Your success doesn’t diminish me is a lesson that’s taken me a long time to learn. It’s why I can now celebrate my peers’ triumphs without being consumed with envy. It hasn’t always been that way.
Constantly measuring myself against others was depressing. The downside of being a competitive person is that one seldom appreciates one’s own successes. Get a second-place award in a show and you’re simmering because the grand prize eluded you. Hit a benchmark in sales and you immediately start clawing toward the next benchmark. While that spurs you on to achievement, it’s not much fun.
Jealousy is rooted in the lie that there’s only so much success out there, and if you take a chunk of it, there’s that much less for me. In the short run, that’s true. After all, there’s only one First Place ribbon in any art show. In the long run, the possibilities for success are nearly limitless. The trick is in starting to see beyond the lockstep track that every other artist seems to be following.
That shift to an abundance mindset has made me, ironically, feel more successful. It’s also helped me become more generous. That ability to give something away fosters more of the abundance mindset – in me. Sharing time and talent creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. That synergy is what gives rise to schools of painting, by the way.
The flip side of this is gratitude. Our intellect, our talents, and the place and time in which we were born all contribute to success, and they are an accident of birth. My great-grandfather was a talented landscape designer, but he was also an immigrant. My grandmother wrote and my father was an excellent artist and photographer. But that was the Great Depression and they were very poor, which prevented them from taking the risks necessary to be full-time artists. As my mother (also the child of immigrants) used to say, “In my day, we didn’t have time to self-actualize.”
One way in which that Great Depression generation was hampered was in having no models for entrepreneurship. That’s just as true for anyone whose parent has worked in a 9-5 corporate job, and it’s what gives rise to the canard that you can’t make a living in art. Everyone’s path to success is different, but lots of people have been very successful in the arts: as visual artists, actors, filmmakers, animators, teachers, curators, etc.
Your path is fixed only by your ideas and determination, but it does help to have some idea of how to run a business. Beyond that, however, how anyone else achieves success is irrelevant. You’re the only person who matters in your own art career, and you make your own measuring stick.
A person with an abundance mindset has much more patience for the process. That’s critical to developing top-notch artistic chops. Once you stop needing to win, there’s no motivation to produce a one-hit wonder. That in turn stops the painter from trapping himself in a schtick that sells, but which prohibits growth.
Above all, remember that your worth isn’t tied up in your art-it rests in you as a human being. Yes, it’s great to be a competent, successful artist, but that’s hardly the most important thing in life.
Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:
- Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME, July 7-11, 2025.
- Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
- Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
- Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.