Episode 64 - Why Everyone Else’s Success Is Making You Question Your Own Creativity

Why Everyone Else’s Success Is Making You Question Your Own Creativity

Welcome back to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast.

Today, I want to talk to painters, photographers, writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, actors, illustrators, and anyone who has ever tried to make something creative and put a piece of themselves into the world.

I want to begin with a simple question:

Have you ever opened Instagram feeling perfectly fine about your life and closed it feeling like you weren’t doing enough?

You see somebody announcing a new exhibition.

Someone else just landed a major campaign.

Another person has a new book.

Somebody else is traveling around the world doing something incredible in a breathtaking location.

Someone has a million followers.

Another artist seems to be having the career you thought you would have by now.

And suddenly, without even realizing it, you stop looking at their life and start judging yours.

Why isn’t this happening for me?

Am I behind?

Am I not good enough?

Did I miss my moment?

Should I be doing what they’re doing?

And maybe one of the most dangerous questions of all:

Maybe I’m just not as talented as I thought I was.

If you have ever felt that way, this episode is for you.

Because comparison may be one of the greatest threats to creativity today.

Not because seeing great work is bad.

Great work should inspire us.

The problem begins when inspiration turns into measurement.

When somebody else’s career becomes the ruler you use to measure your own.

That is a dangerous game.

Because you are comparing your entire life to a tiny piece of somebody else’s.

You are seeing the exhibition.

You are not seeing the years, maybe decades, when nobody cared.

You are seeing the awards.

You are not seeing the rejection letters.

You are seeing the finished painting.

You are not seeing the hundred failures that came before it.

You are seeing the photograph that went viral.

You are not seeing the thousands that didn’t.

Everyone sees the success.

Very few people see the cost.

And yet we take those tiny pieces of information and use them to make enormous conclusions about ourselves.

They’re winning.

I’m losing.

But listen to me carefully:

Somebody else’s success is not evidence of your failure.

Let me say that again.

Somebody else’s success is not evidence of your failure.

Their moment does not mean your moment isn’t coming.

Their opportunity does not mean there are fewer opportunities for you.

Their path does not determine the speed of yours.

But the problem with comparison goes even deeper.

Because eventually, comparison can start changing your work.

You see what gets attention, so you begin making more of that.

You see what gets likes, so you start creating something similar.

You notice which photographer gets hired, and slowly your photography begins to look like theirs.

You see what kind of paintings are selling.

What music is trending.

What videos are going viral.

What kind of work galleries seem to want.

And without realizing it, the question changes.

It goes from:

What do I want to create?

to:

What should I create so people will pay attention to me?

Those are two very different questions.

And over time, something extremely important begins to disappear.

You.

Your curiosity.

Your instincts.

Your strange ideas.

Your mistakes.

Your experiences.

The things that make absolutely no sense to anybody else but somehow make perfect sense to you.

Those are often the beginnings of your creative voice.

And today, more than ever, you need your own voice.

Creative voice is fragile in the beginning.

It needs experimentation.

It needs failure.

It needs privacy.

It needs periods when nobody understands what you’re doing.

Sometimes that is exactly when you are on the right path.

But today, we create in a world where everything feels like it needs to be shared immediately.

We make something.

We post it.

Then we wait.

Did people like it?

Did they comment?

Did it perform?

Did the algorithm like it?

And before we have even had time to decide what we think about our own work, we are asking the entire world what it thinks.

That is backwards.

As an artist, the first relationship you need to develop is with your own instincts.

Everybody is not going to understand what you are doing.

Especially in the beginning.

You need to know what moves you before you become obsessed with what moves everybody else.

There will always be trends.

There will always be somebody more popular.

Somebody younger.

Somebody with more followers.

Better connections.

Someone who seems to be moving faster than you.

You cannot build a creative life trying to outrun everybody.

You will exhaust yourself.

And even worse, you may reach the finish line and realize you were running somebody else’s race.

One of the great gifts of staying in a creative career for a long time is eventually understanding that there is no single timeline.

Some people explode onto the scene at 22.

Some create their most important work at 42.

Some at 62.

Some at 82.

Creativity does not have an expiration date.

Your path does not have to look like everybody else’s.

But you do have to protect it.

So I want to give you a challenge this week.

It is very simple.

Make something you have absolutely no intention of showing anyone.

That’s right.

Create something you plan to show to no one.

Don’t post it.

Don’t send it to a client.

Don’t put it on your website.

Don’t put it on social media.

Don’t ask your friends what they think.

Create something that has absolutely no purpose beyond the experience of creating.

And while you are doing it, ask yourself:

If nobody were ever going to see this, what would I make?

That is a powerful question for an artist.

Because suddenly there is no algorithm.

No audience.

No likes.

No competition.

There is simply you and the thing you want to create.

Maybe you are a photographer and you take your camera somewhere you have never photographed before.

Maybe you are a painter and you work with colors you have always been afraid to use.

Maybe you are a writer and you write something you would never publish.

Maybe you are a musician and you create a song that fits no genre.

Maybe you are a filmmaker and you shoot something simply because you love the light.

Maybe you are a designer and you make something completely impractical.

Whatever your medium is, give yourself permission to play again.

Remember play?

Before everything became content.

Before every creative decision became part of a business strategy.

Before you worried about whether something would perform.

Most of us started creating because something about it made us feel alive.

We weren’t thinking about followers.

We weren’t thinking about branding.

We weren’t thinking about algorithms.

We certainly weren’t thinking about optimizing anything.

We were fascinated.

Curious.

Excited.

We wanted to see what would happen.

I think every creative needs to return to that place occasionally.

Because that is often where breakthroughs begin.

Not when you are desperately trying to create the next successful thing.

But when you are curious enough to try something that might completely fail.

And here is something else I want you to remember:

The world does not need another version of the artist you are comparing yourself to.

We already have them.

What we don’t have is the version of you that hasn’t fully shown up yet.

The photographer you might become.

The painter.

The writer.

The designer.

The musician.

The filmmaker.

The artist you might become if you stop asking whether your work looks like somebody else’s and start asking whether it looks like you.

That is a harder path.

Imitation gives you a map.

Being yourself does not.

You have to discover your own path while you are walking it.

And sometimes that means being misunderstood.

Sometimes it means making work that gets very little attention.

Sometimes it means following an idea long before anybody else sees its value.

That does not mean you are lost.

It may mean you are finally going somewhere that is actually yours.

So this week, when you see somebody else’s success, celebrate it.

Let it remind you that possibilities exist.

But do not turn their success into evidence against yourself.

Their chapter is not your chapter.

Their timeline is not yours.

We all have our own story.

Our own path to take.

Close social media for a while if you need to.

Put down the phone.

Walk into your studio.

Your room.

Your creative space.

Pick up the brush.

The camera.

The notebook.

Sit at the piano.

Create something.

Not because somebody is waiting for it.

Not because it will generate likes.

Not because it will make money.

Not because it is what you are supposed to be doing.

Make something because you need to know what happens when you follow your own curiosity.

And then tomorrow, do it again.

Because your breakthrough may not come from watching what everybody else is doing.

It may come when you finally become quiet enough to hear what you want to do.

I am on the path just like you.

It is not always easy.

But stay on your path.

Stop comparing.

Start creating.

It is a great thing to be an artist.

It is not always easy, but some of your best work may come from the struggles you experience along the way.

So keep pushing.

Keep creating.

And stop comparing.

I’m Matthew Jordan Smith, and this is the Photography Breakthrough Podcast.

I look forward to seeing you right back here next week.

Until then, always dream big.

Bye for now.