6 Myths About the Creative Life
Unpacking misconceptions about burnout, money, and more
Our latest #ConnectedByLemonade artist, Doug Alberts, breaks down some of the time-honored myths about artistic careers and creative temperaments.
Myth #1: Burnout doesn’t exist
I’ve found myself in a position of burnout more often than I’d like to admit. At the end of the day, we aren’t as robotic as we’d hope for, and our human-ness shows.
If you meet someone who thinks burnout doesn’t exist, you should suspect they actually are a robot.
It’s sort of a wonderful thing though, admitting that you’re at the end of a creative season. I’ve felt that embracing burnout is something that actually helps me get over it. When I invite this posture of ‘Man, I’m beat,’ I find time for rest and feel more creative than I did before.
Myth #2: A creative person knows the perfect answer, right away
Wouldn’t that be nice! Or… would it be? Part of the fun of ideas is in how you find them.
At some of my first jobs after finishing school, I’d find myself in a boardroom shrugging my shoulders with the rest of my creative colleagues, getting paid to not know the answer! Some of my first jobs or internships were at Giant Ant in Vancouver and Gunner in Detroit. I sometimes had the chance to listen in on a brainstorm session or client call. No studio has the perfect idea right when they hang up the client call, or in the first minutes of a brainstorm session. It’s a laborious process, throwing as many ideas as we can and taking the best nuggets.
Iterations of design, animation, and storytelling are all part of our job as creatives. When I don’t know the answer, I take a walk, get a coffee, or talk it out with some close creative friends. If you don’t nail something at first, know that no one ever does.
Myth #3: You’ll never make any money in the arts
I got the evil eye a few times when I would tell people I’m going to an art school.
I’m going to take a second to dissect that look I got. There’s a weird stigma floating around about art education and art schools.
Art school can be seen as the typical, ‘no money, no job, living on noodles for the rest of your life’ scenario.
But plenty of my friends who didn’t have a passion for business, marketing, or finance went in those directions in school, for some reason. I can’t help but see a contradiction there.
Bottom line: If you’re passionate about what you’re studying, you can make money with it in the future.
You may not be making six figures right out of school, but you certainly will love what you do every single day and that is, well… priceless. So please, study what you love, whether that’s photography, design, animation, science, law, or mathematics. Money will come. Apathy is death to a career.
Myth #4: Life and work need to stay separate
There are so many inspirational quotes about separating life and work. Stephen Covey even said, “the challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.” I used to be an advocate for this separation of work and life… but things changed when I started to feel isolated from the work I was doing.
I blamed this on the fact that in the practice of separating life and work, I left an important thing out from my work: myself! What sort of robbery is that?
When I think of myself, creatively, as a whole person — with feelings, family, a past, a future, dreams — I feel my work open up to that as well. Ultimately, you are a hall of fame waiting to be shown to the world.
Myth #5: You’re either a creative person, or a S.T.E.M. person
Schools sometimes teach that you can only be left- or right-brained. That’s dangerous. In an instant, classes divide in half, with one side saying they want to abandon creativity and the other side saying they want to quit all math and science. This hardens minds against creativity and creates a resistance to stepping outside of your comfort zone.
Myth #6: Creativity is an effortless gift from the muses
Nope. Creativity is actually similar to working out. You start to work out your legs, and they get bigger. You work out your arms, they get bigger. You work out your ideas, and all of a sudden your head gets bigger (metaphorically, I hope). Creative learning and thinking is a result of doing more and more of it, regardless of your age. It’s all about innocence. See you at the creative-gym, bro…
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