04: Perfectionism: The Procrastination Addiction That’s Holding Back Your Art Sales (Copy)

Consider this the warmest welcome to you and especially those perfectionist artists listening. Today, we're diving deep into the murky waters of perfectionism, tackling the sneaky demons that hold us back and arming ourselves with the weapons of mass creation. So if you're tired of staring at your to-do lists like it's a Rubik's cube, or feel like your art sales are stuck with Bill Murray in a Groundhog Day loop, stick around. We'll uncover what perfectionism truly is, how it can hide in plain sight, and share some killer strategies to overcome its shenanigans. Are you ready? Welcome to episode four, Perfectionism, the procrastination addiction that's holding back your art sales.

Hey, artist friend. This is Mariana Durst from the Liberated Artist Podcast, a space for unvarnished conversations about selling art online from a place of artistry, integrity, and courage. So whether you've got yellow ochre under your fingernails or clay dust on your jeans, I'll be your go-to guide as you bridge the gap between art and entrepreneurship. Your art isn't meant to stay stacked against the studio walls. Ready to walk this path together? Let's get started.

Hey, liberated artist. Okay, so I think I mentioned in one of the previous podcast episodes that I was taking Nicholas Wilton's Creative Visionary Program for the very first time. I am loving this program and there's something that I was really looking forward to and that is kind of having the beginner mindset. The beginner mindset is, you know, that state of mind where you don't have all the information and it allows you to approach whatever it is you're doing, the task at hand, with a true genuine curiosity and creativity because you don't have all the rules, all the procedures, all the exact ingredients. And so even though I've painted before, I've never taken a course quite like this… that is so comprehensive and I'm like, oh, I'm excited because that might help me tap into that beginner mindset. And the beginner mindset, when I went to the College for Creative Studies and took my first ever ceramic class as a ceramic major, I had that beginner's mindset where I hadn't really spent a lot of time touching clay ever in my life. I was in a completely new school, in a new city, in a new country. And what that allowed me to do is to see clay as this experiment that was super fun and super playful, and the stakes were low. And I created some pieces that are truly some of my favorite pieces that I ever created when I was in college. And I attribute those to that beginner's mindset.

And so I'm here looking at my paintings. that are on a table all scattered next to me, along with tiny little mountains of blue paper towels and dirty brushes that certainly need washing. And I'm thinking, will these paintings ever be worthy of being shown? Like, where is that beginner's mindset? And I keep going back to them and covering stuff up and sanding it and, ugh, it's just... Such a process. I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but it's one of those situations where I'll know it when I see it. So sometimes I find myself doing this thing. And I know I'm not kidding anyone, especially myself. I'm doing this thing where I am thinking up of every single little thing that I could do to keep myself from going to those paintings and letting myself be a beginner again.

It's that fear of failure. It's that perfectionism that is keeping me in this holding pattern. I'm bringing this up because I'm struggling with that in my art creation process, but it's something that I see in clients and people that I talk to when it comes to the marketing side. the selling side of being an artist.

This perfectionism and this attachment to it fuels so many of the barriers that we face when we want to sell our work. And I don't know, we tend to price perfectionism because we equate it with productivity and so long as we are productive and doing things, we can't be blamed, right? It's almost like an escape hatch where we can just duck out when we are faced with the accountability of why we're not shipping the work or sending the email or creating the post on Instagram, et cetera. And I mean, I totally understand that because there's part of me that always strives for excellence because that is a way that I feel that I can. can get to grow and develop as a human being, as an artist, as a marketing strategist, branding strategist, et cetera. And if I keep growing and I keep developing my skills, that really improves my self-esteem and the satisfaction that I derive from my work and the things that I do.

So I get it. But the fact of the matter is that perfectionism is quite the opposite of productivity and excellence. It's a form of active procrastination addiction that can destroy our ability to get our art seen. And I don't know if this will make sense, but when it shows up, it kind of comes in a bottomless Kleenex box of doom, meaning that as soon as you pull a tissue and you deal with this one thing, another thing that you need to do pops up. and then you take that one out and handle it and another pops up and another and another and another. And all these tissues are basically just self-imposed obstacles, things that we are putting on our plate in order to keep ourselves safe, in order to keep ourselves from being vulnerable. And that is what I call that active procrastination addiction.

It's an addiction because we are getting such a dopamine hit from checking things off of our to-do list. And so we want to kind of keep that momentum going because that momentum, just because you are not wanting to do that thing that's really important, that momentum still exists. So if it's not going to be used up doing that important task, then it's going to be used up in another way. And when you use it up, it feels really good. It feels so good to get things done. But the fact of the matter is that some of those things are just little ways, excuses that we make to stop ourselves from sharing our work.

But perfectionism just doesn't come in that Kleenex box of doom flavor. It can show up in so many ways, and I see it all the time in some of my clients. For example, never-ending busyness, which is what I was just talking about, but also a decrease in resourcefulness. That's when you tell yourself you don't know all the things that you need to know, therefore you are unable to evolve and to move forward. It also shows up as obsessive learning and planning with every little action. This... can mean continuously investing in education, but not completing the courses or putting those learnings into work, or just buying the courses and letting them rot on a digital shelf.

It also shows up as indecision, as a complete shutdown of your intuition, of genuinely not knowing if something feels like a yes or a no.

It shows up as a lack of commitment. It shows up as believing that you are flawed or unworthy or not enough. It can also show up as criticism for yourself and for others. And it can show up as relentless pursuit of validation from external sources.

Perfectionism as an artist entrepreneur also shows up as shiny object syndrome. And by this, I mean trying to come up with every single possible offer available in the world when there might not yet be a market for it. This means, I don't know, art prints, printed products, drop shipping, commissions, portraits, live painting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's the shiny object syndrome that really... feels like we're gearing for something greater than we could ever imagine. But in reality, it's just something that's holding us back from sharing that thing that feels so vulnerable and so risky.

So now that we know what perfectionism can look like, it's important to acknowledge the source, the place where it's stemming from, because that can also give us an insight of how best to approach, I guess, a solution to it. Because we live in the society or this culture that highly prices achievement and success. It's capitalism and wanting to churn out art factory style and get the same results and get a system that you can rely on predictably to have the same great results time and time again. But that aspect of it goes so against the grain of what it means to be an artist and what it means to create art and what art is. It doesn't serve us to feel those pressures and to make our art fit into those boxes. It can be really heart-wrenching to... Put aside your intuition and your creativity and your desire and hunger for exploration just so that you can have a dependable outcome with your next collection launch.

There's also that, you know, social media realm of how perfect everything looks sometimes, at least on my feed. I don't know about yours. Beautiful, soft, glowy videos. perfectly timed to a beautiful song with filters on it and expert editing that you and I know probably took an entire afternoon to put together. And when we are comparing ourselves to what's out there, to other people's highlight reels, it can make us really trigger shy and say, well, if I can't share my art like that, then it's not worth sharing at all. And that's something that I struggle with too.

You can see all of these outwardly successful artists who are so perfect, who sell collections in a matter of seconds. And you think that it's perfection, that they're striving for perfection to achieve those results, but in reality, they're not. They are imperfect, but they strive for excellence.

But anyway, perfectionism can also come from childhood experiences, disapproving or invalidating comments from peers or family or teachers. Those are little voices that are so difficult to get rid of. We also sometimes believe that we have a little boss inside our heads that is chasing us after a deadline. when in reality we are the ones who have ultimate say of how we carry out our work and how we share it and how we talk about it and when we do it.

I love that Brené Brown says that perfectionism is a function of shame. It feels so true. That it keeps us trapped in the cycle of chasing perfection, feeling shame when we don't achieve it. Then striving for more perfection, feeling shame when we don't achieve it. then going at it again and again and again. It reminds me of a charming little chart I saw on Adam Grant's Twitter feed. It was a chart developed by Matt Shirley, who you should check him out on Instagram. His charts are hilarious and also really true. But if you wanna picture this spiral and it goes from the outside and spirals all the way in, and in that spiral, there is this pattern of trying something new, then making a mistake, thinking, I'll never do this again. And then the comfort zone shrinks, and this repeats over again and again and again and again and again as the spiral travels inward until you stop trying new things and you get stuck. Oh my gosh, I feel really like seen by that chart. I'm going to link to it in the show notes, so be sure to check that out.

And perfectionism, at one end, it feels like it's going to take us to this next realm of appearing and being angelic and godly, but in reality, those things do not exist for us. This is not a perfect world. Perfectionism is just a way of avoiding putting the most tender pieces of ourselves out there. Like talking about Creative Visionary Program, Nick Wilton says, risk is a key component of great art. And this is so true for marketing as an artist. You are putting yourself on the line in the same way as you're putting yourself on the line when you are creating the art. So if you think about it, the jump from the creative artistic process is not that big to the marketing process.

There's also one of my favorite things that Seth Godin has ever said is that the destiny of great art cannot be fulfilled unless it gets shipped. This doesn't mean shipping in a FedEx box, it means shipped out into the world, being shared.

The attachment to perfectionism is costing us so much. It's costing us artists that feeling of passion, play, and joy in our art practice. It's costing us the time and the peace of mind of being present. It's keeping us from transitioning to exciting creative realms with ease and grace. It keeps us from participating in or going after opportunities. It is costing us visibility and momentum. It's costing us the ability to reach our potential and make waves with our art. And it is costing us focus, focus on doing the things that will move the needle forward and help us reach our goals.

So how does one shift out of this attachment, this really toxic attachment to perfectionism? Well, the first thing, it's something that you've heard me say before on this podcast. This curating your inner dialogue is not talking to yourself as if you were your harshest critic. It's talking to yourself as you talk to the person on this planet that you love the most. Another way to shift out of that perfectionism attachment is to reacquaint yourself with your intuition, to practice trusting it again, listening for it, and just going with it.

It also helps to set gentle and realistic goals. Things that are within your reach, that are in that perfect zone of, it's not super easy, where it's not gonna cost you anything, but it's not so totally far out there that you're never gonna accomplish it. It also helps to keep your eyes on your paper and not really look outside of your own agency and... for validation or to compare yourself with others.

To shift out of perfectionism, it is imperative that you can define what success means for yourself and not based on what other people are saying. That success for some people might look like having agency over how they spend their time. Or maybe having the funds to work from home and leave that... day job. Success might mean just having enough to put their kids in after-school classes or pay for summer camp. Everybody's definition of success is different and allowing yourself to define it for yourself will really help you know that you're on the right track and stop chasing the impossibility of perfectionism.

I also think that questioning where that drive to be perfect comes from is helpful, and that understanding that perfect doesn't exist, like really integrating that into our psyche. And there's one thing that I love, I heard this phrase, I'm not sure from where, it's seeing failure as a learning opportunity… failing up. So when you fail, you don't have to crumble up into a wet tissue paper. You can use it as an opportunity to learn something about yourself or about the situation so that you have data to act differently or to have a different frame of mind in the future.

As artists, we have this amazing opportunity to craft businesses to our taste. And just like with You can choose to take stock and edit what's not working. And you can also choose to live with those perfect imperfections that are the beautiful signatures of your hand. In an overly curated and AI-generated world, I'm Mariana Durst reminding you to be real and be human. So there you have it, my friends. You've learned that productivity isn't about striving for perfection, but rather about taking risks. shipping your art and growing as an artist. We've explored how perfectionism can show up and you now have some strategies to overcome it and embrace those beautiful imperfections that make you uniquely human. Now I hope you go forth and create your art with joy and passion, that you share it with that same enthusiasm, knowing that your true success comes from being authentically and imperfectly you.

Today's episode was brought to you by Mariana Durst Studio's prolific and profitable artist quiz. A quick quiz to assess your marketing prowess, learn your superpowers, and get a personalized plan to overcome overwhelm and get your art seen and sold. Your art visibility plan awaits at marianadurstudio.com/quiz.

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