Lots of creative careers are built from a hundred small gigs, not one big break. Plan for the gigs.

The big break is a story told backwards, after the fact, by people summarising a decade into one sentence. What actually happened was a long string of small paid jobs, each slightly better than the last, with a network built out of people who liked working with you. Waiting for one door means ignoring the hundred that are ajar.

Take the smallest paid or unpaid job available to you in the next month and do it properly. Shoot a friend’s band, design a flyer for a local shop. Keep a list of everyone you worked with, because that list, not your portfolio, is what brings the next one.