This might seem conflicting with my first Motivational Factor, Pride, but it really isn’t. Continue reading and you’ll find out why.
Also, don’t be a wuss and get all insulted by reading this, sometimes people need to be slapped around a bit to learn a lesson. So here’s your lesson: YOU SUCK. You are just not good enough. Hell, there’s a reason why you’re an amateur, isn’t there? The quality of your work is severely lacking, and you invest poorly in the stock market.
Wait, let me take a step back there…
It’s all about perspective. In this case, the neutral perspective is that your work is not as good right now as it could be. The positive happy crappy perspective would be “you can always learn and improve etc. yadda yadda blergh” and so forth. This perspective is true. All perspectives are true, but a much more useful perspective is the one with the little voice in your head telling you how crappy your creative output is and how you’ll never be good enough to make even your grandmother like it. How in the holy punishing afterlife is this supposed to motivate you to do anything, you ask?
First, stop asking questions. This is a post that doesn’t change unless I spot an error or need to update something small. It is very unlikely that the post will magically change to answer your question exactly. Second, if you are going to ask something, look at that little comment form down there. Use it. Third, your greatest power in this life is defiance.
The more people there are who tell you you suck, and that your work isn’t worth the bytes it’s made of, the better you feel on your way to the top, and the more satisfying that middle finger will feel, raised up in the air.
You should want people to tell you how much you suck. People are awful, they’ll have no problem criticizing your work if you ask them to. You should appreciate that, and take any constructive criticism that comes out of it, because plenty of it will be dreck. This is why I tend to avoid places such as DeviantArt to display my work, as the criticism there tends to take the shape of unending praise no matter what the quality of the work (and don’t take me wrong, there are some amazing creations on that site.) It’s good to have criticism come from a variety of places.
And with this constructive criticism, you will be motivated to better yourself and prove your detractors wrong. Being aware is about the most important thing you could ever do or be.
This is where the pride comes in, and my blabbering about perspective. Everything is some sort of magical Einsteinian relative duality, and finding the balance is exactly what will get you to the top. Be proud of your abilities and talent, make work, if it sucks, take the criticism and better yourself, and make more work that sucks less.
Really, what feels better than proving people wrong?
2 Comments
I like this article. I’ve been a big slump lately and I can understand it from another perspective. I don’t get critisim at all either good or bad i just don’t get any. Thats because I don’t showcase any of my work and when i do create some work i tend to only show it to a few and never push from that. But i need to get to a level where i’m getting critics from everywhere and not to only a few that i myself pick to critize me. Like for example my site that i have hidded that i don’t show anyone. http://www.tirolocoworks.com/index-v1.php
It’s a problem a lot of artists have. You’re afraid to show off your work at first, and therefore shelter it. But by the time you are ready to showcase it nobody wants to criticize because of your earlier attitude.