The Path to An Artist’s Self Growth

Hey Creative Friend,

Let’s chart a path for your self-growth. In this post, we’re going to discuss a path to your artist’s self growth. We’ll look at three distinct stages and what happens in each of these three stages.

First, let’s start with why do we even have to go there and talk about artist self growth? The way I see it, as a human being, you’re always doing one of three things

• Stagnating
• Growing, or
• Dead

I think it’s easy to say that we all want to be in the second group – growing.

Recently, I’ve been experiencing a lot of growth as an artist. The reaction I receive as a response to this growth is varied. It mostly depends on how long people have known me. For instance, those who’ve watched my creative journey for years are amazed at my “fast growth”. On the other hand, those who’ve only recently met me, pause to pay attention to my “growth spurt”. And of course, there’s a whole range of other reactions in between.

The thing about this blog is that I’ve always wanted it to be a place to help my creative friends. So, if I’m experiencing artist’s self growth then, I want to share that with you.

As a result, I’m going to share with you three main stages that I’ve noticed an artist goes through on the path to self-growth.

3 Stages of an Artist’s Self Growth

1. Motivation and Mindset

The first stage in this process is what I’ll call motivation and mindset. This is the beginning stages of your journey as an artist. This stage determines whether you get into the game or whether you stay on the sidelines watching others play the game. To clarify, this stage has nothing to do with whether you have the skills you need or not. It has everything to do with what you believe about yourself.

For example, do you think you’re too old or too young to pursue an artistic path? Do you think you need years of additional education before you can even start to express yourself creatively? Certainly, what you think about your artistic or creative skills impacts what you do. Whether you get started or not depends on your motivation and mindset.

2. Personal Practice

This is the belly of the journey to an artist’s self-growth. When you’ve overcome motivation and mindset issues and finally decided to jump in the game, you’ve got to hone your craft. However, honing your craft does not start with your craft. It starts with time. In this busy society where anything to do with creativity or slowing down is relegated to the back burner, you’ve got to fight to carve time for your craft.

Consequently, I find that many potentially great artists get lost right here in the middle of the journey. Fighting to carve time for your craft is only the beginning. After that, what you do with the time you have is equally important. This is where developing your own creative practice becomes super important to your artist self-growth. Practice brings progress. Having a consistent practice will help you develop a body of artwork that will test, prove, and grow your technical skills. An artist has to create art. This is the stage where that happens.

3. Share, Show, and Soar

Now that you’ve created a body of work from your consistent practice, it opens you up to a whole new set of possibilities. As a result of your hard work in the second stage, you start enjoying some rewards. People around you start seeing, probably for the first time, your potential. As an artist, you start becoming more confident in your own abilities.

Consequently, opportunities to elevate your work become abundant. This is where you begin to soar. Not only are you more confident to share your work, show in exhibitions, or sell for money. But others want to help you show, share, and sell. Your work becomes a magnet. It attracts people who either want to purchase your works, publish in their media outlets, or put your work on stages that you can only imagine. From here, who knows how far you can soar? You may reach for the stars if you’re bold enough to dare.

So, here you have it, three stages of an artist’s self-growth.

Friends don’t leave friends behind. I’m growing in my art and I want to grow with you. Below are additional in-depth resources to help you grow with me:

• For Mindset and Motivation, take my course Clarity to Create
• Time Management and Building a Personal Practice, take my course Time Mastery
• For Showing Your Work, read these articles – Show Your Work, and Behind the Scenes of A Solo Show
• And finally, for Selling your Work, these Business Interviews are a great starting point

That’s it Creative Friend,

Chat soon.
Love,