Take the pressure out of your art: You don't need to make money with it if you don't want to
Look, I get it. I've been there too. I know what it's like to try and put yourself and your art out there on social media, over and over, day after day, and get little to no response.
I've been there, and I know, firsthand, that it can get tough at times. There are days when you feel like it’s better to just give up, or you feel that it’s not worth it anymore. I get that.
And I’m here to say that whatever you end up deciding on (whether you want to continue trying to turn your art into a full-time job or not), don’t be too hard on yourself.
How Pressuring Yourself Affects Your Art
I remember reading this chapter in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic where she talks about how we artists tend to put too much pressure on ourselves to make it as an artist. And by make it, we mean, make it big, become a bestseller, generate a steady and wealthy flow of income from our art.
Now, while that may be the most ideal scenario for us artists, Gilbert also recommends that we don’t place that much pressure on our art.
Why? Because what ends up happening, sometimes, when we pressure it to help us survive, is that we begin to resent the work when things go wrong. Instead of enjoying the process and the creation of our art, we end up begrudging it and loathing it because it isn’t giving us the sustenance that we need in order to survive.
This puts you in a negative state, which, in turn, also ends up affecting your work. You aren’t able to create anything good or worthwhile anymore, because you’ve become so stressed out about making a living.
In fact, the worst case scenario for this might even be that you compromise your own artistic integrity for the sake of money. What happens then? Then, you become a slave to whoever is paying your bills. You end up creating for them rather than for yourself.
This is what actual selling out means. However, the truth is...
There’s nothing wrong with making money with your art.
In fact, let me repeat something Walt Disney once said in the past (and I ask that you put aside, for a moment, whatever feelings you might have against the Disney company).
Walt Disney said, “We don't make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.”
Does the current management of Disney still operate in the same way? Some would say no, while others might disagree. But that’s beside the point.
The point is that, as artists, the last thing we should compromise on is the truth that we want to embed into our art. We shouldn’t have to compromise the work that we want to create in favor of the big bosses.
In fact, if you’ve ever watched the documentary, “A Pixar Story”, the directors and animators who founded Pixar (John Lasseter, etc.) talk about this very issue when they were making Toy Story. They were given the greenlight to create the film, but the big bosses who were in charge of the money and the budget and all that wanted the movie to feel a certain way. They wanted it edgy, and all that.
The problem was, no matter how the folks at Pixar spun it, they couldn’t help but feel as though the script and the direction of the film wasn’t working. It had gotten so bad that there was talk that the movie would be scrapped.
So they all went back to the drawing board and asked themselves, “Alright, what do we really want to do? How do we want this film to go?” Once they got the elephant out of the room and tuned into their own intuition and truth, that’s when the Toy Story that we know and love today started to come out.
The point I’m trying to make is that when you put so much pressure on yourself, or on your art, about making money or pleasing the execs or the big bosses, rather than just focusing on what you want to make, you (more often than not) end up creating a product that you’re not proud of. And that will only make you feel worse rather than make you feel better.
So take that pressure off of yourself. Take that pressure off of your work.
Create from the Heart
Instead, create from a place of love. Create from a place of joy and inspiration. Because it’s when you create from that space will you start to feel truly fulfilled (whether the work makes money or not).
In his book, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield tells his story of a time when he was in a really bad place, artistically. For the longest time, he kept avoiding writing. For all sorts of reasons! Whether it was a fear of being rejected, fear of not being good enough, or worthy enough to write. Whatever it was, he couldn’t seem to fight off Resistance, and do the work.
So there he was, in New York, driving a cab to pay off his bills, when one day he just couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t put off writing anymore. So he slowly and painfully pulled out his typewriter and spent two hours typing away what he said was some of the worst writing he ever wrote. None of it was good. And once he finished that session, he immediately chucked it into the trash.
After that, he spotted the week’s worth of dishes sitting in his sink. And for some reason, he felt as though he had a little bit of energy left. And so he started doing the dishes. As the soap and the water ran through his hands and his fingers he found himself whistling for some reason. And that’s when it hit him: that everything was going to be alright. That he would be fine.
The point he was trying to make from that story was that no matter how bad his writing was that day, the simple act of sitting down to write made him feel better. It lightened his mood. This small and insignificant act of creation somehow stirred his spirit.
That, in a nutshell, is what our art does for us. And when we begin to put pressure on our art, and force it to make a living for us, we sometimes take the joy away from the creative process.
Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to write or create something so that a specific audience can enjoy or pay for it. That’s not at all what I’m saying.
What I’m trying to say is to create, first and foremost, for yourself. Share your voice, your truth, your wisdom, your experience. Create from a place of joy and inspiration. Create from a place of truth. Create with the intention to heal and touch people’s lives.
Don’t create from the space of: I’m going to become a bestseller and earn millions. Because oftentimes you’ll find that (like the folks over at Pixar have shown with Toy Story) when you create from the heart, you have a much bigger and better chance of actually making an impact (and then also earn enough to keep doing your work).
People can sense when something is made with heart, and when something is made solely for the purpose of making money, or for pushing a certain agenda. It can sometimes be incredibly palpable as you’re watching a movie or a new show, like you can feel your energy being sucked up from within you.
So create for the love of it. Create for the joy of it. Create simply because you love the feeling you get when you birth something new, something that was, initially, all just in your head. There’s magic involved in turning ideas into reality. So be proud of yourself whenever you’re able to do that. And above all else, keep making art!
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