The Negative Effects of Seeking Validation from your Art
One of the hardest things about being an artist — or any kind of creative— is setting a boundary between your art & others opinions of it.
When I began my journey in art and being creative I always found myself wanting to please my art teacher with what I drew or getting that, "Oh my god! This is so beautiful," reaction from my parents and siblings.
Initially, because I was starting out, I got all of that! But eventually, it died down. Back then, my only motivator were those validations that I was seeking from others.
I soon realized that I was creating art for all the wrong reasons, and not because I enjoyed playing around with colours and getting my clothes all dirty in the process. I started hating my art, because to me it wasn't good.
After many failed attempts, I stopped drawing altogether. I hated the pressure I felt while painting, to get it right, to make others happy with my art.
That was not the solution, and deep down I knew that. So what did I do about it? Nothing. For a few months, I completely stopped creating art.
I found myself very restless, waning to draw & paint, but creating art was not an option because it drained me.
I sat myself down one day with all my supplies and decided to create art just for me, I wasn't going to post it on Instagram, I wasn't going to show it to anyone, it was for no one but me.
As soon as I did that I felt free to create whatever I wanted, and truly make it mine. I didn't care if others liked it. I liked it, and that was more than enough for me.
It felt liberating. It obviously wasn't just one enlightening moment.
It took a lot of self-talk, understanding the roots of my thoughts and the beliefs behind those thoughts. That eventually led me to take that one action of just sitting and starting over with a new perspective.
It made me realise that motivation and validation are very temporary. In fact, it's the most temporary thing. We all bank on motivation to start new things and validation to keep ourselves going. I believe that it's the worst thing to do. Motivation and validation are very external and not reliable. It keeps coming and going, it's not constant.
And that is why I made a choice of only doing things that I truly want to, things I don't need motivation or validation for, internally or externally.
I decided to make it clear to myself, more like affirmations about :
Why do I like art?
Why am I invested in it?
What about it has me coming back?
What does my art represent?
What do others' opinions of my art mean to me?
After writing all of these down, everything was so much more clear to me. Having it in our head with million other thoughts and having it written down, clearly in descriptive words provides a lot of clarity to our thoughts.
Whenever I felt my insecurities creep in, I would look back at these.
Now I have learnt to separate my work from myself. Others opinions about my work are solely their perception of my art, it says nothing about me.
It has been a long journey to get that shift in mindset, and it’s so worth it!