Hi, I’m HIRA.

Designer and coach for the wild-hearted creatives

I am on a journey of building a creative work and life practice that works for me. I’m a multi-passionate. I design, paint, illustrate, photograph, write, and simply, love making things.

I help creative humans in cultivating courage and creativity, slowly and intentionally. It looks like designing a path to allow room for creative freedom, designing our own hours of the day, and cultivating the confidence to keep creating and showing up along the way too.

More importantly, it looks like owning our stories and living our truth out loud in our own unique, messy and human way.

And here’s a little bit about me…

After graduating I worked with multiple renowned brands and multi-national companies for five years but corporate design demands left me unfulfilled deep down. I decided to take the plunge and design a creative life that I’d love living on my own terms and in my own way, slowly and intentionally.

(Here’s what I had been up to before this business came to life, LinkedIn. If you are interested in reading the raw, unedited long version of how I started my blog and this business – Click here!)

A few years back, my husband & I decided to move across continents. We are living a little farther away from the big city life in Copenhagen. I heart creativity, the creative process, and the freedom of expression.

Few things I love: Spending time in nature, drinking tea, reading books, planning, and organizing, travelling around the world, meeting new people and listening to their stories, and learning from their experiences.

I’m a massive introvert (INFJ!) and socially awkward human being.
I also recognize myself as HSP (Highly Sensitive Person)
Enneagram Type 4 and a Rebel on Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies.

Listen to the first-ever episode of Living Your Truth Podcast where I share more of my story and why owning our stories is something I deeply care about:

Around the web:

Build a Better Day with Hira– a project by Jen Carrington
Quietly Extraordinary: Hira Sameer Ahmed
The Everyday Difference Community Project – Ruth Poundwhite
Teaching The Art Of Conscious Living – The Pakistani Woman
On Living Authentically– Roots and Wings Mag
Turns out I Could 19 – Simple and Season

Podcast:

Prioritising Creativity in Life & Business (Episode 52) – Creatively Human
Building, Owning and Trusting Your Space (Episode 66) – Grow With Soul

My Values

Connection
Sharing our hopes, stories, and ideas and learning from each other’s stories and experiences. Connection to me is also about making others feel safe, seen and heard and less alone in their journey.

Intuition
Interacting with the world from a place of intuition and the kind of self-belief that everything we need, all the answers are already within us.

Integrity
Showing up in the world from a place of integrity, sharing our truth with honesty and holding high standards when it comes to transparency and authenticity.

Courage and Vulnerability
Cultivating and practicing courage even when it is hard, especially when it is hard. Risking failure and showing up despite feeling afraid and embracing vulnerability.

Creativity
Creativity is how we add value to the world by bringing things into it, creating the art we want to see in the world. Falling in love with the process and sharing our creations with the world bravely as we owe it to the world.

Storytelling
Every story is important whether it is mine or anyone else’s and stories are the means to connect and add value to the life of others as well as ours. Stories are how we connect.

Freedom
Everyone has a right to make their own mistakes, have opinions and choose to do things differently. I believe in freeing ourselves from the expectations and the shoulds in our lives.

Truth
Speaking the truth to others but much more to ourselves. Your version of the truth is as much worth as any other version. It is important to speak it and live it out loud.

Coaching

Design

Podcast

My Guiding Principles

Progress not perfection

I’m a big believer in striving for progress and not perfection. Understanding and accepting that imperfect is the only way forward frees us in ways we can’t imagine otherwise.

Being unapologetically you

You are the only you in the world. You are worthy. Your message, your ideas and your stories matter and the world needs to hear them. Living your truth out loud, owning your story and loving yourself through the process.

Following our curiosities

Following our passions is over-rated and following our curiosities are under-rated. I believe, following our curiosities can lead us to who we are meant to become. Allowing ourselves to become who we are meant to become can only come when we allow ourselves to follow the path of our curiosities without expectations but immense hope and joy. I believe in creating space for our creativity and ideas to come to life, following our curiosities and seeing where they might lead us.

Intentional Action

You have beautiful stories to tell. I know you do! Your stories and ideas need to come to life and instead of hustling hard for our worth, validation and countless hours of busywork we can choose to take the path of intention. I don’t believe in the myth of hustling hard but I have seen amazing things coming to life in many of my clients and in my own work when we allow the magic to happen in an intentional way and also, in a way that feels right for us.

Giving ourselves permission

I believe our best work happens when we give ourselves permission to be a beginner, to be human, to be different and to make mistakes along the way if that’s what it takes to keep moving forward and keep showing up for the work we almost feel compelled to do. It is also about embracing the discomfort, the messy middle and uncertainty that comes up when we choose to walk through the unknown territories. Also, giving ourselves permission to be seen, to claim some space for our stories, our message, and our ideas, to live out our truth out loud, to experiment, to not to be perfect, to be gentle and not too hard on ourselves, and to never stop growing.

Community over competition

There is space for everyone. I really do believe that. They say everything is done before but I say, it is not yet done by you. There is space for you. Being generous and by believing that a rising tide lifts all boats we can hold space for each other’s wildest dreams to come to life.

Doing it for the process

I believe the journey is, in fact, the destination. I believe in doing our work, showing up and falling in love with the doing instead of obsessing for perfection. It takes courage to feel at peace with not knowing all the answers right away and instead choosing to have faith in the process and cultivating meaning and confidence along the way little by little.

Living our truth out loud

I believe in forging a unique path that allows us to follow our must, live our truth out loud and choosing to live our truth out loud whatever that truth might be and being okay with figuring it out along the way too. Allowing it to rise to the top in its own time and unfold in the doing. Also, making room for our truths to evolve with us over time along with us.