Your Art

I was on a call recently with a guy named Ash. He was curious about content creation and distribution.

In that call, Ash asked a simple question: “With the content you create, how do you define success? Do you look at analytics, shares, or other data?”

The answer was (and is) no. I don’t look at any of that stuff. I don’t care about the analytics. I’ve been writing for years, and I define success not by numbers and graphs, but by getting an idea, thought, or opinion out into the world and hoping it brings people value. That’s it.

For me, success happens on the front end of distribution, not the back end. Then it’s on to the next article.

Ash responded, “That’s very interesting. It’s kind of like your writing is your art.”

I’d never really thought of it that way. I’d never thought of the words I write as being anything artistic, or of myself as being an artist. But then I thought about what the word “art” means to me:

Art is any vehicle that helps us express our thoughts and opinions.

I’m not concerned about my writing doing well. In fact, some people might argue that only one of the nearly 400 articles I’ve written (thank you, Wordpress post counter) has actually been “successful” by traditional metrics. That article is the weird morning ritual one, and it has probably been viewed over 1,000,000 times across multiple media outlets. And that’s great and all, but if I let that article be the measuring stick of my writing success, I’d be fighting a never-ending battle. It’s so rare that an article will spread like that one did, so trying to recreate that with each article would put me in a straight-jacket.

I recently heard about Cherie Northon, an environmental scientist and self-described “non-artist” (like me) who has dedicated her career to showing people how seemingly small things like littering can have long-term effects on the planet. Cherie knows all kinds of stats — like the fact that 80% of the ocean’s plastic garbage comes from the land — but she also knows that many of us have turned a deaf ear to tired messages like, “Don’t litter.” So how could she get people to care and, more importantly, take action?

She turned to art — or, more specifically, to partnering with artists who could communicate what we all already know in a new way. She’s used her credentials to bring legitimacy to art pieces made of ocean garbage, and the artists have used their credentials to ensure the message to use a trash can actually gets heard.

Did Cherie have to become a traditional artist to get her message out there? Nope. She had to redefine art as a way of getting her message out, and then find a way to act without getting caught up in how it would be received. She’s written that “few will probably ever see” a piece that means a lot to her — an albatross mosaic made of plastic found on the beach — but she doesn’t let it stop her. You shouldn’t, either. Find your art, and take action.

If you have a message you want to get out into the world, maybe the worst thing to do is get stuck on how it will be received. I know insanely talented people who get so wound up about putting their work out into the world. Every part of the process is painful for them because they don’t create enough to get over their self-doubts, fears, and imperfections.

When I first started writing, I had to overcome a lot of my own self doubts, fears, and imperfections with a simple idea: That article is done, it exists in the world, your time with it is done, it’s time to move on to the next one.

There will always be a next one. You will always have another thing to design. Another video to create. Another article to write. Remove the pressure of thinking you’re creating the last ______ on Earth, and just get your message out.

If there’s one important thing I’ve learned in the past decade as a creative entrepreneur, it’s that the more I create, the more I’m able to create without over analyzing and putting pressure on myself.

I can now write article after article and not worry for a single second about how each one will do. That’s not my definition of success. If an article makes its way from my writing app to my email list and website, it has succeeded. Done deal. End of story. On to the next article.

So I have two questions for you:

1. What is your art? Remember: you don’t have to be an artist to have an art, and your art might be something you don’t even realize. In the end, it’s just the vehicle you use to get your thoughts and opinions out into the world.
2. How can you define success for your art that has nothing to do with forces outside of your control? Can you detach from the metrics and find success with your art from another angle?

Action Item: Shoot me an email with answers to those questions. I’d love to feature your answers on this article on JasonDoesStuff.com

Everything that happens after you put your art out into the world is back-end analytics. Look at those if you want to, but don’t get caught up in them as your metric for success. They will only feed your anxieties the next time you sit down to create, and you don’t want your self-worth tied up in algorithms. Remember instead that success comes with completion, so you can get onto the next thing.