Creative Coaching for Musicians

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S3 E60: 8 Common Unrealistic Expectations for Artists to Leave Behind

Rebecca Hass

Many artists tend to be really hard on themselves, and with that self-criticism often comes setting unrealistic expectations for creativity and artistic success. Here are 8 common unrealistic expectations that you may be putting on yourself, along with an invitation to reframe and shift them with self compassion.

Do you relate to any of these, or have others to suggest?

Tag me on Instagram @rebecca_hass (or send me an email) to share!

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 60 of Being a Whole Person. 

Today I'm going to talk about shifting your unrealistic expectations that you put on yourself, with lots of encouragement to be more self compassionate. 

First, a couple quick announcements: my usual plug to please rate and review the show. It helps so much, when you're an independent podcast, to get found on Apple podcasts or all the platforms, because, as you know, in this 21st century world, we are at the mercy of algorithms and the robots like reviews and ratings. So, please feed the robots. That's got to be my weirdest way of expressing that ever. But hey, you have to keep yourself amused, right? 

Then number two, I also have a way to support the podcast on the site Buy Me A Coffee, which is just like Patreon. Right now there is an option to support at $5 a month, where you get some weekly check in prompts from me, but I'm also cooking up some new membership options on there. If you don't want to commit to a monthly membership type thing, a monthly contribution, you don't have to. 

If you like the podcast, and you want to buy me a coffee, or actually tea in my case, you can just go on there and make a little one-time, “here's a tea.” I would be so appreciative, since running a podcast isn't free, and I want to keep it sustainable to be putting time and effort into this, so that I can give this to you! So the link is in the show notes for that. And stay tuned for later this spring when I unleash some new offerings there, too. 

Alright, so let's get into today's topic: shifting your unrealistic expectations that you have on yourself as an artist, and a human. As far as I know, everyone listening to this is a human, although I guess I don't know, get back to me if you're not a human listening to this. 

I tend to work with a lot of clients who tend to be really hard on themselves. Being hard on yourself usually is coupled with setting sky high expectations. And because you're a human, like I just said, this is usually unrealistic. This is a familiar story for me, I have traditionally been really hard on myself and set expectations that I couldn't meet. Then when you do that, you naturally are going to fall short of unrealistic expectations, then you feel bad about yourself, then you feel defeated, then you don't want to try again, it's this whole cycle. The way that we break that cycle is by being more self compassionate. 

So I'm going to run through some really common expectations that come up a lot for my coaching clients, and that I've heard from people I know, fellow artists. Just remember, these are a lot of common expectations that might be unrealistic, but, of course, you get to decide for yourself what is a realistic and unrealistic expectation. If any of them sound familiar, this is an opportunity to ask yourself whether that expectation is serving you or not, and if it isn't, how could you shift it to make it more self compassionate? 

Also, if you hear these and think, “Wow, these are all holding me back, or lots of them are, and I suck,” go ahead and question that idea. The first step to shifting your mindset, if you're feeling very self deprecating and negative, is just questioning. You don't need to change your whole mindset right away. You can't really change everything in an instant. It's a process, and the first part of that process is just questioning, “Is this true? Do I have to be hooked into this idea?” If you can find the answer to be no in that moment, that's awesome. 

So the first type of expectation that is so common and not compassionate is the length of your to-do list. We humans typically overestimate how much we can do in one day, or one week or insert whatever period of time you're talking about. Humans are also notoriously bad at knowing how long things will take. Of course, you can do time tracking and you get a better idea over time as you look at the data from that, if that's something that you want to do, no pressure if you don't. But unless you do that, it's just really hard to estimate how long something will take. There are always unexpected things that come up. It's good to double your estimates, or even quadruple how long you think something will take. 

If you are a multi passionate person like me, who is juggling some different types of creative work, or just different types of work in general, it also could be an issue for you that you're trying to do too many different kinds of things in one day. Shifting your focus that many times might be a bit too much for your brain to handle on any given day. That just makes it hard to really settle into what you're doing and be present in any one project. It can make you feel like your brain is always looking ahead to the next thing, and, of course, that makes it really hard to focus. 

Also, the length of a commitment to a project is something that you might be able to shift. If you've committed to some kind of daily or weekly project, and you've been doing that thing indefinitely, you really might need to reassess when you need a break with that thing. Like, anytime I've done a daily project, it's been for a month, or it's been a 100 Day project. That might sound long to you, it might not, but usually people don't commit to doing a daily project, you know, sharing their work all this kind of thing indefinitely, that might be too much. And that's totally okay. 

Same with things like this podcast, or writing my Creative Wellness Letters. Sometimes I take breaks from those things, because it isn't realistic to expect ourselves to create nonstop. We're just like nature, there are seasons. Sometimes we're in a winter, and we need to be, you know,  the fields lying fallow underneath the snow, and you're gathering inspiration. Then in spring, you're planting seeds, you're getting ideas, then summer is like, “Okay, everything is growing, I'm really working on this now.” Then in the fall, you harvest, and then the cycle begins again. We are cyclical beings, just like trees, and plants, and if you view creativity that way, that can really help make your expectations more self compassionate. 

Another expectation that you might be hooked into is you have to be constantly productive in order to achieve your goals. This is all part of a little series I did on compassionate productivity. I did a couple episodes on some negative mindsets that are rooted in toxic productivity culture with some reframes for those, I'll link to those in the show notes. Because I've gone pretty deep on this topic before I won't get so deep into it at this moment. But basically, I just want to say, you don't need to be constantly productive. That's a great recipe for burnout. 

Just to shift your idea of what productivity means, it doesn't just mean doing. It can mean resting. Other things that replenish your energy are productive, because you won't be able to have enough energy if you are constantly charging ahead. Also, dismantling the association between your work and your worth is really important here. I don't want to promote the idea that being productive is the way that you prove you're a good person. Of course, that's what capitalism wants us to believe. That's the water that we're kind of swimming in all the time. 

It is okay to just be, you don't have to frame your life in terms of productivity, but just underscoring the idea that compassionate productivity means that you're working on the stuff that you want to be working on. You're doing productivity with a purpose. So if you want to hear more about that topic, I'll link to those episodes and blog posts in the show notes. 

Another expectation that is so tempting, but usually unrealistic, is expecting success to happen quickly, or overnight. Our culture loves an overnight success story, because that's what's interesting to report in the news, or to tell somebody about, you know, the dramatic part of the story where suddenly everything is great. But they don't tend to talk as much about the 10 years of planning that led up to that, or the decades of practicing your skill. There's a lot of groundwork that has to be laid before overnight success can happen. It's sort of like just the tip of the iceberg is the only part that you can see, but there's so much underneath it. Not to ruin the magic for you, but when it comes to illusions that make us feel bad about ourselves, that kind of magic is not real. So I'm here to be honest with you. 

If you feel like a failure because you're not succeeding fast enough, that's real life, that's okay. There might be some different ways you need to approach your work, you might need to experiment with certain elements of it, do things differently in sort of a scientific way, until you understand what it is that's going to move you forward. Sometimes you don't know what's going to move you forward. Sometimes you're planting seeds by connecting with various people at various times, and someone you talked to five years ago suddenly calls you up, because they remember you did this one thing, and they're like, “Hey, I have this opportunity.” You just don't know. It could be that an opportunity pops up really quickly, also. So you could also frame this like, “Don't give up hope, because you never know what is just around the corner, keep going.” 

Related is the idea of “if you build it, they will come.” If this feels empowering to you, I don't want to take that away from you, of course. But I'm talking about when situations come up where you want financial success from a creative endeavor. Say you make a website for it, and you're like, “Yes, I made the project, I made the website, it's here, this is awesome!”, but you don't tell anyone about it. Websites don't get traffic immediately when they get put up. You know, it takes some effort to perhaps go through and optimize for SEO, or post your website in different places, so that people can find the link. 

If it's the first time you're doing a project and putting it out there, first of all, congratulations, that's amazing. But it may take more marketing than you think and spreading the word consistently before you gain more of an audience, and before your project gains traction in that sort of visibility or sales kind of way. 

This is a time when it's really helpful to focus on effort-based goals rather than outcome-based, because you're not in control of exactly how many people see your website, but you can say, “I'm going to take 10 different actions to put this out there. I'm going to tell 10 different people,” or whatever it is. That will help you know that you are controlling what you can control and making some kind of effort. 

Another unrealistic expectation that is highly romanticized by our culture is expecting good ideas every time we create. We've definitely seen this romanticized idea of like, the poet at a cafe, just like enraptured by their writing and having the best time and, yeah, those experiences happen, and they're awesome. But that is not every time we sit down to create, right? Some days, you don't have good ideas, but you are still practicing the creative process every time you sit down - or stand up, whatever it is - to do your creative process. Every time you show up, you're making yourself available for the next idea to come to you, and you're practicing your craft. 

The more that we dismantle this idea that we have to have good ideas every time we create, the less scary it gets, too, because you're not afraid of doing something bad that day, you can just go, “Oh, okay, I didn't do anything that I liked today. None of this music was great, but that's okay, because I'm going to show up tomorrow, and I'm gonna make some more. I'm gonna do the same thing the next day.” That commitment is what ensures that you get to the good stuff. 

We always have to sift through the stuff we don't like as much before we get to the really good stuff, and that is completely normal. We usually only hear about the best ideas from people because we want to share our good stuff, right? So just know, even the masters have lots of ideas that they consider bad, and lots of creations that people will never see because they didn't share them. Once again, keep going, keep doing the thing. 

Related to that one is the expectation that we will have perfection the first time we try something, or really expecting perfection ever because humans are naturally imperfect. But nobody likes to feel like they're bad at something, right? I don't like that. Every time I've worked with adult piano students, they always have different struggles than kids, because adults tend to be uniquely aware of the potential that is out there and they see that they are beginners and they can’t do that yet. 

That is exactly how I like to reframe it. I'm not good at this, or I don't know how to do this yet. But I can become better at this by continuing my efforts and continuing my practice. The book Mindset by Carol Dweck is amazing for this. She differentiates between fixed mindset, where people think, “Okay, I am how I am, and I don't have the capacity for change,” and growth mindset, which as you would guess, is that you are the way you are right now and you have the potential to change and build and grow. 

That's essential in our creativity, believing in our ability to grow. Even if you don't believe in it every moment, you have that ability to grow and improve at something. It always takes sustained effort to build a skill - that is so normal. So if you need someone to let you off the hook for perfection, here you go! None of us are going to be perfect, and none of our work is going to be perfect. That's okay, we can still do great things. 

Another expectation that can be kind of a tricky one is predicting which things will be difficult before they happen. This can go either way. It can be knowing that you're equipped to handle the challenges that come up, even if you think something will be easy, and it ends up being harder than you thought. 

Or, it could be the complete opposite, that you miscalculated, and you think something is much harder than it actually is in real life. Have you ever built up what turns out to be like a 5 to 15 minute task into something that you have avoided for weeks, or months, or years? I definitely have. Then after you do it, you're like, “Why in the world did I put this off for an entire year? That was so easy.” So, just questioning, “Is this really as hard as I think it is?” 

Even if it is a short task like that, it still might feel hard. It's okay if it feels hard. Our feelings don't have to be facts, though, and you just might need to remind yourself that you can do hard things. You might be thinking that you should know how to do that thing already, and you don't want to appear inexperienced, or not smart, or insert whatever mean word your brain is using here. It's okay to reward or bribe yourself to do this thing that seems hard, if necessary, like if that's how it works, that's great. 

The last expectation I'm going to talk about today is very related to this one. I should know everything already, and I shouldn't need any help, I should be able to do everything all on my own. Fellow high achievers or kids labeled as gifted, this one runs deep, even when you intellectually know it's not true. It's okay to ask for help! When part of your identity has been built on knowing things, and being smart, it's hard not to feel this way. It also might be that asking for help wasn't really modeled for you by your parents, and being vulnerable and needing things wasn't modeled for you, so it might be harder for you to access that if it's not as familiar to you from your childhood. 

But you know what? Everyone needs help. Everyone needs a community. And it's okay to ask for what we need from them. I did an earlier episode and post on different types of support that you can seek out as a creative person. I'll reference those in the show notes as well. But I just want to underscore the fact that, if you've never done something before, or maybe you've never done it from this particular angle that you're trying at this moment. Especially when it comes to technology and software, it makes sense that you would not be an expert in that thing. How would you be an expert if you've never done it before? Literally everyone who is an expert at something had to start from the beginning, too. 

For instance, when I was making my album a few years ago, I knew how to make the music. I knew how to find a recording studio and that kind of thing. But there were all these different tasks involved with the Kickstarter that I did, making promotional stuff for it, and then reaching out to press people - there were so many tasks involved in that, that I didn't really know how to do. What I did was I hired a Kickstarter coach. I'll link to my coach Laser in the show notes because they are so great, and I couldn't have done it without their help. 

So investing in support like that can be so invaluable, especially if you're just spinning your wheels and not knowing what to do in certain areas. Or maybe you just know someone more experienced that you could ask. Like, if you've never offered a particular service before, and you're like, “How do I even figure out how to charge for this?” Maybe you have a friend who's done that before, or an acquaintance, and you can just send them a quick note and just say, “Hey, do you have a few words of wisdom about this?” You could offer to pay them for their time if that feels appropriate. You could take them out for a coffee, whatever feels right to you. 

There are people you can ask, there are online groups and communities about just about anything that you can think of. Those are great places to ask questions, where I'm sure there are people who have been in your same scenario before and would be happy to share their wisdom. 

If you need this type of support in following through with a creative project, or if you're just feeling exhausted and burned out, and you're like, “I don't know why I don't have any energy,” I'd love to help you with that. I am always here to support you in that way, either through a one-time session, through a longer term of sessions, or through Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club, which you can join to just cowork. Or, you can join at a coaching level, where you get to pop into a breakout room with me for support during our coworking sessions. I just wanted to reiterate all the types of support that I offer because I would love to help you if you need it. 

So, did any of these expectations sound familiar to you? Were there any unrealistic expectations that came up for you that I didn't mention? I would love to hear about it. You can always find me on Instagram at @rebecca_hass Are you can send me an email at hello@rebeccahass.com. I always love hearing from you. So as always I'm rooting for you and your creativity and in all things and I will see you next week.