The Off-Season Update

A few months later, here's what actually changed.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed quite a few new names popping up here, so I thought it was time to introduce myself properly and share an update on my off-season.

Hi, I’m Jaylynn.

Some of you found this space through a note I shared about stepping away from Instagram and returning to creativity. I didn’t expect that reflection to resonate the way it did, but I’m grateful it brought you here.

Like many of you, I’m figuring things out in real time. I’m balancing a full-time career, creative dreams, and the quiet work of becoming the woman of my dreams. Writing here is one of the ways I slow down long enough to make sense of it all.

Soft & Still is where I share reflections on creativity, life transitions, and the small moments that help us come back to ourselves. Some days, that looks like writing about rest or personal growth. Other days it’s a story from my life, something I’m learning, or a thought I can’t quite shake. Nothing overly polished. Just honest writing from someone who is still in her process.

A little more about me: I’m a recipe creator, content creator, and the author of Spirit & Company, a cocktail book. By day, I work in data privacy.

Creativity has always been one of the ways I return to myself. And if you’ve been following me for a while, I think I know a little something about you as well. You may be someone who craves slowness but lives in a world that rewards speed. Maybe you used to create, and somewhere along the way, it started to feel like performance. Maybe you’re in your own quiet season right now (not lost, just recalibrating) and you’re not sure if that’s okay.

It is.

When I wrote “The Power of an Off-Season” in November, I was still in the middle of it. I hadn’t yet seen what the quiet would produce. I just knew I needed to stop, and I trusted that something was being built even when I couldn’t see it.

A few months later, I can see it now.

Here’s what the off-season actually looked like.

I deactivated Instagram. I’m not sure when or if I’ll return, and honestly, I’ve stopped trying to answer that question. What I’ve realized is that I missed creating; I just didn’t want to perform while doing it. Stepping away gave me the space to have one without the other.

I fell back in love with food photography in a way I genuinely didn’t expect. I’ve started carving out what I call “creative retreat weekends”: just me, a recipe, my camera, and a shot list. I spend weekends shooting for the blog. I romanticize it a little by calling it a retreat, but I’m really just in my living room. And somehow that’s made it something I look forward to. No audience, no performance. Just the light and the food and the joy of making something beautiful for my site, on my own terms, and at my pace.

I also simplified my process: one backdrop, one light, a clean setup. In the past, I felt like I was doing too much (too many props, too many options) and delaying the work. Perfectionism being a pest, as it tends to be. Stripping it back kept me focused on the work itself, not the what-ifs.

French Toast, Fried Chicken, Brussels Sprouts Salad, and Vanilla Bean Iced Coffee

I’m still doing the work on JaylynnLittle.com — updating old recipes, adding new recipes, improving photos, optimizing for SEO, and planning for each season. It paid off! I got accepted into an ad management company, which means the site is now generating ad revenue to help support operational costs. It’s slow, behind-the-scenes work that nobody sees, but it’s building something evergreen that will outlast an algorithm.

I started cooking again. Really cooking, eating out less, spending time in my kitchen, and remembering why food became a creative language for me in the first place.

I created an evening routine that I do not play about.

This season I’ve been rooted in John 15:9. I remember Saturday mornings as a child, cleaning the house and listening to Helen Baylor sing, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, then you shall ask what you will, and it shall be given to you.”

Those words have always lived in my heart. But I recently read that scripture in the MSG version, and something cracked open for me.

Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.

And then verse 16:

You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil.

Y’all, I read that one evening and wept. I was done!

One of my prayers this year is simply: Lord, give me an appetite for your Word. So, I started reading in the book of John because I think that’s where you begin to understand the character of Christ — His love, His intimacy, His commands. And this scripture touched me the way it did because of how personal it is. Make yourself at home in my love. Not perform for it. Not earn it. Just come home to it. Whew!

But it also reminded me that I was chosen to bear fruit. That this creative work isn’t something I stumbled into; it’s something I was put here to do. And that reminder changed how I show up for it. This isn’t a burden, it’s a privilege. I get to do this work…I get to bear fruit, and He gets the glory.

Another shift, the one I didn’t see coming, is how I stopped negotiating with myself. Kobe Bryant once said,

I’m not negotiating with myself. The deal was already made.

Somewhere in this off-season, the Mamba Mentality became mine too. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Not just with creative work, but everything: bible study, going to bed on time, planning, cooking at home, and following through. I signed the contract.

That internal consistency has changed something in me that I’m still finding words for.

Overall, I feel stronger! Mentally, spiritually, and creatively stronger. I have clarity about my focus, and I’m no longer trying to exist in a space that God has called me out of. This season has also revealed what isn’t working, and a rebrand is coming, but more on that later.

If I’m honest, I feel like I’m in position. Like the off-season did exactly what it was supposed to do: it didn’t slow me down, it prepared me to move with purpose and direction.

But I’m not rushing out of this season; this is just an update. I’m letting it finish its work in me.

There’s something freeing about that. Not every season needs a grand exit. Sometimes you just keep going until you look up and realize you’ve already arrived somewhere new.

As always, thanks for reading. Stay inspired, stay creative.

With care,
Jaylynn

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About me:
I’m a writer, creator, and encourager behind Soft & Still — a space for slowing down, coming home to yourself, and living with more presence. Here, we honor the small, sacred work of becoming.

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