Hello! Thank you for subscribing to these emails; I hope you’ve been enjoying them.
We’re nearly at the end of the year and, alongside planning and dreading / longing for the end of year festivities, probably evaluating how the past year has treated us. So here is a reflective prompt before something more playful tomorrow.
I have just finished writing a pamphlet called The Right Question and I thought I would share an excerpt with you:
“How important are the following to you when you assign values of success or failure to your work?
· Your feelings about your work? Is it important for you to feel happy or inspired or confident or stimulated by your work? Or do you think you should suffer in the name of creating Great Art? If the latter, where did this belief come from? Is it necessary?
· The amount of ‘audience’ take-up, for example number of tickets sold to your show, number of shares for your Instagram posts, number of views on your YouTube channel or downloads of your podcast, number of books sold?
· The quality or type of your audience’s response. When I used to perform, one of my personal markers of success was how quiet an audience got when I was on stage.
· The amount of money you make. Professional artists need to make a living and may be under pressure to make sales. Other people who make creative work for recreational, therapeutic, or other personal reasons may not care about this as much (if they put a price on their work at all).
· Your sense that you learnt something from a project, that you progressed in your skill, craft, or sense of confidence.
· If you are collaborating, did you feel a sense of harmony with your co-creators? Or is this less important to you than ending up with a kick-arse outcome (and the two are not mutually exclusive, by the way).
· Acclaim from your peers or industry gatekeepers. Are you a lone wolf or do you crave endorsement from your fellow creatives? Do you sweat over getting good reviews?
· The generation of other opportunities. Do you have a ‘eureka’ moment if other people, upon experiencing your work, ask you to work with them or are you content to forge on alone?
· Other reasons. Perhaps making creative work is part of your coursework and you aspire to earn a certain grade or number of marks for it.”
Notions of success are personal and unique to each of us as individuals. Today’s challenge is for you to identify what ‘success’ means to you. Is it something or a combination of things on this list? Or something else?
Meredith
The Right Question is a collection of provocations designed to help you to reflect on your creative identity and practice. You can buy it here.
I have loved putting this email series together and have decided to do more next year. Stay tuned for details about my monthly newsletter, fortnightly email prompts, and other email series next year.
If you like what I do, maybe put a little something in my Christmas stocking by leaving me a tip at Ko-Fi.
Helen just sent me a link to an article about the difference between values and value elements. Very interesting! Read here: https://www.be-selfunlimited.com/articles/value-based-approach/