Why Most Creatives Wont Succeed (but you will)
Most Creatives are Competing.
They have not yet realized that all true success is internal.
If you are a “creative person” whether that be art, photography, or content creation, then you understand the struggles of creativity.
Creativity is challenging for 3 reasons:
we are trying to improve every day
we compare ourselves to others subconsciously (whether we know it or not)
we are trying to create something that appeals to others
Especially with social media, there is an infinite amount of competitors. So it’s easy to get in your own head about your progress.
But if you flip this, that also means there’s an infinite amount of customers.
You see, creativity is not a competition.
We are in a new age of the “Digital Renaissance”.
This is a time period where there is more opportunity to be successful as a creative person as there ever was.
These days, you can reach and connect with people thousands of miles away.
You can provide value to people you would have never had a chance of meeting a hundred years ago.
The “next Picasso”, who may have never been found can now be discovered simply by posting on social media.
The very landscape of art itself is changing.
As technology advances, better tools become more available to everyone.
Editing software is getting more advanced and even AI is here.
Plus, the creative community as a whole is growing.
Everyone is posting online - which shares not only knowledge but also inspiration, technique, and skill.
Everyone is leveling each other up.
There has never been a better time to be a creative person.
If you understand this, and are doing something about it, you are 10x ahead of the curve.
You see, most people have not yet realized this.
They are still stuck in the older ideas of the 20th century - which isn’t a bad thing.
All this stuff is new.
The internet is only 40 years old.
Social media is only 26 years old.
Meaning: you are not late - the party is just getting started.
Previously, we went over the formula to “get ahead” of 99% of creatives.
If you haven’t watched that video yet, check it out - that will teach you how to “literally get ahead”.
This is the second part to that video, which will go over how to escape competition entirely.
This is about creating our own successes, because ultimately life is not about beating others.
Most creatives never realize this.
And that’s why most creatives wont succeed.
But that’s why you can.
If you can understand and apply these concepts to your work, you will be “successful”, and in my opinion more happy and more fulfilled.
Disclaimer:
This is a long compilation of stuff that’s worked for me along my journey.
You don’t have to agree with everything I say - just take and use what’s useful for you.
Lets get started.
Who’s Game are You Playing?
The first question we must ask if we want to escape competition is:
“Who’s game am I playing?”
What I mean by this is that we have to imagine that life is a game.
There are things you can and can’t do and there are certain ways to win the game.
For example, if I’m playing Pokémon, I have to catch the guys and keep beating up other guys, until I eventually make it to the top and “beat the game”.
If you’re an athlete, the game you’re playing is not only the literal game of say basketball, but also all the logistics of press and business that come with basketball.
So whether we realize it or not, we are all playing some type of game.
The question to ask is: what game are we playing?
Because if the game you are currently playing isn’t a game you have chosen for yourself, you will by default play someone else’s game.
There are people who go to college, graduate, get a job, and work for 40 years only to regret their lives because that’s not what they actually wanted to do.
But that’s how it ended up because they didn’t pick.
They played that game by default.
Playing someone else’s game can make you more miserable, less happy, and force you to win a prize you may not even want.
So this is not to rush or scare you, but to get you to think.
If we don’t answer these questions now they may harm us in the long run.
Life continues to move whether you want it to or not.
If you don’t choose, your life will flash by before you know it.
So the sooner you choose the game you want to play, the sooner you can start playing.
This applies to not only art, photography, or creativity but also life in general.
I’ll make this more tangible for you guys.
What game am I currently playing?
The game I’m playing is one of photography, content, and business.
I’ve crafted my life in such a way where I can take photos, make content for you guys, and build and sell products (like prints and books).
For example, the type of photography I’ve been really into lately has been sunset photography.
I’ve spent the last year and a half taking photos of sunsets and even built a photography zine on it called “The Sinking Sun”.
So I build these projects and then take what I’ve learned and share those lessons with you guys, which helps me learn more myself.
And then I do it all over again.
This is the game that is currently the most fun for me.
Because it’s an infinite game - there’s always something new to learn, new places to explore, new videos to make, new things to talk about.
And the “rules” of this game I’ve set up based on my own values and preferences.
These rules or “constraints” dictate what you can and can’t do.
Values for example, would be something like the print medium.
Many photographers showcase their work online.
I do this as well but I really like printing my photos.
It’s more real to me and there’s nothing quite like seeing and holding your photos on paper.
This means making prints and building photobooks to showcase and share my art.
That is what I value and it becomes how I play the game.
In terms of preferences, you can think of the cameras I like to use. Cameras like the x100v or xpro3 are preferred for me, and they are also how I play the game of photography.
So your values and preferences will dictate the rules of your game.
These are things that may change over time as you become a different person.
We identify those first, then we can create productivity systems to make them better and easier.
We’ll talk about productivity more in other videos, but for now, lets build our own game.
Here are some good questions to ask yourself when making your game:
What can you do all day every day and never get tired of?
What activity makes you lose track of time? That thing you do where you look up and 4 hours have passed?
What looks like work to others but is play for you?
Your own game is built around your natural talents and interests.
It is not only based on things you’re good at but things that are fun for you.
Because we want to enjoy the game we’re playing.
There’s no point in building our own game if it just becomes another 9-5.
That’s something I learned from freelance photography.
I used to occasionally do photoshoots and weddings, which taught me a lot about photography.
But I quickly realized that although I enjoy photography, I enjoy photography when I’m making what I want to make.
If I’m taking photos for others it can easily become a new 9-5.
That’s not what I wanted.
I started YouTube many years ago to build a more autonomous life for myself.
Somewhere along the way I found photography, or maybe photography found me, and here we are now.
But the point wasn’t to become a “photographer”.
The point was to build a more independent life.
Understanding all of this took me a long time.
And I’m still making improvements each and every day.
So we’re talking years.
Day after day, grinding.
This is not supposed to be an quick and easy process.
We are literally building your ideal life right now.
So set your expectations appropriately: it’s going to be a long journey - but it’s going to be worth it.
3 Steps to Building Your Own Game:
Find what you can do that looks like work for others but is play for you
Identify your values and preferences (these are the “rules”)
Set up the winning conditions (we’ll talk about this in the next step)
Create Your Own Success
Alright, I know this is a lot.
Are you still with me?
Lets talk about the next step: success.
What is success?
In every game there must be a way to “win”.
Success is how we win the game we have created for ourselves.
For example, to win the game of society it typically means getting money, fame, and status.
If we get those things either by becoming a doctor, making a ton of money, or becoming famous by acting, we are “successful”.
However that is society’s definition of success.
But what if we don’t care about that stuff to begin with?
So to play our own game we must create our own personal definition of success.
If you don’t define success you will adopt the standard definition by default.
Of course you can argue that if you can create your own idea of “success”, then success doesn’t exist to begin with.
But I think there’s more utility in defining it for ourselves so we can continue to create and work towards getting what we want.
I have two versions of success that I have defined for myself: creative success and life success.
Lets talk about “creative success” - life success we’ll go over in another video.
This is to say:
So “creating freely” means working on the projects I want to work on by the standards I’ve chosen.
“Creating sustainably” means working at a pace I can maintain for years.
And focusing on the actions, not the outcomes, allows me to see the project I’ve completed as the “success” itself, not how many views or money it made.
Once I defined these terms for myself, a massive wave of clarity rushed over me.
I now understood what I’m doing and more importantly, what I’m not doing.
I could engage in the craft more freely.
I could take the pictures I wanted to take.
I could work on the projects I wanted to work on.
I could play my own game.
So how do you create your own version of success?
Here’s an actionable thing for you to do.
And then list out every possible definition you can think of.
This may mean money, fame, views, popularity, compliments, etc, etc.
Don’t judge yourself on what you want, just be honest.
If you want to separate creative success and life success into different categories like I did, you can.
And understand that as you progress in life, you can change this definition anytime you want.
This isn’t a static definition - it’s normal to change and grow as people and thus our wants and needs will change as well.
Now start crossing off everything you don’t care about.
Try to narrow your success down to 1-3 things.
The more specific you can be, the better.
You can also rewrite and redefine these in a way that makes more sense to you.
This process might be difficult but do your best and try and really think:
“Which of these do I actually care about?”
Once you’ve done this, we can move on to the final part: escaping the competition.
Escape the Competition
Finally, I want to bring this full circle by explaining how to escape the competition.
First, we learned to think of life as a game.
Then, we created the foundations of our own game based on our values and preferences.
Then, we created our own version of success: the way to win the game.
Now we can escape the competition.
You see a lot of people try to escape the competition by beating the competition.
This is not the way to win.
This is because there will always be someone better, someone smarter, someone more talented, and someone that works harder.
And there can only be one winner.
So this is not to deter you from “being the best” if that’s what you want.
Rather, its to make sure you actually want that in the first place.
That’s why we went through this whole loop of defining our own wants.
Because the real way to escape competition is by discarding it.
If we don’t want to be “the hardest worker” then we don’t have to try to be the hardest worker.
We can put our energy and efforts into winning in the way we’ve defined for ourselves.
And if you do want to “be the best” at least now that motivation is clear for you and you can work towards that.
But in my opinion, trying to be “the best” in a creative endeavor is fighting a war you can’t win.
This is because creativity is all apples to oranges.
Even if you are “the best” technically there will always be someone who thinks you’re not.
Therefore success by trying to be the best is outside of your control.
It’s an impossible game to win, and therefore I’ve chosen not to play.
If you understand this, and have created an idea of success where you can win every day, creativity no longer becomes a competition.
You and the people you compare yourself to can all succeed on your own terms.
You aren’t taking from each other’s pies, you’re sharing the pie, maybe even baking the pie together.
Instead of there only being one winner, everyone can be a winner.
When you realize this, life becomes a win-win and you switch from a mindset of scarcity to abundance.
You switch from competing to collaborating.
And that’s how you get true freedom, escaping competition by discarding it, not by actually winning.
There’s a great story about the Catch-22 author, Joseph Heller.
Him and a friend are inside some billionaire’s mansion looking at artwork.
His friend asks him, “How does it make you feel that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel, Catch-22, earned in its entire history?”
Heller replied, “Yeah, but I have something he doesn’t have. I have enough.”
That’s a powerful quote because it shows someone who’s escaped the competition.
It’s not about money for him.
He is living on his own terms of success, not anybody else’s.
And he knows what “enough” is.
To bring it full circle, competition, at least in today’s age is a myth.
If you truly want to get ahead of creatives, stop competing.
You begin to create the work you want, the work that interests you, the projects you’re actually invested in.
You stop doing what everyone else is doing simply because everyone else is doing it.
You ignore trends, views, followers, or whatever social comparison you’re playing.
You escape the competition by discarding it.
Most creatives never get here.
They are stuck competing with other creators for something they may not even want.
And that’s why they wont succeed.
But if you understand this, and take the steps to define your own version of success, you can discard competition and succeed on your own terms.
You’ll soon realize that the only true and fair comparison to make is you to yourself - the person you once were and the potential of the person you can become.
No one can compete with you on being you.
To sum it up:
Begin by creating your own game.
“What do I like to do?” “What am I interested in?”
Next, create the rules of the game based on your own values.
“What do I prefer to do?” “What am I not okay with doing?”
Then, set up the winning conditions or “success” for your game.
“What does success mean to me?” “How do I win my own game?”
Finally, escape competition and succeed by playing your own game.
Simple right?
So I wish you the best of luck on your journey, I hope this helped.
If it did, please share this with a friend you also think might need this.
Also, there are still copies of my first photozine “The Sinking Sun” available. You can order one if you’re interested.
Have a great day, thanks for reading.
