Conquering Creativity: 8 Universal Mistakes Every Artist Makes

Hello Humans! Greetings from Toronto!

I'm here at the Buffer Festival, where I'm gonna be screening my first ever short film, which I'm super excited about, because last year I was like “mannnn... I really wish that one day I could do that” and then one year later, here we are! Also very nervous as a side note…

A lot of people assume that because you are professional, you never make mistakes. People hold themselves back massively because they're just constantly in their heads, so today I’m going to be sharing with you guys some mistakes that I make as a creator, as an artist, as a youtuber.

I'm sharing all of these mistakes because if you catch yourself procrastinating, experiencing perfectionism, that do not give a f*** attitude, carelessness, anger, low self-esteem, these are all signs that you're probably self sabotaging yourself.

I am experiencing this stuff and I am a professional. This is why I'm sharing it, because it'll show you that you just have to get shit done. You can't be in your head, we need your art, so get your shit done.

1. NOT BEING CONSISTENT
Consistency holts procrastination. You need to get out of your head, leave your baggage at the door and just do it, every single day, even if it's crap, even if you don't feel like it, you have to get up and do your art. It is all about your art, so do not let your mind stop you from providing your gift to the world.

2. NOT CHALLENGING YOURSELF OR FOLLOWING YOUR HEART
If you are not challenging yourself, creating for yourself, trying to be better than what you were yesterday and at the same time also not doing the things that you want to be doing about working and creating art for other people, stuff that you don't really care about, this is how burner is gonna happen. You’re going to get bored and you’re just grinding for someone else’s sake. This is a very dangerous territory to be in, so just make sure that you stick to your guns, stick to what makes you happy, because this is where the greatest results will come.

3. LEAVING THINGS TO THE LAST MINUTE
We're all guilty of leaving stuff to the very last minute when there's a deadline. Pre-plan and backtrack so you can give your best at all times and save yourself distress.

4. NOT VALUING YOURSELF ENOUGH
This is such a common problem for all artists. We don't know how much we're worth. It's really hard to put a value on art or creation or anything like that.

I often come across people that I like “well I'm not good enough yet to be charging money, so I just charge a little bit here and a little bit there, but it's not a lot”. This is where you have to get a professional opinion of how much you’re worth.

I do the same thing, I always undervalue myself until someone says “hey, you know your stuff is actually worth this much” and generally I'm charging about half of what I should be.

Get a professional objective opinion of how much your art is worth, stick to that even if you  don't feel good enough because I guarantee you, even people at the top don't feel good enough but they know how much they're worth and they stick to that.

If you demand it, people will pay.

5. NOT BEING GRATEFUL
This is gonna destroy your career if you're not grateful. I am very guilty of this, I do this a lot to myself and you get into your head again and you start thinking of all the things that aren't going right without focusing on the things that are going well.

We all know that we create our own reality, the more you think about the positive, you're thankful for it, you're gonna get more of that and if you're not and you're concentrating on the negative you're gonna get more and more of that.

You create your reality so whatever you have right now, even the small things, it doesn't matter, you have to practice gratitude. Otherwise everything you have, your dreams, they're never gonna come true. Be grateful for what you have and watch more of it roll in.

6. SELF-CARE
I think this next point has become like a status quo thing… apparently if you’re not sleeping, if you're not eating probably, not being healthy and you have no work-life balance, THAT makes you a proper artist.

I don't know if this can be anything that's further from the truth.

I just read yesterday that if humans don't eat, we last weeks, if we don't sleep for 11 days, we die. You need to make sure that your normal rhythms are in place, you have a routine, you take care of yourself.

This is a huge one for me right now. I have zero work-life balance and I'm seeing it affect me massively. I have no time for exercise, very little time for my friends and my relationship, I'm eating semi okay but there's so much more that I can be doing. My life is just work right now and I know in the end it's actually affecting my creativity and my art and it's not making me produce the very best work.

Who wants to get to the end of their days and say “well I've worked a lot but I didn't actually even create the best work because I never recovered”.

Make sure you take time out for yourself. Days without the phone, that's so important! You have to have days without phones.

7. ADDING MADE UP PRESSURE TO YOUR SITUATION
This one sucks honestly... What if this happens? What if that happens? I'm gonna destroy my career if this doesn't happen! What if I don't survive next year? There’s so many made-up things that we have going on in our brains, which are holding us.

How about breaking down what you need to do into tiny little chunks and just doing it. Progress is much better than sitting in your brain. Nothing is gonna happen if you're just sitting in your head, being too concerned about yourself... Which brings me to one of the most important points.

8. THINKING ABOUT ME INSTEAD OF CREATING THE ART
So often we get caught up in things like “what does my hair look like? What does my butt/house look like? Do I sound stupid? Am I sounding right?”

You and I, this body, us, this is a vehicle for you to produce your art - that is it. The thing that's gonna stop you from creating massive amounts of beautiful, life-changing, world-changing work, is thinking about you instead of the art.

Think about who is consuming your art, what do they need from you, what do they want from you, are you gonna be able to help them with your art?

Mistakes. They’re gonna happen, it's part of the process.

Until next time guys, PEACE!