The waves of doubts as an artist

I have heard and had conversations with other creatives about doubts that we have as artists.

Waves of confusions, waves of wondering what are we doing with our lives, should we change the course of what we are doing?

I think what can help us is to determine what makes us successful as artists individually.

Is it financial gain and being able to live from it? Is it a constant flow of creations no matter the financial gain?

I think most of us do measure our artistry and if it is "worth it" to "Is it making me money?","Am I able to make a living out of it and only do that?" And it is totally understandable, Who does not want to do what they love for a living? For a lot of us that is the definition of success, to live from our passion. The thing is there are a lot of artists that have known success years after they created what brought them success, or some artists have known success at a point and to sustain it had to restrain their creativity and keep creating the same things that have worked well commercially. In itself it is a little bit a death of their artistry, but they keep doing it because they rather keep creating rather than have to look for a part-time job that has nothing to do with their art.

I think if creating is at the core of who you are and what is important for you, it is important to determine how you WANT to determine your success or if something is working.

Do you want to use the same way of measuring success as people around that measure theirs by their promotion at work? Does it feel right?

If so, then you have got to see how to make what you create commercially attractive and give in more attention to what will make it most likely for your art to bring financial gain (promotion, network, exposure...)

If what is important to you is to keep creating regularly but you have got another way of making a living then concentrate on keeping your "vessel" inspired, clear of crippling self-doubt.

Then of course there is a happy medium of wanting your art to bring you some sort of financial gain but you are okay not completely relying on it, then it is a happy marriage that keeps your creativity "sane" and having time and space to earn money in another way.

Do not take as a rule that to be successful as an artist you have got to be a "rich" artist, this is one way to measure it if you choose to and it has got to influence the way you approach art and creativity.

So get clear on what you think success would be for you as an artist, and consciously infuse your process by it. There is no shame of wanting to make money from your art but it needs to be conscious otherwise you will keep the energy of abundance away from you. As I know while a lot of artists want to make a living from their art, a lot of them resent money at the same time and judge artists that make a lot of money by saying "They are not real artist, it is purely commercial". So, be aware of your internal dialogue as you could be sending mixed signals :).