Y1W36 Ramblings of a Perfectionist & Viridescent Back to Back!

Common advice for this: to accept who you are, your limitations and strengths and use this to your own advantage. Allow yourself room for mistakes and frustrating times and let go of things you can’t control.

My thoughts: not much to add as long as you keep striving. And if you want to be something, you need to believe you are that something already. That “I’m a fraud feeling” won’t really go away until you experience the results of your efforts and are living the way you want to be in my opinion. In that respect, have a good idea of what your ideal life would be and work backwards from there. Something that wonderful must be earned and maintained; so you probably won’t expect it to happen too soon anyway so be kind to yourself in the meantime.As for me, I am much more judgmental of myself than others most of the time as I am increasingly aware how ignorant I am, the more I learn. I’m highly critical of myself but I make mistakes, I own it, I let go and move on and then keep going at least! Always learning new things about others and hence myself as a person. (:

Usually earned through accomplishments, respect, constantly working to prove our worth and value to others, by keeping up with everyone out there, trying to be fulfilled based on others’ view on you, impressing others, skilling up and past that minimum employable standard, providing value to others, making friends in the industry and hiding behind a mask in order to stay diplomatic in the public view sometimes.This is where the fear of being judged for everything you do comes to play.

Especially anything that’s out of line or different from what the norm is doing in combination with the expectations of others imposed upon you.

You keep working to prove that you’re good enough or even the best at it. It’s a cycle that never stops as you strive to do something equal or better than your previous best to your peers, those who inspire you and those potentially interested in your work.You want to belong.Positives of this is that it can drive you to do better in all areas.

Negatives of this is that it’s a potential workaholic cycle and can potentially lead to resentment and dissatisfaction with your circumstances and you are left questioning why you’re doing this in the first place.

This happens also to accomplished professionals of the community. If you have reached this stage, you feel trapped and you have lost a lot of that drive and direction in life because what you’re doing is not what you’re passionate about, at least not anymore. You feel sick, tired and jaded despite the great experiences you’ve had overall.

Common advice for this: Always do something you enjoy whether it is by taking your own little spin on things at work, do personal projects or take the brave leap out of the situation you’re in. You can’t please everyone so make sure you’re sticking to your own standards, beliefs and values firstmost.Ah and the usual ‘it’s not what you know (competence), it’s who you know (connections),’ is what I hear often but I don’t truly agree with the first half. Yes there are sometimes exceptions in the workplace but that’s not for us to be concerned about and not always within our control. More on this later.

My thoughts: On one end, the loud and/or unhappy few would bring down others out of fear and insecurity just so that they could bring themselves up for their own gain. On the other hand, there are those constantly trying to please others which is essentially leaving themselves last in the priority list and hence everyone else’s lists too. Usually we’re sliding in between these two ends dependent on how secure we feel.

Where possible, don’t do things if you aren’t feeling genuine about it (terribly hard to do so all the time). Help others only if you truly don’t expect anything in return (helping them was reward enough) and in turn, don’t feel entitled that you have the right to pester people to give out their advice, tips, folio reviews, to give you a feature/publicity, to give you recommendations, to spend time on responding to you and whatnot (people have lives too! But if they do help you out, be super appreciative and somehow reward them for their kindness! Pay it forward even!)Or perhaps you have some clear agreement/expectations between both parties to scratch each others’ backs and how. Whatever works and is fair!

Everyone is trying to find their own way to be ‘accepted’ in the positive sense of connecting with others while being professional and competent at what they do. Sometimes what might work for others, won’t work for you. I don’t claim to know the answers as I’m always working out all of this.Back to the earlier phrase, I’d like to change it to “it’s who and what you know“, both competence and connections would be ideal. But if you’re extremely good at utilising connections/friendships to get your foot in the door or if you’re really at the top of your game in the industry (on level with other top professionals), then props to you! The reality is that you still need good amounts of both and this phrase itself is somewhat simplistic so I’ll go a bit deeper…

I won’t go far into the “who you know” as that’s marketing/networking and I’ve talked heaps about it in last week’s post. I would like to add that herein lies how well you can work with others and if you’re good and pleasant to work with; at least you need to prove you can collaborate, communicate, get through hardships as a team and stay humble and reliable without an ego getting in the way.

The “what you know” part is where you need to prove and show you can do the job as claimed. You have demonstrated the awareness and experience of the hardships and challenges that comes with the role you’re striving for.

Proving both points assures others that you’re capable…and it never really ends as you’re always proving yourself, whether you’re a beginner or professional.

Personally for me for this whole topic…
Yes I am hoping to do personal projects again and like many others, I did do a leap of faith when I resolved to completely cut myself off from another profession, in my case, the world of high school teaching. Occasionally I still get asked if I’m going to go back to it as “backup” and it truly annoys me because the implication that I will quit being a full time professional artist is there.If it was earlier this year however, I would actually think about it but only out of fear and insecurity rather than for the admirable profession itself (maybe I’ll teach in the future in a subject I’m passionate about! Who knows!) Luckily my gut feeling has constantly fought to cut that idea out of my system. Note that I can’t really say I’m completely secure and fearless but I am more confident that in time I will keep collaborating in increasingly cool projects. Have hope.

As much as I do want to belong to the internet artist community, I’m not actively in it and am somewhat out of the loop by choice, at least for now. Can probably call me self serving and selfish because I simply want to focus on learning; arting; working; being with just a handful of friends; when reasonable, help those who specifically ask for me or whenever I want and feel I can make a difference; doing other life things and probably blogging/rambling to my crazy self.Where possible, I don’t show who I’m connected to or who my friends are on social media because I really don’t seek social status (as much as that sounds detrimental to myself or how selfish I am). I am terribly reserved in this area as I highly value privacy and I feel it gives the wrong idea and impression on my social status, connections and reach (obscuring how tiny it really is). I’m not saying what I am doing is the right way nor I am recommending anything as this is just me and my thoughts behind it.

I’m in the minority as there are countless of great, admirable people who demonstrate how influential, successful and impressive they are just from these numbers and utilise this to their advantage – we all judge from these social media numbers; we can’t help it.

Let’s just say I am part of the group that prefers to keep such statistics to themselves as I don’t believe it means everything.

If I genuinely want to call out people and teams out of respect, admiration, gratitude, credit for teamwork, whatever combination of reasons…I will do so (which is why it doesn’t happen often at all). Still I definitely welcome thoughtful interactions even if it’s just to see if it goes anywhere.

You could say I’m trying to assure myself that this is okay, despite sensing the pressure to go turbo, get out there, share what everyone else shares and do more. In time I probably will do more little by little whatever I choose it should be.To turn that around, arguably I am sharing back to the community an insight to who I am and my art by blogging yet who* really has the time to read everything I type anyway?

I’m not going to worry, especially since I’ve lasted this long without caring too much! Here is my comfy place to articulate my thoughts after all. (: