Insecurity, introversion, and battling it out for the sake of your art.
I’m an introvert around 90% of the time.
There are people who will vouch for this about me. One of those got me a pin that’s in the header image. One of those is married to me and found out just how deep the introversion goes and was surprised enough by it to say, ‘I didn’t think you’d be THIS quiet’. I generally do not like going out of my way to talk to people. The 10% extroversion comes out when I get really excited about some thing, participate in groups of people I like, friends and family, have to do things that require me to talk to people and I reserve it for occasions where it’s really necessary or warranted. But the excitement is short lived.
My 10% extrovert self though, is always begging for conversations, experiences and stories. The problem is: You can’t have any conversations, experiences or stories with people unless you T-A-L-K. And even though my clever self knows this, it has a very strong resistance to corrective measures.
So that means I rarely share stuff I think. Either I never feel like it or I want to avoid talking to people about my thoughts and opinions because I think people will be very judgmental but at the same time — I want to discuss the ideas in my head with someone so that I can find kindred spirits, my tribe of people, you know? This results in me living in my head a lot and that’s …well, not great for self-esteem. You tend to assign opinions and thoughts to people without actually knowing what they think. You barely survive on assumptions without realizing that you’d thrive without them. You’re wary of sharing your thoughts because a) introvert and b) you just know/feel people want to judge you for sharing things that you do and you don’t feel like putting in the energy of defending your stance. So you don’t share. And then you assume. And you don’t find your tribe. Then insecurity pops up. So you don’t share, again. And so it goes on.
But this is all for context.
What I’m eventually getting to is : sharing my art or ideas with people does not come naturally to me and whatever I do share, I do so with extreme trepidation. You would think I’m lying if you saw how much I share on my Instagram about my art. But see, that’s the thing. That is the result of a lot, and I mean a LOT of practice, learning, unlearning, sheer will power and stubbornness over a few years, at least.
Do you know what it’s like for an introvert (and a former people-pleaser) to sincerely work on something, write something that conveys their thoughts about it, put it up where people can see it and just hang around 50 times on that spot to wait for people to say something about it?
I can tell you. It’s self inflicted torture.
Now why would someone do that to themselves? The only answer I can give you is that you have to be care a hell lot more about something other than all of other people’s opinion and your fear of judgement. And I care more about — making art, participate in the community, maybe getting some validation (yes not afraid to admit it) and one day — becoming a GOOD artist that makes something for the world.
When artists put up their work on social media, based on where they are in their art journey they expect things like engagement, interest, encouragement, emotion, interaction, critique, conversation, community , patronage or sale. If you don’t value any of these things as an artist safe to say you won’t put up your art on social media or in the public eye. And that’s perfectly okay — whatever floats your boat! But if you DO, then yes there are some expectations.
In my case, I wanted a sense of community, interaction with people about art, education, experimenting and the joy of creating something that represented my thoughts and loves. I ALSO wanted validation because I genuinely believed what I painted was so pretty and so nice and so deep and I wanted other people to agree with me. That’s the plain old truth. Narcissist much? Probably.
But what happened was that the other goals I had were shoved aside by my need for validation. Validation is pretty addicting — social media runs off on it. I used to paint things that I thought people would like, that people would find pretty or people would be interested in. Basically, I let my art making and thoughts revolve around other people’s imaginary opinions and likes and dislikes — while the other intentions and plans I had for my art were sidelined in that process.
And lo and behold! It sucked. For my art and for my self-esteem. What a surprise.
Depending on people doom scrolling on social media to tell you what they really think about your art? Yeah — that’s a sure fire way to wreck your self esteem for no good reason. I did try to ask, sort of in a ‘come on try new things challenge’ to myself, but asking for people’s opinions doesn’t actually make the process or art any better. It just makes you more concerned with the opinions and less concerned about what you want to make or put out there. AND it’s worse when people don’t respond. It makes you wonder if you’re that weird enthusiastic child who missed the memo about acting cool.
So now I had a problem. I wanted to share my art. I wanted to explore it with other people. But that wasn’t happening as I hoped. Instead, I was getting side tracked.
I was getting more concerned with things like how many followers and likes I had, how many people unfollowed me and whyyy, how many people were liking it, ensuring how to ‘optimize’ the posts so that I could work the Instagram algorithm for more people to see my art, increase my ‘engagement’. I was comparing myself to artists who had been working for YEARS on their craft. Add to that the general outlook of my generation to have everything in life figured out by 30 or else be declared ‘average’ (the horror), as if life ends after that or by being average. A fair number of people from my generation subconsciously have this outlook, causing them some mental stress — I was no exception.
I was completely losing track and was all over the place.
So it was time for self-reflection and I came up with some actionable items after a lot of reading, discussions (with self and husband) and introspection.
Identify and revisit my goal and purpose for sharing art online. Why do I share art?
Decide the best course of action for that goal(s).
Resist the temptation to make this about numbers.
Make it your own. No one else’s. Authentic, noisy, messy, pensive, enthusiastic, sad, moody, content, happy, jubilant, explosive if need be. But that should be genuinely me.
Stop using introversion as an excuse to not be point 4.
Get help and inspiration from other creatives and friends on social media. Tap into things that inspire and motivate me.
PRACTICE
And repeat.
I have been working on all these points in this past year and I’ve really started experiencing how much happier it has made me. I have some amazing friends and influencers who are creatives that I follow on social media — visual artists, musicians, singers, illustrators, dancers, writers, bloggers, designers, chefs, photographers and poets. I learn a lot by just observing them. Especially their work ethic and passion for their craft.
I have people or things I revisit that will inspire me when I’m feeling blocked — other artists old and contemporary, Bangtan Sonyeondan (BTS) members and their music (they are my current artistic lifeline), pop culture works like Mad Men that I use to get some perspective if I feel I’m losing track.
In order to grow as an artist, you have to be genuine and true to your self.
If you don’t create things you want to create, there’s usually no meaning to it. And without meaning, it’s easy to lose your drive. I’ve been told I’m childish or too enthusiastic or too ‘crazy’ or too ‘involved’ about something — and I used to take it to heart and suppress my thoughts or actions. This used to make me second guess a lot. In short, I was doing a great disservice to my craft by being a sad suppressed version of myself.
I started rectifying this in the past year, greatly improved at not caring what people might say about what I post or do or say. My husband is a major contributor in this particular improvement (and is great at pep talks) so I mostly owe this to him. I create and express things that I really like and not worry about what might be most popular. I do not worry about ‘what will this make people think about me?’
Going ‘So what?’ in response to any non-useful criticism or opinions can do wonders for your craft as well as your self esteem.
That is not to say that everything is fine and I’ve figured it out. There’s still a lot of internal dialogue that goes on before I make something and post it for all to see but now I have learned how to redirect it towards what matters if in case I get sidetracked. It’s not a done and dusted thing, its a process.
I have seen the positive effect of this path on my mental peace and it reassures me whenever I wonder if this is the best course of action. As Marie Kondo suggests asking yourself, ‘Does this bring me joy?’
Yes. Yes it does.
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