Things I Have Learned Since Choosing A Life As An Artist -Part 2
Welcome to part 2 of our adventure of starting out a new life as self proclaimed artists. If you haven’t read part 1 you can read it here.
In part 1, I wrote about the lesson of creating some necessary structure to balance all the freedom. This sounds somewhat as a luxury problem, but we really needed to do something about that.
We found that structuring our days brought some advantages:
- We could get some work done and felt good about it.
- Through taking ourselves more seriously we started feeling ourselves becoming more and more ‘real’ artists.
But living this new artist's life, more and more this doubting voice came up from time to time saying things like:
Who do I think that I am? Calling myself an artist? Asking money for my work, really: you? Am I good enough an artist to pull this off? Could it really be that somebody is interested in what I am doing?
I recognized a underlying feeling of vulnerability expressed in all these doubting questions.
My first (and very human) response to these feelings is seeking validation. You know, how many likes on Instagram and Facebook or claps on Medium? Somebody please react and say you love it, even just one person? How many followers do I have today? I am sure you know what I mean.
It is pretty stressful to see myself getting worked up about this tendency to seek validation. For a while I see myself switching back and forth between these insecurities and pure love for what I am doing. My day could start out with pure flow and inspiration and end disappointing because my post or story didn’t attract the new followers I was hoping for.
Lesson number two:
I do this creative work because I love doing it and it is important for me. Keep going!
I think this is essential when you choose an artist’s lifestyle. To recognize that you are doing this because you love doing it. Simple but really easy to forget.
It has been almost 8 months now since starting this life. I recognize that I have to follow through and show up to do my work regardless of any validation.
One of the biggest challenges I faced since choosing a life as an artist is the courage I need to do my work at all. There is no boss or client, just this inner drive to create. No secure financial reward or any validation up front. Sometimes this is heavily influenced by positive or negative validation. You know, when people are really enthusiastic about my work I immediately start creating more. Or the opposite, when there is little or no validation, I start questioning this lifestyle and want to give up.
But in the end of the day it is just me, my ideas and inspiration. And then there is a big blank canvas and nobody telling me what to do.
What helped me was to keep going. That means playing, experimenting and discover who I am as an artist. Just because I love the creative process. Because if you stop to soon or never start, you never get the chance to discover new parts of yourself. So do yourself a BIG favor and give yourself that chance!
By granting myself the time to do this, I flourish. I am somehow starting to emerge as new life. It is the middle of February right now and I see all these new plants and flowers starting to emerge from the ground. It is precisely like that. Still vulnerable and at the same time afraid and eager to grow!
And last but not least. How can I ever go back after learning what I have learned? I have to follow through now.
I am curious what you feel and experience after reading this. Are you struggling in your creative writing process?Are there times you wanna quit? How do these things work in your life?
Feel free to comment below and if this article inspired you in some way feel free to follow!
