Five Useful Tips For the Creative Professional
Avoid the ruts and pitfalls of being a professional artist by thinking larger.
The biggest dangers professional creatives face are becoming stuck in a rut or failing to find inspiration to continue their work. Sometimes the struggle lies in maintaining the passion. Sometimes it’s in staying fresh and current. Sometimes it’s simple isolation.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
There are a few simple, immediately actionable steps you can take to stay on top of your creative game.
Don’t let yourself get typecast
By this, I mean don’t let others decide what a creative person should be like. I always thought one of society’s greatest sins was spreading the myth that most writers are alcoholics, most musicians are drug users, visual artists were… well, insane.
The fact is, most of the successful, working authors I know rarely touch alcohol. A couple of the best songwriters I know don’t even touch marijuana, let alone anything stronger. And there is no significant statistical tendency toward mental instability among my other artist friends than you’d find anywhere else in society.
To think you need to be a drinker, druggie, or neurotic to succeed at being a creative is a heinous lie. Forget what Hollywood tells you. Creative people have a full range of backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, peculiarities, and normalities to choose from. Don’t feel like you have to fit a certain stereotype to be a successful, working, creative professional. Most professionals flourish simply by being themselves.
Seek out the quiet times
While it’s true that inspiration is all around us, it’s the quiet times that allow us to really nurture and develop an idea. Being free from distraction and noise enables creative people to more easily hear what their brain has come up with, turn those thoughts around in their heads, and make the most of their inspiration.
There’s a lot of noise in the world today, but the world also deserves to see what you’ve come up with. With that in mind, it’s totally fair to shut the world out while you develop your creations, be they stories, paints, songs, or t-shirt designs.
Speaking of the world… take it in
I’ve never known a musician who didn’t listen to music, nor a writer who didn’t read. Likewise, most writers I know listen to a wide range of music, and my musician friends are among the most well-read. If you’re an artist, you need to soak in art — not just the sort you engage in.
If you paint, go enjoy some stagecraft. If you’re an actor or set designer, go to a concert or gallery opening (when they become things again). If you write, read a lot of everything and maybe pick up a guitar or something between books.
Broadening your horizons and expanding your universe will only help.
Be a part of the creative community
If there is one thing the internet has given us that we can find consistent value in, it’s the ability to find communities. As artists and creatives, none of us are condemned to living in a tiny bubble of our own experiences and perspectives. There are hundreds of thousands of paces online where creatives can gather to share work, feedback, advice, and more.
They’re also places where one can network with others, find work, or get advice on finding work or marketing creative endeavors.
If being online isn’t your thing, you’d be surprised how many places near you may be a gathering place for other artists, writers, and the like. While COVID has made physical gatherings challenging, it won’t be around forever. Writers will eventually meander back into the coffeeshops. Musicians will return to playing in bars and subways. Group shows and gallery openings will be a thing again.
Keep your eyes and ears open. Seek out like-minded artists and discover how being part of a larger community of artists will help you grow personally and professionally.
Embrace feedback and make the most of it
This is where the line between amateur creative and professional creative resides.
If you’re an artist who has no interest in other people’s thoughts, opinions, or reactions to your work, the more power to you. You be you.
But if you’re planning to make a living at this, you need to know how others feel about your work and what you can do to make it better. That might mean pulling the ego back a little, but it’s for a good cause, right?
This isn’t about selling out or buying in. This is about using the resources available to you to improve and grow professionally. While I’d caution anyone from leaning too much on other’s opinions (you do need to be true to yourself), but it’d be foolish not to hear what people have to say.
Use your judgment on how valuable feedback is. Not all criticism is equal, but you owe it to yourself to at least listen.
Keep perspective. Prioritize your happiness.
Being an artist is tough. It’s difficult to measure success.
Sure, as a professional, one way to measure success is by how much your work earns you, but it’s about more than money, too, isn’t it? Are you happy with what you do? You could be making a truckload of money for your paintings or songs, but are you happy doing it?
Or are you on the road to burnout?
Enjoy what you do. If you can make a living from it, that’s great! Not everyone can. The previous tips are some ways you can continue to nurture your professional creative self.
But if you don’t enjoy your work, maybe you should go back to what you do enjoy and find another primary income stream. We’ve been there.
Eventually, we try again, and sometimes the results are different.
I’ve been at this for three decades now, and it’s only within the past few years that I feel I’m hitting my stride.
The journey was worth it.
Thank you for reading. I’d love to share more with you via my Bi-Weekly Word Roundup newsletter sent to subscribers every other Sunday. It will feature news, productivity tips, life hacks, and links to top stories making the rounds on the Internet. You can unsubscribe at any time.
