As a creative person, you will eventually come across a point where you find someone that doesn’t like your work. They might even hate it with all of their being. This is even true in other professions. When it comes to presenting ideas or a product/service to someone, you will find someone that is willing to let you know why they don’t like it. Life will bring forth contradiction in any progress we try to make.
Think about this though….
Without contradictions, our progress would be much slower. Our point of view would be so focused and linear that we wouldn’t be able to learn from our mistakes. Living in a world where everyone loves our work would hold us back from becoming great at what we do.
A world where we are always the best is a world of crappy work and hardly any personal growth. When others can tell us what we are doing wrong or what they dislike, that’s when you can enhance yourself. You find opportunities to learn new things about yourself that you never knew. Having your friends and your mother look over your work is not the best route to take for finding your weaknesses. You needed to find people that can be brutally honest with you. Someone to tell you how it is, not what you want to hear.
[Tweet “We all want to hear how great our work is, but we should really be asking about what we can improve.”]
I think some of my favorite people to meet are the ones we have no emotional connection to, but have high regard for. People that we know are going to give you good advice. We have to learn what to do with feedback and how to be constructive with it. It’s not just to make us feel worthless for a while and callus our emotions, it’s to analyze how we can reach near perfection.
The most bizarre people we can get feedback from are the ones that almost seem like they have nothing better to do but hate on you. They can almost appear to be a troll, but they just hate your work with a passion. Most of all, they let you know about it. No matter what. Those people will probably never like your work and that’s ok. We can’t please everyone.
[Tweet “Trying to please everyone with our creative work is meaningless.”]
Don’t try to please everyone with your work. You probably shouldn’t be working with people that you don’t agree with either. You have to find someone that is a good fit and trusts you with your abilities. That doesn’t mean they won’t disagree with your choices, but it does mean you can make great progress because they want great service from you.
If the work is for some one else, go above and beyond to please them specifically. Not just to please them to make them happy, but to enhance your character. Commitment and passion for your work goes along way. It will reflect upon how you feel about it as well. You should be proud of what you do, even if it’s for someone else. You have to earn your ability to do great work. Doing great work for others is only a positive influence on your personal work. Ironically, the more we commit to others, when enhance the ability commit to anything in life. The reward is found in the work, the feedback and in the end, the growth you achieve.
