It’s time for artists to Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

Just last week, someone asked, “Now what do I do about pricing my work?”

They continued, “How does one get past that imposter glitch that makes one give away art and start to believe it’s worthy of attaching a price to?”

First, thanks, Kitty, for sharing. It can be so hard to show up and ask questions that feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.

I also see that this is a great sign because to do any of the growth and learning required to show up, share, and sell your art, you must learn to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I know this may sound a little funny or even confusing, but I’m finding it’s the single most important factor in helping both me and my students take their art to new levels.

Hey there! 👋 I’m Carrie. Here on Artist Strong, I help self-taught artists with home studios who feel stuck with their art move from wondering what’s next to confidently expressing themselves through unique, original art. To date, thousands have joined the community.

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Navigating the journey of creating and selling art involves facing discomfort and overcoming self-doubt. One of the most common challenges artists encounter is attaching a price to their work and feeling confident in its value. Today let’s talk about how to move past feeling like an imposter and embracing discomfort as a catalyst for growth and success.

Man, do I wish I’d known this research when I taught high school art and when I was a student. The first time I heard this was from the book “Peak” by Anders Ericsson.* His research delves into helping people develop expertise and become good, and even the best, in their respective disciplines.

**(Sidenote: His work became famous thanks to Malcolm Gladwell, who popularized the idea of the 10,000-hour rule, which Ericsson finds frustrating because Gladwell’s description does not accurately reflect his research!)**

Across the board, Ericsson found five practices that separated those who saw real growth from those who remained where they are. I’ll list them here, but we’re going to focus on one today.

1. You need to be specific with your goals. (If you don’t like the word goal, use the word outcome.)
2. Once you know what you’re working toward, build baby steps to get there.
3. Focused effort. Your effort needs to be mindful.
4. Feedback from peers and mentors is necessary for fast tracking your development.
5. You have to go outside of your comfort zone.

There it is.

Discomfort.

Which brings me back to this idea of feeling like an imposter. 

When we create, we are often in a vulnerable state. It’s exciting and a little scary to share our art. At first, we may only share it with a few trusted friends. When that goes well, we begin to feel more comfortable. There’s that word again—comfortable—with the risk of sharing it with new people, people we know less well, and maybe even a Reddit or Facebook group, where we know it will face critique.

We progressively become more comfortable with the discomfort of sharing our art.

If you are striving towards something more for your art, whatever that is, practicing sitting with your discomfort is one of the most useful things you can do.

Dealing with issues of perfectionism, this practice of sitting with my discomfort has done more to help me overcome feelings of lack of worth than anything else. I’ve become better at separating my worth from outcomes and have stopped believing discomfort was a sign of failure or of my incompetence.

And it’s absolutely helped me reach higher and think bigger for my art.

I try new ideas.

I share before I’m ready.

I ask for feedback and brace myself for the worst.

I apply to reach opportunities.

I price work at ranges I myself may not invest in.

And all of these actions have ultimately led to more opportunities for my work, and if I waited until I felt confident enough or ready…well, I’m pretty confident I wouldn’t be here, speaking with you.

Here are three ways you can slowly build acts of discomfort into your artist practice:

1. Work in a new medium. 

Our skill typically drops when we use a new material. This is a great way to explore new ideas, techniques, build skill, and get a wee bit uncomfortable. 👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽 What medium would you choose for this? Tell me in the comments below.

2. Work with an image reference or concept way outside of what you normally do. 

I generally focus on portraits, so spending time on landscapes would be an easy way for me to practice discomfort. 👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽 What would be an image reference or concept that might work for you? Tell me in the comments below.

3. Change the scale of your art and/or tools. 

If you regularly work big, create a series of super small works. If you work with really fine paint brushes, work only with really large ones. 

These practices will definitely help you lean into discomfort, but you can exercise your discomfort muscle in all areas of your life and see this positively impact your art.

Take a cold shower. Eat something new or different. Drive a different way to work. There are so many ways to start building up to bigger risks in your life. And I promise you, it’s worth it.

👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽 What other ideas do you have about leaning into discomfort in your artist practice and/or life? Tell me more in the comments below.

I want to make sure we also talk about the sweet spot of discomfort we seek. It’s kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears—we don’t want too much or too little discomfort. We’re looking for “just right.”

Too much discomfort can absolutely impede our growth because we get so overwhelmed, frustrated, and discouraged that we lose motivation and give up.

Same with too little discomfort. This can lead to periods of plateauing, and similarly, we can feel frustrated and discouraged to stick with our art.

When we hit that sweet spot, though, that’s when we experience wins that reward our effort and discomfort. This fuels our motivation. We want to keep going because we actually feel like we’re making strides and going somewhere with our art.

This is something I’ve built into my comprehensive program called Self-Taught To Self-Confident. There are other foundation programs that teach you how to draw or paint, but to date I have heard of no others that actively build in the principles listed today in the research by Ericsson and encourage practice that builds up your tolerance to discomfort.

If you’re ready to make art a priority in your life and want to explore making art in a unique style, I have just the thing. It’s called Self-Taught to Self-Confident, and it will help you move from feeling stuck, wondering what’s next to confidently creating a series of artworks that you can share with loved ones (and even sell).

👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽Choose a time from my calendar here so we can discuss where you are at with your art, where you want to be, and how to get where you want to go.

So let’s go back to Kitty’s question about feeling her work is worthy of selling and choosing a price.

If I were going to work up to selling and pricing my work, I’d…

First, make a list of different things I would do, or how I think I’d treat my art when I deemed it worthy. What would be different than today? What will my art and life look like when I am confident enough to do these things?

Here are some examples. These are specific to me; I encourage you to reflect on how to use my ideas as a springboard for your own.

– I’d hang my own art in my house.

– I’d say thank you to compliments without diminishing my work.

– I’d gift my art to people I love.

– I’d research different artists I admire to see how they price their art.

– I’d look at local markets and galleries to research pricing.

– I’d set goals with good, better, and best measurements in mind so I don’t get black-and-white about things.

– I’d ask for feedback on my work.

– I’d treat each release of artwork and my pricing as an experiment rather than a test I pass or fail.

– I’d then experiment with sales in the safest place I could, first with family and friends, probably on my Facebook profile.

Each of these things used to make me feel uncomfortable, some enough to slow me down or make me avoid tasks rather than facing what I needed to do. But this discomfort I’m talking about is like a muscle that, when you work it out, it tears a bit and grows stronger. It gets easier.

I’m sure some people, maybe you, came on today hoping to watch a video that told you exactly how to price your art, but I don’t believe there is a one-answer-fits-all formula here. Or for much of art, despite my general pragmatism you’ll find in my videos. What I do know to be true is that artists need to believe in themselves and their art more to show up and take risks, like pricing and selling. And the best path I’ve found to developing that mindset is through practicing discomfort.

Here’s the bigger aha about being uncomfortable: if growing, learning, and pushing to achieve new things with your work is important to you, you will always be in a state of discomfort. The difference will be what makes you uncomfortable because as you grow, you expand and are open to new opportunities.

I hope this helps, Kitty, and I hope it also helps you today.

👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽What do you think? Have you considered discomfort something to embrace or only something negative to avoid? Have you thought about this before? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments below.

👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽I’d love to know, what’s one small thing you could do to build your “getting comfortable with being uncomfortable” muscle? Tell me more.

As always, thank you so much for watching. Please like and subscribe to Artist Strong to help others like you benefit from today’s conversation and so you never miss an episode.

And remember: proudly call yourself an artist.

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