Recently I've become aware of how critical it is to our happiness to measure "the gains" in one's life/career instead of grexing over "the gap" ~ or what we think we're still lacking or haven't yet achieved. Most of us artists are convinced that if only we could have commercial success we will be happy and when we don't have it we feel like we're a failure which makes us depressed and miserable. And hoo boy, I've been totally guilty of this kind of thinking.
What if being happy with our work is what actually brings us success for real?
Life coach, Dan Sullivan (The Gap and The Gain) writes about how we should look at how far we've come, how much we've learned or created, and what skills we've acquired to change our perception of success. By redirecting our thoughts towards the progress we've made in our work makes us feel good and happy about our work in the here and now. This feeling helps us take action to create more of the work -- work that often exceeds what we've done before. We artists know the dedication it takes over a number of years, decades to build skills, and we know that we *grow* as artists. We grow our skill abilities, we hone our awareness, we intensify our interests; ours is an occupation that is constantly evolving in complexity and depth. We invest in our future selves when we do the work we need to do today.
So why do we try to measure success by looking at what we don't yet have?
Perhaps we're dissatisfied with our current skill sets or complain about not making any money or having buyers, so we sometimes blame ourselves for being lazy or maybe we blame a whole industry or capitalism itself for institutionalized exclusion or highway robbery. Perhaps we've fallen into the comparison trap with the people we follow on social media sites and become depressed by thinking there's a scarcity of work out there, "all the good jobs go to them and that we just suck".
My own thinking has gone round and round with a few of these thoughts to be sure, but over the years I've figured out a few things that really feel true to me:
1. Success is always in the doing. It really doesn't matter whether you make money at your art. That you're doing it and it brings you joy is the goal in itself. Besides, every effort you make for your art, every improvement, brings you closer to mastery and those ripples in a pond go out and meet people somewhere (unless you're hiding your work). So what if you work at a non-art job? Think of it as a stream of income alongside your passion and there is z e r o shame in paying your bills with a non-art job. Being an artist is in the heart. And remember that eventually your passion may become a stream of income too.
2. Comparison is the thief of joy. Don't ever compare yourself to anyone else's work or their speed of success. Thinking that you should be where they are is ridiculous and will only make you sad and frustrated. Everyone's life is different and they're on a different path than you. If you need to, take a hiatus from accounts that give you that twinge of jealously and just go do your work. Stop trying to be like them and just be you. Let your freak flag fly. You will make it there in your time.
3. Count your successes. This means understanding how far you've come, baby. Keep an archive of your old work and look at it periodically. Notice the pieces that mark a jump in your skill sets, or show a unique quirk in your handling of paint or marks. Take note of the places in your archive where you've transitioned from one idea to another or have blended a few ideas into one that translates your thoughts and feelings more clearly that they did before. Looking at your work in this way, you can start to get a clearer picture of your trajectory as an artist and it will boost your confidence. It will also spark more ideas about what new work you might want to create. Pay attention to your gains and never mind the gap.
This idea resonates with me a great deal. It places me squarely in the reality about my work that I can literally see and I'm no longer caught up in the future wishing of what I can't see. That said, I've not discarded my lofty goals of making more moolah-- but what it allows me to do is to free myself from expectations and to be more flexible when opportunities arise.
4. Don't be afraid to experiment and often. Whenever I feel like I'm in a box making the same work over and over (an illustration career can seem like that sometimes) I will break out of it and do something completely different for a client. Sometimes I like to switch mediums and work in something I haven't done in awhile (or have never done). Sometimes I like to think in a different style or approach. Shake things up. It always feels successful when I can pull something out of my ass that I didn't expect and it looks pretty cool. Don't be afraid to make something terrible too. We always learn something new this way and having new skill sets is progress.
5. A lot of work eventually gets noticed. Someone said this about Picasso's work: People know and recognize maybe 50-100 pieces of his but he in his lifetime he made thousands of works that aren't famous. So there's your impetus to make a f@ckton of work -- just flood the world with your vision and you will have an impact. Remember: ripples in a pond = success.
Ok, gentle Art Gnomes, I bid you a happy time working and being successful with every day and every work of art. Feel free to pop your comments below and start a conversation.