How to Be Confident In My Art Part 1

Hi!  Ryan Kingslien here.  I am the founder of UArtsy.  And one of the jobs I love doing the most is unlocking the artist inside of you, so you can reach your full potential.  And what I want to look at today is this idea of confidence in our art.

What does it mean for us to be confident?  And I’m not going to say that I’ve got all the answers and I know exactly how things play out.  I’m just the same as you!  As I’m working in this, I have my doubts. I look at some work that I’ve done in the past and sometimes my work didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. So I get unsure about where I’m heading in the future. 

A hundred years ago for example, creating art was literally something you decided to do for your life.  It was something that you built into your life because that was the way you made money.  And today, we’re not focused on survival in the same way we were back then.  We’re focused more on thriving, on building up a beautiful life. 

And that’s different!  It requires a whole different set of skills than just needing to get things done and needing to survive. It’s this separate set of skills that really sorts to take us in a different direction.  And it’s the direction that frankly, we haven’t been very well prepared for, in my opinion. And we need to start to discover this today.

So the first thing I think we should do is start to dispel some illusions.  Because the first thing that I’ve discovered in working with a thousand of students that have gone through UArtsy is, most people think that they need to really be hard on themselves in order to produce quality work.  They think that if they’ll get happy with what they’re doing but usually they’re disappointed.

Tell me if this is something you can relate with:  You’re working on something and you’re really excited about it. Then you look at it the next day and you’re not so happy with it anymore.  That happens to me all the time. 

But you have to be mindful of what’s happening in situations like these because if this becomes a habit, we tend to parallel happiness with disappointment.

Then we start thinking maybe we don’t deserve happiness.  And beyond getting in and exploring this idea of deserving happiness and what that means on an existential level or psychological level, we can all agree that happiness is one of the reasons why we do this.  Joy is one of the reasons why we do this. It’s one of the things that gets us up and gets us motivated. 

And so, when we are working, we need to learn how to be happy and unhappy with our work. We need to be okay with whatever outcome we get. Do not make a fundamental mistake of tying your unhappiness with your identity.

“We need to accept that we’re going to be happy or unhappy with our work and that both of these emotions are normal and natural outcomes.”
We tie having to be happy about our work to “I’m an artist” or “I can be an artist” instead of tying the process to it.  So, if every time I create I’m supposed to be happy, it’s supposed to be the best, or it’s supposed to be great. It’s not going to happen.  It’s a childish perspective. 

And that is a journey that we need to marry.  We need to marry the process, not the end result.  We need to get in and connect with process, not the end result. 

Just marry the process and don’t quit. It might be good or it might be bad. But our job on this road to creating artwork that we’re happy with, to this road to building confidence in ourselves as artists, is to just not quit.  Marry the process.

Alright, take care.  Hope you enjoyed and I’ll talk to you soon.            

About Ryan Kingslien:

Over the last six years, Ryan Kingslien has launched over 70+ online classes and impacted thousands of students through his different academies. His courses have generated millions of dollars of revenue for his partners and family.  

About The Artist Impact Academy:

Want to launch an online class?  Want to create a digital empire and support your family from your passions?  The Artist Impact Academy was developed to share the tools, the strategies that Ryan Kingslien has learned and developed over the last six years of launching 70+ online art classes through his different academies.  Now, for the first time ever, Ryan is sharing with you the techniques and the strategies that you can start with right away to grow your audience and build a business around your passions.  Learn more here: www.artistimpactacademy.com.