March 8 - It's Not Personal

I went back through all of last year’s posts before I wrote this one because I was positive I’d written one on this theme… I’m glad there was no money on the table, because somehow I did not. But in my profession, it’s a pretty common topic.

I tend to loop myself in with my art. On first read, that sentence might seem pretty obvious. Duh, Larkin. You are one with your art, your art represents something about you. But what I more mean by it is that I take praise for my art as praise for myself and, on the less pretty side of things, I take critique for my art as critique for myself. I’ve been working to separate myself from my art I’ve been working on literally since I started creating.

One of the great things about working in an agency is that my job is art direction. Nothing more, nothing less. That means that I usually don’t have to hear ‘we hate this’ straight from a client’s mouth. Instead, our account team will push back a little or say, ‘Ok, we hear you, why do you hate this?’ before the creative team has to handle the rejection.

Freelancing, however, is a whole different beast.

When you freelance, you have to encompass every role. No one is standing up for you except for you. No one is there to soften a blow. If your client gives wishy-washy feedback and you need some clarification, guess what? You guessed it. It’s up to you to ask for that clarification.

Yesterday, a freelance client didn’t like a piece that I had felt really good about. I let it ruin my entire day.

Am I not good at my job? Spiraled into:

Am I horrible at reading people and what they want? Spiraled into:

Am I not as emotionally intelligent as I thought I was at the end of the day? Do I just not understand human beings? And yes, with a bit of narrative distance I am also able to see that this was a slightly impractical rabbit hole to throw myself down simply because someone didn’t like something I’d created. But I dare you to have said that to Last Night Me.

It’s not easy, but when I get the occasional ‘Nope, don’t like it’ I need to remember to replay the mantra in my head of I am not my art, my art is not me.