Creative Pep Talk
019 - Look Back, Before You Look Forward
(upbeat music) Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is eight to 10 years old. Now, these episodes were intended to be evergreen, and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do wanna let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes, and ultimately, I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human, and that these don't necessarily represent my best work, or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode, or at least go back to around 300, and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. (upbeat music) (keyboard clicking) Oh, well, hello. It's the Creative PEP Talk podcast with your host, Andy J. Miller. On this show, what I try to do is pep up other creative professionals, people that find themselves wanting to do art for money, you know, I do this show, the true reason I do the show is because I'm a creative person, and I don't do a lot of other things well. I feel like it would be hard for me to fit into the regular world in quotations without being able to make art for a living, and the reason I do the show is because I know that doing art for a living is a difficult pursuit, and the reason why I know that is because I've been trying to do this since I graduated in 2008. And it's, there's been, I've been lucky. I've been, I've had some awesome breakthroughs. I've worked super hard, and especially in the first couple years, it was really, really difficult. And I learned things through that, and I'm still learning things that I feel like if I share them, then maybe that'll help other people that wanna make a living doing art, be able to do that easier or faster or better. And it's just good to kind of use this as a journal for me to kind of talk about the things that I'm doing and be more intentional with my own art career. So today, it's almost the end of the year, and I found myself wanting to move on into the new year. I love new things, I love doing new pursuits, and I think that it's actually really important that we don't just move on and look forward. And so today, the episode's called, "Look Back Before You Look Forward." And the idea I had, I had this picture kind of come to my mind about what I'm trying to say. And I kind of imagine it being like you're on a journey, you're on a path, it's kind of like driving on the highway. And so you have people, you wanna make some moves, you wanna pass up other drivers, you wanna do new things that you haven't done. And it's kind of like you're on the highway and you're about to pass somebody. Now, if you're gonna go forward and you're gonna pass somebody, and if you don't look in the rear view mirror and you don't check your blind spot, then you're likely to crash. And I think that's the same thing. If you go into this new year and all you're thinking about is all the new stuff you're gonna add to your schedule, all the new things that you wanna achieve. And you look at it as this blank slate, you're gonna crash because you're gonna miss out on all the things that happened last year. You're not gonna notice, you're not gonna plan with what's already happened in your career in mind. And I think that there's a lot of problems with looking at a new year as a clean slate without looking back. And it's not just about planning accordingly or I don't wanna push anything that's where I'm saying, be cynical that you don't have a clean slate. I love the idea of a clean slate of a year. But there's a lot of really awesome things that you can get from remembering that this new year is built on all the years previously. And I think if you look back, you're actually gonna, there's a lot of benefit to doing that before we actually look forward. And the next episode that I do is gonna be about looking forward. But I thought before I get ahead of myself, let's just talk about the value from looking back. So I've got basically five things that I'm trying to do when I look back over my 2014 and what I wanna get out of that. I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code peptalk, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're gonna chat through our new Journey to the true fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. So the first thing is look for patterns. If you look for patterns, you can see the future because patterns almost always repeat themselves into the future. Now if you don't make yourself aware of those patterns, you're gonna be surprised again this year of things that you shouldn't be surprised by 'cause they keep happening, they're reoccurring. Now for me, one of the things that's really, really helped me is I realize that my quiet times in the year of client work and my busy times of the year follow a pattern, okay? So I'm ready, I know. January, I'm gonna probably get a few extra projects. February, I'm gonna be really busy February. And then all the way throughout the spring, I'm probably gonna build up the amount of work that I'm doing. I'm gonna get more and more busy as I go. Now when it hits summer, June is usually a pretty busy month, but after June, July, August, September, things are gonna slow down quite a bit, pretty much every year, guaranteed. Then fall, things are gonna pick back up and then as things start to wind down towards December, things will slow down again. Now in the past, before I realized that there was a pattern, even when it's happened a few years in a row, what would happen is I would get really stressed out when I'd get super busy because everything would be coming at once and I'd already have a bunch of other plans, the slow time would come and I would get really worried because I think any time you're a freelancer and you have slow time, you panic a little bit, like everything's, you'll never get another job again. I think everybody can relate to that that's done freelance. And you get all bummed and depressed or whatever, but I think the other thing you do is you feel, because you're quiet and you think that you're never gonna get any other jobs, you fill your time with all kinds of things, all kinds of big projects and you're scrambling and you get so busy that when the next season when the fall comes around and all that busy as happens again, you've got all this other stuff on your plate 'cause you weren't prepared for that busy season. Now your season might be different. Now for instance, my wife, she runs an Etsy shop and I feel like my season is actually the opposite to the consumer season because I'm always working with clients that are usually preparing for the consumer season. So mine's ahead of that, whereas my wife is directly working with people who are buying products. So her busy season is almost flip flopped to mine, which works really nicely for us, but we've kind of noticed that and yeah, there's exceptions, it doesn't always work exactly this way, but when I've looked back and I can notice these patterns, it means that when things are slow and I know that they're gonna be slow, A, I'm not depressed 'cause I think everything's over, but B, I can prepare accordingly for each season and kind of know what the ebbs and flows are like and plan my year kind of accordingly. (clears throat) So I think that's really good. I think the other thing when it comes to patterns is just noticing patterns in yourself. Like you tend to be really productive in the summer and in the winter you're a little bit slower or one of the patterns I've noticed is when I take on a big project, I'm super excited. I'm super excited when I take on a new project and I've realized that the last few hurdles before crossing a project off are really painful for me, but I've learned ways because I've noticed that pattern and I've seen it year after year occur, I've learned ways to make it exciting until the end and then also even if I can't make it exciting, realize that at the end of the project, I'm gonna wanna quit and just understand that I'm gonna wanna quit at the end and when I start feeling those things or I start thinking those thoughts about explaining why I need to quit this thing, I just note it as this is a pattern that I always go through and it's okay and I'm gonna ignore this thing of wanting to quit because I always feel that and I'm always happy that I didn't quit. I think I had this when I was in college and it was one of the first times I'd seen that pattern so I didn't recognize it, but before my last year of college, I had all these reasons why I wanted to give up and I wanted to quit and I wanted to move on to do other things, but I'm so glad that I finished and actually since then, I've had book projects and all kinds of things where I have that feeling towards the end that's just says, I think it's the feeling of I've nearly accomplished this thing so it feels like I've accomplished, so now I'm not motivated anymore and I've just recognized that from looking back and looking at patterns. So I think looking back and seeing your own patterns and your work is a really important thing to do. The second thing, and I've heard a lot of people talk about this, I don't think this is maybe new information but it's a good reminder and it's something that I don't always practice. And number two is quit, quit some things. I think one of the things that we do in the new years, we look out ahead and we think, what do I want to do? What new things do I want to do in the new year? And I think that that is fantastic but it's like, if you say, okay, I want to start exercising three times a week and it's going to take an hour each time, that's three hours to your week that you're adding. Now I'm guessing that the year previously, you didn't have three hours where you were staring at the wall doing nothing and that you're just going to replace those hours with exercise. I guarantee, if you're an adult, that you're busy with things almost every hour of the day and the hours that you're not busy, you're intentionally doing downtime things like watching TV or playing video games or whatever. But I'm guessing there's no hours that are just totally free that you're happy to give up. And I think when you're looking at the new year, it's so easy to add 50 new projects and 50 new ideas and 50 new avenues that you want to go into without thinking which 50 things am I going to drop? Now on this, here's what I suggest you do. I've been doing this this week and it's actually kind of a little bit intense but one of the things I think is really valuable to do is make a list of all the things that you're doing. You know, and that doesn't just mean the projects you're doing but like for instance, what I did is I broke it down in categories and they were kind of loose but they helped me understand where my time has spent. So part of my energy is into like educational activities. You know, I teach a class at the art school for illustrators, I do this podcast and I do, I focus on trying to do talks and educational writing and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of my energy goes into that and I'm really happy for it to go into that and it's something I'm really, really into. The other part of my energy goes into narrative work. Now the editorial work I do, I consider to be narrative. That's the kind of illustration that I do. And I've been working a lot on kids' books and I've been in kind of my own, I've created my own like world building project which is called NOD and that's all narrative stuff. And so I listed all of those things out. Then kind of on the lower platform I've got products which are kind of just both, they service the narrative stuff and the educational stuff and they kind of point to that. Now what I realized from doing that is that I'm really happy with that balance of things and I really wanna scrutinize anything that tries to come into that balance that doesn't fit into those categories because I'm really sure about those categories. And what I did from listing all that stuff out is I realized there's a few things I'm doing and they're mainly like money making things like some side work that I do which I don't know for sure if I can just eliminate right today but I am sure after listing this whole thing out that A, I'm really busy. I've got tons of stuff on my plate and I have to be really careful about adding anything and I also have to be careful about the things that don't fit into these categories, the things that I'm not really sure I wanna be doing, the things that are killing my energy and hurting the things I'm sure about. And so maybe I'm not gonna quit anything right today but I know that looking out throughout 2014 that there are a few things on my list that I wanna eliminate 'cause they don't fit into my bigger dreams and my bigger passion and the things I wanna be doing in the long term. And there are things that I didn't realize that I really wanted to quit. The holidays are upon us and finding the right gift for your kids, nieces and nephews and partner and family members can be super difficult but it doesn't have to be. Go check out Uncommon Goods. Sophie and I were checking it out the other day looking for gifts for our kids that have a make your own storybook kit, which we love. There's this cardboard tool kit with a cardboard saw that's safe and connectors so you can build cool stuff and forts and whatnot. They also got these building connectors where you can connect sticks and make a fort. Mainly, I just like forts but there's tons of cool creative gifts that will inspire your kids to go make stuff but we could also easily have just bought stuff for each other or even ourselves. This curated selection of goods means you don't have to scour the internet for something unique and exciting and you're supporting artists and small businesses at the same time which you know I love. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk. That's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices plus extra ways to save like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Okay, so we talked about looking for patterns and quitting things. The third thing I think that's good to look back on is when this year did you really feel like you were in your zone? Okay, so there's a book called Flow and I'm not gonna even attempt to say the author's name 'cause I'm gonna butcher it and I've only read it, I've never heard it spoken. But you can find it on Amazon and the book is about this idea of that your happiness comes from doing the things where you really get in that zone. And the idea, one of the things he talks about is you'll hear musicians and there are these master musicians and then they'll say, you know, that song really wrote itself and the idea of Flow is is that you're so familiar with the thing or you're so talented at the thing that you do or you're so into it that when you're doing it, your subconscious is like three steps of head of your conscious. So you go into this like weird zone of like doing and when you're in that zone, you find joy and that's your best work. Now I think for me, such a big part of the future is narrowing down what it is you do and getting closer and closer to doing the thing that you're really, really meant to do. And I think it's a process you do your whole life. But I think one of the best things you can do is to think about, look back over the year, look at the projects and the pieces of art you made and the things that you spent time doing where you found that zone and that flow. What project did you work on this year that you completely lost yourself in? Another way people describe it is, what was the thing that you worked for 20 hours on and it felt like it was three minutes where you completely lost sense of time? What were those things? Can you look back over your year and say, when I worked with that client, I really got in the zone or when I worked on this type of work, I really got into the flow of work. What pieces, you know, identify those things and I think that's almost something you want to keep track of forever. But the reason you want to do that, you want to keep track of all that stuff so that in the new year, you don't lose any of those things and you spend as much time working on those types of projects as possible. And I think it's stuff like this that really helps our decision making. I think a lot of times we get stuck in our head about what should we be doing? Should we be, what should we be specializing in? What new things should we be doing? And we talk about it and we think about it and we get all these rationales and justifications but one of the best things you can do is stop and not think about rationales but think about your feelings and when did I feel most alive? Or when did I feel most inspired? When did I kind of log that stuff away? Because that stuff is a little bit more honest. It's, you know, less of your motives are a little bit more pure, I think, when you're just thinking about the work that you've done that really moved you. And I think that that's where a lot of our answers are and not so much in our justifications and our thoughts and the arguments that we come up with about where our work should go. Okay, so this is another thing. When it comes to illustration, especially in graphic design, look back over 2014 and say, what were you known for? You know, what did people come to you for? So for me in 2014 I felt like, for whatever reason, I'd built up a reputation the years previous to that as someone who does kids work. Work for kids, characters for kids and a lot of people came to me for that in 2014 and I was looking back through some of the work I did. One of them was for a magazine that I really like and an art director that I really love working with and I noticed that she came back to me twice for this kid's work. Now this magazine isn't really known for kids work, it's more like the exception. So she's only worked with me a few times but I'd actually like to do a lot more work with that person. And so I was looking through their magazine and just thinking about, you know, what is it that I would need to be known for to get more work like this? And I don't wanna totally, you know, I don't wanna be totally strategic and cold about that. Like, I don't wanna just totally calculate marketing-wise. I wanna be kind of true to what I'm doing but, you know, the hint that I got was that I really love working for this magazine. I love the magazine. I love working with that art director. That's the type of work that I know I wanna be doing. How do I maximize that opportunity? And so I've thought what I really wanna do is I wanna expand from just being known for kid stuff and to be known for family and especially like prettier, you know, illustration that doesn't just focus on kids but focuses on moms and dads and the whole extended experience of that. And so that's something that I've been working on for a while but that's a goal that I then wanna have for the new year is how do I do projects or how do I do personal work that's geared towards that so that people expand the way that they view me? And it's not, and I also wanted to think of it like when I think about doing more women in my work, I want it to be extension of and a natural organic growth from what I already do. So I don't want it to be, you know, I don't wanna jump from doing work for kids to doing like work for adults only. I feel like a natural extension was to do stuff that's kind of more family focused or women that are probably moms. And I think that felt really right to me. And so going into 2014, I wanna adjust what I was known for and the work I was getting and expand it in a natural way. The last thing, number five, is make some decisions. I recently, every once in a while, I see James Victoria on Twitter post one of his burning questions and I don't always get to watch him, but I saw one the other day and he was talking about, you know, can you do everything? And he said no, and I totally agree with that. And one of the things he said was, you need to make decisions. And so I'm just taking this from him, but I feel like it's such a good point that I wanna reiterate it and I wanna put my spin on it too. I think, another thing I saw was I think it's the New York Times just did an issue of something where they were, which it was like a tribute to Masimo Vignelli, who passed away, I think last year. And he was a great designer and he actually did all the design for the New York subway system and he uses, he's known for his use of Helvetica. And they did this quote and it's something like, life is too short to do everything. And I thought, this is so brilliant. And I felt like this is the burden I have on me of part of me wanting to do everything in illustration and design. And then part of me knowing that I'm only really gonna be happy doing a few things that I really, really love. And that's so much of the journey for me is how do I separate those two feelings and how do I keep that hunger to do as much as I can but mixed with not letting myself get up put on side roads out of jealousy or wanting to do everything or feeling left out or all of that. I don't wanna lose my way. And so I feel like one of the best things you can do is look back and make some decisions about how you feel about 2014. What did you feel like was really successful and what did you feel like wasn't successful? I think one of the worst things that happens is at this time is that you go into the new year, you have all these new ideas on how everything should look and you've got all these new ideas for projects and you start doing those new projects but you forget that 2014 is still lingering and the things that happened in the past that you maybe aren't so sure about come in and they start tainting the new stuff you're doing. Like you're doing all this new stuff but you don't have any closure on the year before. You don't know how you felt about the old stuff. And so or it comes back to haunt you. So I feel like one of the best things to do at this point and one of the biggest reasons why I think it's important to look back before we look forward is to get closure on how you felt about the projects you did, how you felt about social media. Did you feel like you needed to do less of that? Did you feel like you needed to do more? Did you need to be more intentional with it? How did you feel about the personal work that you did? How did you feel about the projects you got? How did you feel about the promotion that you did? How did you feel about the people you met in person? How are your friends relationships? How are your family relationships? I think all of those things, thinking back through them and getting a real clear sense of how you felt about them will give you a better sense of how you want to go into the new year. I think one of the, it's really hard when you feel like you've got that fresh start and you're working through all this new stuff and that old stuff is still lingering. I think the best thing you can do is make some decisions about what side roads did you go on that you don't want to continue? What things did you do that really worked and you want to make sure you keep doing those things? I think you really do when it comes to kind of charting your territory as an artist. You do really need to make some definitive decisions and I think that's the hardest thing. Now, I think one of the best things you can do is make sure you're talking with some other people about it because I think if you ask any teacher of art students teachers feel like it's so easy to look at students work and say this is working and this is not working. And maybe it's not that simple, but I do think from that outside perspective it's so much easier to work through. The other thing I think that happens when you talk about it is half the time I've got these things that I'm worried about and I don't know how to make decisions on, you know, should I keep doing this kind of work or should I do this new kind of work? Should I develop or should I stay or go? Should I, you know, put less stuff in my portfolio or should I put more stuff in my portfolio? And it's sometimes that feedback is super helpful. Sometimes it's just talking about it that gives you the answer. You know, how many times that I've met with someone for coffee and I plan to talk about this thing that's going on in my work and even before, right, but as I get to say what I wanna talk about, I instantly know how I feel about it. Sometimes it's just vocalizing these things that we actually find the answers. And so yeah, I think that that's really important. So just a quick wrap up, we had looking for patterns and you can see the future. Quit some things before you add some things. Find where you were in the zone so you can be more in the zone in the next year. Think about what you are known for and whether you're happy with that and then make some real decisions about how you felt about last year and make some real decisions for going forward. You know, I feel like when you look back, I feel like unless you do that, it's really hard to get ahead. It's just like, you know, I really do think that stupid kind of picture of when you're trying to pass somebody on the highway. It's really hard, it's really dangerous to try to pass them if you don't look back, if you don't check your blind spot, if you don't do the proper precautions. And I think that in that same way, you know, when I was a teenager, I basically relived the same three relationships, you know, with girlfriends. I did it literally almost the exact same process and everything played out almost the same way three times and they all ended poorly. Wasn't until after that and I could see these patterns and I look back and I thought, here's what happened. The exact same thing happened every time. I'm not gonna give you any details 'cause that would be really embarrassing and stupid, but looking back, I noticed that it all happened the same way, the same sorts of things happened. And I think going into 2015, if you wanna go further in your career, if you wanna have bigger breakthroughs that you didn't have before, if you don't wanna repeat the same thing every year, I think it's really important to, instead of just plan a new kind of year to look back and see what's already happened, recognize those patterns, recognize what happened and find some closure with it. Okay, now in the new year, I'm gonna have a new episode go up on the podcast. We're almost hitting 20 episodes and I'm gonna retool things a little bit, just a tiny bit and give it a little refresh. I'm also gonna have my first poster that's kind of directly relate to the podcast. And just as some shameless self-promotion, I just put a bunch of my screen prints up in my shop, finally got them up there, I'm really proud of them. And so if you're into that kind of thing, go check it out. And if not, just keep listening. You can just find my website, my Googling, my name, Andy J. Miller. And I really appreciate all the feedback, I really appreciate all the good reviews, and I'm really thankful for all the conversations that I've been able to answer this podcast. Thanks for listening and keep kept up. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) Hey, y'all, one more quick thing. Earlier this year, I rebuilt my website using Squarespace's new fluid engine, and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible. With social media going haywire, I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients. I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately, and if you want to check that out and what I was able to do without any code, check out AndyJPizza.com. If you want to test it out, go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself, and when you're ready to launch, use promo code PEPTALK for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks, Squarespace, for supporting the show and for supporting creative people. I'm Whit Missaldine, the creator of This Is Actually Happening, a podcast from Wondery that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lift them. From a young man that dooms his entire future family with one choice, to a woman that barely survived her roommate, we dive into what happened and hear their intimate first-person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Follow This Is Actually Happening on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.