On Comparisons (Again)

Before becoming an artist, I worked for years with college and health professional students helping them with their student success. One refrain I had was “Stay in your lane and concentrate on your own goal. Use the energy from your peers to help push you forward, but comparing your progress to theirs is unfair to both of you…”

I have seen myself and other creatives lose their mojo, creative inspiration, and even become depressed and stop creating in some cases (usually temporarily, but sometimes permanently) because they are comparing themselves to others’ accomplishments. Yet they are often at different levels of experience (like two-year novice comparing to thirty-year professional).

There’s a fine line between being inspired by others vs. comparing one’s work. Walking that line can definitely be unbalancing.

I love getting inspired by your work. It’s so, well…inspirational! But too much focus on you may lead me to forget my own creativity and copy you. That’s not fair to either of us, so I resist. I also find it beneficial to do some comparison of my work to yours, as long as it is in a learning and analytical way. How do you do that? How can I learn that new technique? What colors did you choose? What did you do there? How is mine different?

But too much of that can lead to us feeling like our work isn’t worthy and other people’s is superior. In reality, our paths are different but it can be easy to lose sight of that. Social media like Instagram is a great place to see all our best works showcased. Some people are courageous and wonderful and show their slips and mistakes and learning curves. I love those posts because I can learn from them. I’m not a gloater, I only see overcoming a challenge as inspirational.

So here I am reminding myself of the words I used with my students. Don’t let comparison kill your creativity, but use the energy from others to spur you on.