10 Tips for mental health as a creative person
We creative souls are a fragile bunch, you only have look through history to see that it doesn’t take a lot to make us snap. On a serious note though it’s not difficult too see that creative souls are often tortured souls, with anxiety, depression and other mental illness quite commonplace amongst us, with our art and self worth tightly bound together. It’s nice to know that you’re not alone though right?
Here’s 10 tips I’ve learnt to live by in my years as a professional creative…
1. Accept compliments.
As a creative person you will get compliments about your work. Embrace them! Absorb them and pat yourself on the back! Don’t be humble or ashamed to accept a compliment, don’t think that ‘people are just being kind’, don’t push the compliments to one side and focus on all the negative bits that you (and probably, only you) can see in your work. You’re a creative person, you rock!
2. Make creative friends
No one understands the woes of being creative as much as other creative people. Some of my best friends are dressmakers, crafters, graphic designers, dancers, computer game coders and graphic designers. Chew the fat together, bitch and moan, you’ll feel a whole lot better. And what about when you’re feeling really low? Well they’ll understand and they’ll lift you up because that’s what you do when they feel low, because you know that their dresses and games and greeting cards are the greatest on earth!
3. Keep playing
Feeling stale is the kiss of death to creativity. Experimenting with your art, playing and remembering why you love it is what keeps us going. Buy a new set of colouring pencils or dig out some old ones you haven’t touched in years, get a new pad of paper, a new art book, pick up some vintage postcards, draw on your own arm, make some paint from mud and brushes from sticks, break the rules and have fun!
4. Accept you’ll never be the best
‘Better’ is all in the eye of the beholder and accepting that their will always be somebody out there that you perceive to be ‘better’ than you is essential to stop you killing your creativity with self doubt.
You’ve just found an amazing artist online, their work is incredible! It’s a lot like yours in theme or style, only it’s way more sophisticated, their technique is flawless, their anatomy is spot on. You’re in awe and admiration but completely and utterly destroyed. ‘How can my work ever be that good? I might as well give up!’
There is nothing more demoralising than this inner conversation, it’s easy to let feelings of worthlessness destroy your creativity. Whoever this artist is, they are NOT you, YOU ARE UNIQUE and so is your work! There is no doubt in my mind that this ‘amazing’ artist has had the exact same feelings about their own work. Be the best version of yourself that you can be and stop comparing yourself to others!
5. Skill isn’t everything.
So your anatomy is a bit squiffy and your painting technique is a bit splodgy. Well you and me both mate! We get better the more we practice but sometimes that squiffyness & splodgyness is what makes our work unique, it gives it charm and a unique style. Some of my best selling work is work that I now cringe at when I see it’s flaws, yet that’s the work I’ve sold hundred of prints of, that adorns multiple people’s bodies as tattoos…
6. Remember it’s a journey.
There is no destination, just a creative path we stroll and dance and stumble and keep falling over and grazing our knees on!
Many of my students are worried that they don’t have a ‘style’ yet, I always say ‘give it time, it will come’. Over time our work evolves as he we evolve as people and often we’re the last people to notice that our work has a unique look and recurring themes. I tell my students to list the subject matter and artistic techniques that they keep getting drawn to, often they don’t realise that there’s already a pattern forming.