How to Stop Judging Your Art and Start Enjoying the Process
Have you ever sat down to create something and immediately felt stuck?
Like your inner critic was whispering:
What if it looks bad?
What if people judge it?
What if I mess up?
This kind of thinking kills creativity before it even starts.
But what would happen if you shifted that into thinking that: Art is meant to be played with. What if you shifted into thinking that the more we embrace play, the freer, more authentic, and confident our creativity becomes?
Below, you’ll find a video where I’m talking about how to let go of resistance, stop overthinking, and create art without judgment. You’ll also find these ideas expanded on and tailored for artivists in the text below.
Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Creative Blocks and Perfectionism
Perfectionism is one of the biggest killers of creativity. It makes us believe that everything we create needs to be perfect, polished, and impressive. And when we hold ourselves to those impossible standards, we get stuck.
This kind of self-judgment can show up in a lot of ways:
Feeling afraid to start because you don’t want to “mess up”
Scrapping projects halfway through because they don’t look “good enough”
Comparing your work to others and feeling discouraged
Etc.
But the irony is, the best artists are the ones who allow themselves to make mistakes.
So, if perfectionism is holding you back, the first step is to change your perspective, perhaps with some powerful mindset shifts.
Doing those simple shifts alone can unlock a whole new level of creative freedom.
Using Sketchbooks to Explore and Experiment
A sketchbook isn’t a gallery. It’s not a place for finished artworks. It’s a private, personal space where you can play, explore, and experiment without pressure.
A sketchbook is a great tool for whenever you:
Feel stuck or blocked
Want to break free from self-sabotage and perfectionism
Want to explore and experiment with new media or ideas
Want to explore and experiment with different styles and themes
Want to uncover your voice
And so much more
There’s no expectation for things to look “good”. The goal is just to show up with an experimental mindset and create without judgment. It takes the pressure off and makes creating art fun.
This is especially important for artists who want to make art for activism (AKA, artivism) and social change, or if you want your art to have a deep meaning and a big impact. The pressure of this desire and intention can sometimes be hard to carry, and it easily slips into perfectionism and other types of self-sabotage. Having a sketchbook practice where fun is the focus can be very transformational.
Growth Mindset
If you’re still struggling with judging your art, perhaps the growth mindset is something you want to explore and adopt (which is something I read first in Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success).
In contrast to the fixed mindset (which is a belief system where individuals perceive that their abilities, intelligence, and innate talents are static and unchangeable and can’t be improved upon), having a growth mindset means that you believe you can improve your skills, capabilities, and the talents you were born with. Nothing is fixed, and nothing has to stay the same. If you want to become a better painter, writer, filmmaker, etc., you can.
Those with growth mindsets tend to take risks, experiment, and try new things a lot more than those with fixed mindsets. Trying, “failing”, and trying again is a cycle you’re most likely more familiar with, perhaps even excited about, because you know that it will help you learn and grow. You know that it’ll help you improve your creative skills, uncover your style and voice, make your work better each time, etc. And if you make something you don’t necessarily like, you know there’s a lesson in there about what not to do next time.
Key Strategies for Shifting From a Fixed to a Growth Mindset
To do this, it’s important to start seeing challenges and “mistakes” as opportunities to learn and improve.
Let’s look at a few key strategies:
Embrace challenges: Instead of avoiding difficult tasks, try to see them as opportunities to grow and expand your skills and abilities. If you, for example, feel stuck in a creative project, take a moment to reflect on possible solutions to that situation rather than just moving on to the next project.
Learn from “failure”: When something doesn’t go as planned, view it as a valuable lesson rather than a mistake or failure. If you, for example, overworked a painting to the point where you feel like it’s beyond repair, take a moment to reflect on possible lessons you can derive from that situation. You could ask yourself:
Where could you have stopped working on it?
Why did you choose to continue working on it?
And other such questions that will help you get to the root of why you got the result you now have and how you can avoid that next time.
Value progress over perfection: Celebrate small wins and improvements instead of expecting immediate, flawless results. And let it take its time. Don’t expect to have something great after just one day, or a week, or even a month (depending on the size of your work or project). Let it take the time it needs.
By adopting a growth mindset, you can build confidence, become more resilient, and ultimately unlock your full potential as an artivist. Doesn’t that sound great?
If you want to go deeper, there are several exercises to help you deal with judgment, self-sabotage, challenges, “failures”, etc., in this separate post on powerful mindset shifts.
Final Words
If you’ve been holding yourself back because of self-judgement, perfectionism, or other self-sabotaging tendencies, I encourage you to adopt a growth mindset and use a sketchbook to play and experiment for your own pleasure.
When you embrace play, you unlock true creative freedom.
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