The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
422 | 5-Minute Mentoring: Burned Out And Bored With Art?
From the outside looking in, you would think a working artist would never get burned out or bored. After all, who else gets to follow their passion and do the thing they love the most in the world and make a good living doing it?
But burnout and boredom are real obstacles that every artist has to overcome.
Maybe you’re working so much, preparing for shows, doing commissions, and all that, and it’s just become so overwhelming that you want just put it all away for a while. Or maybe you’ve hit a lull in your schedule and in your commission work and you just have to force yourself to get SOMETHING done to feel productive.
Many artists bounce back and forth between these two states without finding a happy medium, mostly because they don’t know how to resolve the problem.
In this episode of 5-Minute Mentoring, I lay out my strategies for dealing with burnout and boredom in your life as an artist. If you can put these tips into practice, you’ll break out of your rut and get back into the good rhythms of being a successful working artist.
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When you’re ready to stop striving and start thriving, here are 4 other ways I can help:
1️⃣ Get my FREE Guide, “5 Biggest Misconceptions About Prophetic Art” Wondering how to create your art with God or what prophetic art is all about? Grab my free guide and make sure you’re not stuck in any of these misconceptions about prophetic art! Download here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/5-biggest-misconceptions-about-prophetic-art
2️⃣ Learn a New Framework for Living: Watch this free 60-minute, on-demand workshop I created called “How to Start Thriving as the Artist God Created You to Be,” where I share a simple, Kingdom-based framework for living that anyone can use starting today. Click here for details and to enroll! ➡️ https://matttommeymentoring.mykajabi.com/ew-optin-how-to-start-thriving
3️⃣ Connect with God: Discover how to connect with the Lord and discover His intention for you and your art in His Kingdom in my course, How to Connect with God to Create & Sell Your Art. Get more details here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/how-to-connect
4️⃣ Ready to truly thrive? Join the Created to Thrive Artist Mentoring Program to discover how to build your art business and live the abundant life Jesus promised you as an artist in His Kingdom! Click here for details and to enroll! ➡️ https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/artmentor.html
Thanks for listening! You can also watch this podcast on YouTube at youtube.com/matttommeymentoring. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!
Connect with Matt online: https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/stay-connected
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Do you bounce back and forth between burnout and boredom in the studio? I'm going to give you some tips on how to quit bouncing back and forth between those today here on 5-Minute Mentoring. God created you to be. Hey, my friends. So glad that you are with me in the studio. Listen, one of the wonderful things about being a working artist is that you're busy. You got things going on. You got shows that you're preparing for commissions that you're working on. You may have some retail galleries or, or stores that are wanting your work. There's always another Instagram post to put up another Facebook post, another ad to run another magazine thing to design another, you know, article to write all the things, right. That it takes to do, um, you know, your life as, you know, as a working artist. And often I find that we end up running back and forth between burnout on one side and boredom on the other. When things are great, man, it's cooking. You're in there making and you're doing the stuff and you're like, and then all of a sudden when things slow down, you're like, I'm bored. Nothing, nothing going on. What am I going to do? And that sort of thing. And I find that Going back and forth between burnout and boredom really has to do with the lack of rhythm in your studio practice. When you're building a studio practice, you've got to be just as intentional about play as you do about production. What do I mean by that? Well, it's easy, especially for us doers, to think that, man, everything I do in the studio has got to be for a transaction. It's got to be for somebody to purchase, for somebody to see, for somebody to give me some money for. And so everything that we're doing, we kind of push toward that production end. But when you do, you rob yourself of the beauty of experimentation The beauty of play. And so I think one of the things that I've tried to do over the years as I was growing my art business is, and for me it works in the mornings, you know, as I'm coming into the studio and I'm ready to kind of get my day started, a lot of times I will start with play. And that looks like maybe some sketching or some drawing. Maybe it's playing with materials. Maybe it's taking a piece that I made a few weeks ago that I don't really like and maybe beginning to adjust that. Maybe playing around with color. or maybe playing around with surface designs, just doing some things that kind of get the juices going. That really helps me to kind of get the cobwebs out, if you will, and begin to get my creative energy flowing in the direction that I want to. That way, when I go to production, I can do so in a place that's really full, in a place that's really energized. Otherwise, if you're in production mode all the time, you will get in to burnout for sure, because you can't live in production mode, in fruitfulness mode all the time. There's got to be this rhythm. The opposite is also true, though. If you are not in production mode, that is, you don't have a show that you're working toward, you don't have some commissions that you're working toward, you don't have any purpose in your life, then it's really easy to kind of stay in play mode and get bored. You find yourself avoiding the studio because there's nothing to really work toward. You don't have a project that you're working on. You're just kind of, oh, yeah, well, I could go in there or maybe I'm not. So I find for me on the other side, it's really healthy. to have commissions that you're working on, have a show, or maybe if you're brand new in this, you're like, I don't even have any of that, Matt. Maybe just a collection that you're working towards, something to give you purpose with a deadline. That way you don't fall into the trap of being bored and just kind of, you know, flowing around loosey goosey in your studio practice. Burnout and boredom are two really, really real things that happen to you. But if you will begin to balance that between production and play doing the things you need to do to keep you on track. And at the same time, giving yourself the space to play and experiment with new things just as intentionally in your studio, you will find a beautiful rhythm that works for you. I love you, my friend. I hope that encourages you today. Remember, till next time, you were created to thrive. Bye.