How to stop the Judgment and Create work in your own Voice.

"Hello Friends, Just a little "Artist Knowledge" that I would like to share with you. I believe to be an artist you need to have your own unique style. It is true that if you follow trends, your work may be more popular for a short period of time but trend will soon fade and you will be faced with another blank canvas with nothing to say. So if you wished to be an artist, find your own voice and hone in on your own uniqueness because after all art is about self expression and individuality."

This was a post that I have shared on my Ting Yuen Art FB Page and I received a very interesting comment that asked "How can I Learn to let go and be free from my own judgement and accept the praise of others?"  Since this is such a great question I thought I shall devote this blog to it. I will answer this question with two different solutions: one is how to overcome judgment from others and the other one is how to overcome judgment from yourself. 

How do we Overcome Judgments of Others?
Now when it comes to judgment of others, I think being an artist, you got to be tenacious, you can't let other peoples' opinions about your work slow you down or even worse make you give up. I have always being self reliant, when it comes to my art work. I am a self taught artist, so I learn through trial and error. for that reason my style is distinctive but I also know that my work is very different and it is not in the main stream. My art has had many criticisms before especially when I was new to the game. I took other peoples' judgments with a grain of salt, if the criticisms are not constructive then it is really just their opinions and I refuse to take those hurtful attitudes to heart. One of the things that we need to learn in life is to believe in ourselves and our goals with such confidence that we do not let other peoples' attitudes contaminate our ideas and our self worth. 

I find most people that sit around and judge are the non doers, They are the ones that are afraid to put themselves out there because they are afraid to get the kind of treatment that they dish out to others. Therefore do not let them have the power over you.

And How Do we Overcome Self Judgment?
But if you are the judge of yourself then you are the culprit that jeopardizes your own creativity. This might be the worst kind of judgment. Please stop the self deprecation, go deep within yourself and find the reason and the root of your problem. This is not an exercise for you to confront the perpetrator, it is just a practice to find out the root of your problem so that you can begin to heal yourself from this bad habit. Do a ritual to cleanse yourself from your own judgment.

By the way, that inner judgmental voice is your mind playing games with your soul and it is effecting your heart. So silence your mind and trust your soul and heart. They will not disappoint you. 

The other thing is accepting yourself and love yourself. Give yourself grace knowing that your creativity depends on your well being. You can either create through pain or joy. Or if you were like me, I created through pain because painting was my refuge and eventually as I worked through my challenges I started creating through joy and wisdom. 

Know yourself well and create with your own voice 
Creating with your own distinctive style comes from knowing yourself well, knowing that whatever you put out there is from your own voice and you have created it for yourself and nobody else.  And if your audience love it then that is great but that is just a vanity measurement. The important thing is if you have enjoyed the process and if you like it. And if you don't, ask yourself why and what lesson did you learn from creating this piece of work.

Fear and Self Deprecation is your worst enemies
My dear friends, please don't fear and don't let self criticisms stop you from creating because those are your real enemies. Once the voice of judgement is gone, you will feel like a freed caged bird, you would fly high and you would experiment with your talents , you will do things out of trial and error and your life as an artist would be so much more rewarding. Love yourself so much that it doesn't matter if your inner voice is busy putting yourself down or other people are criticizing you because you have the confidence to continue your journey and work through each challenges that come your way because you are strong and independent. Value yourself truly and don't let negativity be part of your routine.

If you have enjoyed this post please leave me a comment, I would love to hear from you. If you have another way to combat self doubt please do share your knowledge with me.

With honor in mind and in spirit,
yours truly,
Ting Yuen xoxo