One day i heard someone say something about a creator that really made me stop and think. What they said was something like this:”I don’t say anything about their work because they’re already so good. They don’t need encouragement.”
On the surface, this sounds like an amazing compliment. This person is so amazing their work speaks for itself! No praise needed to spur this creative person on! It sounds solid, doesn’t it? But anyone who knows someone who creates knows that, under the surface, every creative is massively self-conscious and depreciating of their own work. We oscillate between thinking we’re the best ever, and that we’re absolutely the worst and why should we even bother.
I heard this great quote once which, to paraphrase (because though I’ve searched I can’t find the original) ‘Every creative person is caught between ego and self-loathing’. We put our work out there, believing it is good enough to be shared. But secretly, underneath, we’re terrified that we’re not good enough and that someone is going to figure out how much of a fraud we actually are.
It’s hard to get a clear idea of how good your work is when you’re a creative. Whether it’s a song, a book, a painting, anything, you’re just too close to it to see whether it’s any good or not. In fact, we’re trained to look for the flaws, because that’s what we focus on fixing. It doesn’t matter how good something we made is, we can’t see it nearly as clearly as someone looking at it can, which makes it almost impossible to tell whether we’re actually any good, or whether we’re just faking it.
There’s this story about the writer Maya Angelou, who was an absolutely amazing writer. Even after writing books and poems and winning literary awards, she still admitted once that every time she wrote something, she was just waiting for people to figure out that she actually couldn’t write. Maya Angelou. And if Maya Angelou didn’t believe that she was as good as everyone thought, then what about other creators?
If creators never get any feedback on what people think of their work, why would they keep making it? If no one said they enjoyed it, what’s the point of continuing to create? No matter how good you are, or how much you’ve created, you’re never too good to be told that someone loves what you made. We love to hear that people like what we create, and sometimes it gives us that little boost on days when we’re feeling like frauds and failures.
So if you love something that someone has made, if something you’ve seen has touched you, let the person who made it know. Leave a comment on a YouTube video, tweet at them, post on their Facebook page or email them and let them know that you liked what they made. It lets them know that what they create matters. And it could be exactly what they need to hear today. Let’s support the people who provide us with amazing things.
Catch up on my latest video:
As a creative I can identify with your post so much! It’s true, we are trained to notice all the little flaws and fix them to become better. The irony is that we need to switch off that critic to start creating in the first place. I’ve encouraged many people to create who are allowing their critic to engage too early in the process. I know I’m guilty of that as well.
I also wonder if our good old Aussie trick of “tall poppy syndrome” is partly causing the first comment you wrote about.
I came here via your vlog which I enjoyed this week. Well done for achieving your workout challenge. I’m still wondering if you are buff yet? 😉
xo Jazzy Jack