LCN 064: “Help! My Fans Want My Old Stuff, But I’m Burned Out!”

It’s a listener question episode today!

One of the things I love doing most with this podcast is answering listener questions.

In fact, in case you weren’t aware, there’s actually a button on my site — at livecreativenow.com/questions, plus in the sidebar and footer of just about every page — which allows you to leave me a voice message with your question or issue.

Surprisingly enough, almost nobody ever takes advantage of this.

Seriously, a grand total of maybe three people have used that voicemail option at all, and I don’t think anyone has ever actually left me a question for the podcast with it.

I guess my listeners are shy.

Which means that if you’re brave enough to use it, your chances of getting your question on the air are very high right now. So go to livecreativenow.com/questions before everyone else figures out that this voicemail option is available and beats you to it!

Anyway, thankfully there are also other ways of getting me to answer your question on the show. You can, of course, send me an email. Or better yet, leave your question inside a five-star iTunes review (go to livecreativenow.com/itunes-review for step-by-step instructions for how to do that).

I’ve gotten some great listener questions recently, and today I’m answering a question that another Melissa sent me just last week, which resonated with me so much.

Let’s get to it!

Hi Melissa!

I’ve been listening to your podcasts — love your insight and your doodles and things so much.

I am having a dilemma. I had a digital stamp shop (for card making) for 5 years. I sold my black and white line art for people to color. It was an accidental success.

It had started as a doubtful hobby and snowballed. That was good and bad… I had seen what others were doing and wanted to try it but after time the passion was gone and I kept going with the art because I needed the income and I felt guilty about the idea of quitting.

I also felt like I was obligated to a certain style and had no room for growth and that I was not connected to what I was doing anymore. I let those feelings go on for way too long.

I finally had to quit, for my sanity. But it was a shock to my fans and customers when I announced closing it all, and in ways I felt like it could have ended better.

Long story short I felt a bitterness (like I don’t even want to use my shop name anymore even though it’s how everyone knows me), hiding from the world and my old art.

It has taken me more than a year to TRULY regain my artistic passion. But it’s still shaky at best.

And I try to quietly show my new drawings on my Facebook profile, since praise really helps, but a good number of my friends were old customers. So I often hear them sadly say how they wish they could still buy my art. That they need what I’m drawing.

They colored it before when I had my shop and my art has evolved since then, but I still draw in a way that’s very conducive to coloring.

I have to work really hard to NOT become obsessed with making money again. I have A VERY strong entrepreneurial vein in me (much like my dad had) and every idea I have my mind thinks I have to make money from it. As much as I don’t want money to be my focus like it was before, I know I have fans and a lot of potential.

I don’t know what to do. It’s eating me up. I want to use my art for something, but how?

I would love some help or outsider insight. Thank you so much in advance.

Love,
a fellow Melissa <3

Oh, my goodness, Melissa, I so relate! And I know lots of other people do, too. This is a classic artist’s dilemma.

As creators, we have a need to explore and grow. But if we grow an audience, they want more of the same. And if that’s all we produce, we stagnate and ultimately burn out.

Add money to the equation — especially if your art is how you pay the bills, as was the case for me with my calligraphy and ketubah business — and it becomes an even harder trap to escape from.

You Are Not Alone

First, I want to simply acknowledge that your feelings are normal.

Passion, by its very nature, tends not to burn at the same intensity forever. You change, and what at first intrigued and challenged you can eventually become boring.

Also, you are absolutely not the only person to feel guilty about quitting. When we see people appreciating us for something, it can feel like a betrayal when we let that thing go.

Even just stepping back from something you’ve worked hard to master can feel like a betrayal! As a calligrapher, who spent years honing my skills in the attempt to master my craft, creating a piece of art with no words on it felt like some kind of defection, like I was an unfaithful lover, like I was doing something bad!

How could I just toss out all those years of practice and study?

The Responsibilities of Being a Redhead

But you know what? I had almost the exact same internal struggle when I cut my hair.

Yep, all my life I’d had long hair. And because I’m a redhead, I got lots of comments about my hair, on an almost daily basis.

Being a redhead is a big part of my identity! But eventually I got tired of having long hair — it wasn’t particularly flattering; it mostly looked kind of stringy, except just after brushing it; it was a pain to take care of; and I would mostly just put it in a ponytail. Boring!

But when I even thought about cutting it, I felt this weird sense of (false) guilt, as if I’d be depriving all the people who liked to look at my long red hair of something important.

Ridiculous, right?

I didn’t owe anyone my long hair! Cutting my hair short was not actually harming anyone!

False Guilt

This is why I call my feeling false guilt. True guilt is a helpful feeling when we are culpable of true wrongdoing. But not providing people something that is not your responsibility to provide is not wrongdoing!

I do not owe anyone long hair, or calligraphy on every piece of artwork I create for the fun of it.

You do not owe anyone the black and white line art they want from you.

Unless you have an actual contract with someone, or someone has paid you to create in a particular style and you have agreed to it, you are not obligated to create in any style, or even to create at all for them.

Your only true obligation as an artist is to yourself. (Click to tweet.)

This is a huge obligation. You absolutely must feed your need to create in the ways that excite and intrigue you. If you don’t, it results in the kind of burnout both you and I have experienced.

Bitterness. Hiding. Complete stuckness, even.

The Big Exacerbator: Money

But what if you still need or want to make money from your creativity? How do you balance the popular, moneymaking kind of creation (which leads to burnout, if that’s all you do), with the creating that you really want to do, which pushes and grows you as an artist?

Here’s what I feel, really strongly:

Whatever kind of art you do, whether for money or not, you must carve out and maintain space to create purely for you. (Click to tweet.)

Sacred time to explore, make messes, follow your curiosity, and create just for the joy of it. Where nobody else’s opinions matter one whit.

I call this Creative Sandbox time, and it is essential.

I used to think that the reason I got burned out on my art business was because it was a business — because money got involved and tainted my relationship to my art.

I’m no longer sure that’s entirely true.

Money can very easily taint your relationship to your art. If you’re not very, very careful, it will taint your relationship to your art. But I don’t know that it has to.

If you have a few very important things in place.

What MUST Be In Place to Prevent Money from Tainting Your Relationship to Your Art

1. You must set things up very intentionally so that you don’t have to do things that suck the life out of you.

For example, if you know that you can’t stand other people telling you what to do, then taking on commissions in which you relinquish creative control is not going to work well for you. So make it clear up front that you don’t accept commissions.

Or maybe you do accept commissions, but only if they are not art-directed in any way. The client pays you to create a unique piece in your own unique style, but they have no say in how the end result will look, beyond whatever parameters you establish in advance: maybe dimensions, color palette, theme, or medium.

YOU get to decide. That’s the point. 

You get to determine what you will and will not do. It’s your business, not theirs. If you decide at any point that a particular thing isn’t working for you, stop offering it!

If you no longer want to work in a particular style, take all pieces in that style out of your portfolio and get them off your website!

The other thing that’s absolutely essential is Creative Sandbox time.

2. You must make time to play — just for you — regularly.

Ideally you’ll play in the Creative Sandbox daily. Even if only for tiny bits and snatches. (Creative Sandbox Manifesto rule #4: “Think tiny & daily.”)

If you do not create “just for you” space and time, you will burn out. I am convinced that if I had figured this out — both parts, but especially Creative Sandbox time — I would not have burned out so badly on my own art business. I may still have decided to move on. In fact, I’m quite sure I would have, but I might have spared myself so much pain and misery.

Hacking the Creative Sandbox

Here’s the thing about Creative Sandbox time. Whatever you create in the Creative Sandbox has to be purely for you, purely for the joy of it.

But… That doesn’t mean you can’t also offer it for sale.

Now this can get a little tricky. Your mindset is critical. If you come at the work thinking about what will sell, it will ruin it. Guaranteed.

That’s not to say you can’t also make things that you know you want to sell. Go for it! Knock yourself out! But not during Creative Sandbox time.

When you’re in the Creative Sandbox, you cannot let money enter the equation. It has to be for you. Period. 

In truth, I share — and sell! — things that I create in the Creative Sandbox all the time. But while I’m creating I have to keep my focus on doing it for me.

As it says in Creative Sandbox Manifesto, rule #2: Think process, not product.

After I’ve created something, then I can share it, and even offer it for sale.

But if these thoughts start entering my mind while I’m creating in the Creative Sandbox, I do my best to let them go and redirect my focus to the process — play, exploration, discovery.

 

A Lesson from Meditation

Here’s a tip: this redirecting of thoughts is exactly the same process I practice in meditation.

My goal is to be in the present moment, with my attention on my breath. But guess what? Minds are made to think, so inevitably my mind will start wandering — into the past, into the future, bounding down a thought trail.

This is not a problem!

In fact, noticing that my mind has bounded off is the Golden Moment in meditation!

That is known as mindfulness. And it’s the ultimate goal (rather than a thought-free mind), because if I can notice that my thoughts have carried me away from present time, then I have choice.

I can choose to follow that thought train, or I can simply let go of whatever thought my mind has latched onto and return my attention to my breath.

This is the practice.

And it’s the same with focusing on the process, on the joy of creating — for you — in the Creative Sandbox.

Other thoughts will come in:

• Gremlins. Those voices that say things like, “OMG, this sucks!” and “You’ll never be as good as So-and-So!”
• And money thoughts: “How can I make this sellable??” “Will this sell?”
• Or just “Will anybody else like this?”

These thoughts will come in! This is not a problem, as long as you remember that you are not your thoughts, and as long as you notice your thoughts and come back to “think process, not product,” back to creating for you.

Your Fans Are Irrelevant

When you are inside the Creative Sandbox (and remember, we are making time for that every single day!), your fans are irrelevant. Your family is irrelevant. Your friends are irrelevant.

The Creative Sandbox must be your private bubble.

And here’s the ironic — or Zen? — thing: the more you’re able to shut the rest of the world out when you’re in the Creative Sandbox, the more you’re able to let yourself be totally free, the more authentic and YOU your work will be. The more rich and creative it will be, too.

And the more your true Right People will resonate with it!

In fact, you may find yourself with more and more loyal, raving fans when you create your art without your fans in mind! 

And the other fans who don’t like or resonate with your new stuff? They are not your responsibility.

So my prescription for you, Melissa, is to go get creating — in the Creative Sandbox. For you.

Practice this.

It is a practice, and you will find you get better at it the more you do it. And the better you get at giving yourself Creative Sandbox playtime, the more your world will open up. Then before you know it you’ll be living that vibrant, full-color life you’ve been longing for.

Let me know how it goes!

Would you like a deep dive into the Creative Sandbox, to practice Creative Sandbox skills and immerse yourself in creative play?

Join me at my 4th Annual Create & Incubate Retreat, August 17-21, in the hills of Los Gatos, California, above Silicon Valley.

5 days and 4 nights of uninterrupted create time, facilitated by the Chief Instigator and Gremlin-Whisperer Extraordinaire, yours truly! 🙂

Quotes In this Episode

Your only true obligation as an artist is to yourself. (Click to tweet.)

Whatever kind of art you do, whether for money or not, you must carve out and maintain space to create purely for you. (Click to tweet.)

Resources In this Episode

Ask me a question of your own for the podcast! Click here.

LCN 005: My Top 10 Tips to Get Past Any Creative Block: Creative Sandbox Rules

LCN 041: MELISSA LIVE! The Creative Sandbox Manifesto

Click here to download my Creative Sandbox Manifesto poster.

My online meditation mentor, Susan Piver. Check out her wonderful Open Heart Project.

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

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Now go get creating!

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