How to stay creative in Sydney without losing your mind

Being a creative in Sydney takes more than talent. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned the hard way building a creative career in this wonderful, difficult city.

Don’t wait to be picked

As harsh as it sounds: no one is coming to hand you the opportunity. In a city like Sydney, where there is so much talent and not enough roles, waiting to be picked can become its own kind of trap. You can spend years auditioning, hoping the right person sees something in you, that the right part comes along, and the timing finally works—and sometimes it does, but the moments when I have felt the most movement in my own creative life have often been when I stopped waiting and made something myself.

If you want to act, write a play where you are a character. If you want to perform, produce a play. If you have an idea that will not leave you alone, start building it in whatever way you can. That doesn’t mean you have to do everything on your own forever, or that the system shouldn’t offer more support to artists—because it should. But creating your own work opens doors and helps you reclaim your creative power.

Other creatives are not your competition

The second thing I’ve learned is that everyone around you is not your competition. It can feel that way, especially when you’re tired, rejected, or watching someone else get the role, the grant, the review, the meeting, the opportunity you wanted. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by other people’s success, even when you love them and genuinely want good things for them.

But Sydney is a small creative city in many ways, and community matters more than ego. The people beside you are often the people who will recommend you, collaborate with you, read your work, come to your show, tell someone about you, or simply remind you that you’re not doing this alone. Supporting other artists is not just a nice thing to do, it is part of how a creative life becomes sustainable.

Comparison is human. But we can manage our relationship with it. And the longer I do this, the more I believe that generosity has a way of coming back around, not always immediately, not always in the way you expect, but enough to make it worth practising.

Being good is not enough if no one knows you exist

It can be uncomfortable to admit, because most artists would rather the work speak for itself, but the fact is we need visibility too. 

Show up to see your friends’ shows, going to industry events, build a presence and share your own work online, stay in conversation with people and let others know what you’re making and what you care about.

Stay present enough that people remember you when something comes up. 

Let seasons be seasons

Sometimes life be life-ing, ya know?

We can’t always put every minute and dollar into a creative career. Sometimes we have other life priorities- our health, our relationships, our family, or other opportunities come first.

I recently wandered down Hickson Road at Walsh Bay and had to remind myself this exact message: the Sydney arts hub will always be there to come back to.

I’ve always loved to wander by Sydney Theatre Company, the Wharf, Sydney Dance Company, all of those buildings and spaces hold a version of the creative life I imagined for myself. When I was younger, I could picture it so clearly: getting coffee, walking through Walsh Bay, going to classes, rehearsing, working in and around those rooms, feeling fully inside that world, and I still see that as a possible version of my future.

But right now, my days also include breastfeeding, changing nappies, putting babies down for sleep, and all the small, repetitive, deeply consuming parts of having little children. I am writing, which I am grateful for, but acting has had to sit a little more quietly for now. Not because I no longer care about it, nor because the dream has disappeared, but because I am in a season of my life when my children need so much of me and I have had to give myself grace around that.

Momentum comes in waves

One day you’re turning down opportunities because you honestly can’t fit another project in, the next week… *crickets*.

That’s often the marker of a creative life. Feast, famine, repeat.

You can be all in, or just dipping a toe.

Whatever version of your creative practice you are currently engaging in, know that it’s legitimate and that it’s needed— no just by you, but by us.

Audiences want your creations, and Sydney needs its creatives. So keep creating.