The Breathe Like A Badass Podcast

This week, I’m talking to Justine Hwang, an advocate for self-care, a social impact calligrapher, founder of It Just Flows, and a multi passionate entrepreneur.

As a burnout survivor with 20 years of experience in leadership development in the non-profit start up world, she is passionate about empowering compassionate doers to build a sustainable life with intention.

After burning out from a life of saying yes to everything, she revisited her childhood love of calligraphy and discovered its therapeutic nature in her recovery. As the founder of It Just Flows, she now hosts creative workshops teaching calligraphy as a tool for mindfulness, where she holds space for people to connect with themselves, and the community.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Her story as a daughter of immigrants, to high-achieving student, to burnout and depression survivor who was once too busy to plan her own birthday party...to how she became a social impact calligrapher
• The value and power of being a beginner, and why it’s so important to embrace being “bad” at something before you can be good at it
• How to overcome perfectionism and make your art part of your imperfect, creative and everyday identity and personality
• How to use comparison in a positive way as fuel for change - and how to stop it becoming toxic and negative
• How she rebuilt her life after her job fell apart, a major relationship ended, and a friend was admitted to hospital, all in the same year
• Why you do NOT need to turn your artistic hobby into a side-hustle if you don’t want to
• And how to use art, calligraphy and expressive writing to get back in touch with yourself, feel your emotions, and support yourself through life’s major transitions and difficult times

We also talked about the value of trashy TV, and why even coaches and so-called “experts” still struggle with the stuff they help other people to do (which is extremely relatable, let me tell you!).

This episode was incredibly inspiring - it made me want to go and get all my paints and fancy pens out and start throwing stuff down on paper to see what sticks - and it was such a joy to learn from Justine’s honesty, creativity, and insight.

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Resources + Show Notes

• TV Show: Find Me In Paris
• Quote: Ira Glass on creativity, good taste + being bad as a beginner
• Book and Concept: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
• Quote by Brené Brown - 'You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviours.'
• Quote by David Allen - 'You can do anything, but not everything.'

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Find out more about Justine:

• Website: ItJustFlows.com
• Instagram: @itjustflows

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