The difference between interest and commitment

artist desk

“There’s a difference between interest and commitment.
When you’re interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient.


When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”

 

Kenneth Blanchard

 

Sometimes through their actions, an artist might be fully committed to their art, but only interested in their art career.

What do I mean?

Being committed means ensuring the necessary things are done, not just the bits you like best. That doesn’t mean you have to do them all yourself, but they do need to happen.
And if you ignore that, that’s on you.

So for example

  1. If you really want to make sales but you don’t have a way for people to buy – or even a way to pay you – beyond sending you a message on social media. It’s about time you got committed to setting up your systems and marketing that will allow people to GIVE YOU MONEY for your art

  2. If you really want gallery representation but you have no website and aren’t being visible online or offline. It’s probably time you got to work and got visible

  3. If you really want to connect with collectors and grow your audience, but you have an ad-hoc approach to marketing (eg you post on social media and that’s about it). It’s probably time you committed to taking more strategic action.

Are you ready to succeed?
Are you truly committed?

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Sometimes people don’t do these things because they don’t know how to start (hello resistance my old friend).
Sometimes they totally believe they are not capable (not true)
Sometimes they simply don’t realise the importance of the activities beyond making the work.

And sometimes, they just simply don’t want to do these things. And if that’s the case, own it instead of pretending things haven’t worked out for some mystical reason.

You do get to choose how to have your career. But you don’t get to pretend that somehow it’s the fault of ‘gatekeepers’, ‘the economy’ ‘society’ or even ‘the algorithm’.

If you are content with how things are, then keep going and don’t worry about the ‘shoulds’

But if you really do want those outcomes, then it’s up to YOU to get help, learn, invest in your art business – whatever action is required.

if you aren’t getting the results you want now with doing only the things you are already doing, then something will need to shift for a different outcome.

Sometimes that shift can be one small shift, a series of small shifts, or something much bigger.

I’ve recently been working with an artist who with the one shift in her vision and really gaining clarity on exactly what kind of artist she wants to be led to a huge shift and changes in her work, marketing, how she thinks about and talks about herself. One important shift.

For another it was a series of small shifts about the non-art making part of their art career (paperwork to be exact) that cleared the decks and made for a clearer more focused headspace when making work, and that led to breakthroughs, connections and sales.

For quite a few others it was putting some structure around hoe they work their art business

What aspect of your art business are you only interested in that you are ready to get committed to?

Tell me in the comments below.

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