What makes a creative a "professional creative"?
I recently had a live chat with a friend from Ethiopia and she asked me this question. The simple answer would be that a "professional" gets paid for their work, otherwise if you're just doing it for free, you're just a hobbyist. But I also realized that's strictly not true. I know people who create amazing creative work and they do it purely for the pleasure and fulfillment of the activity. They have a professional job that earns well enough that it supports their art.
So maybe we should dig deeper and ask what is the difference between an "artist" and the "creative professional." The Oxford dictionary defines an artist as: “A person who practises or performs any of the creative arts, such as a sculptor, film-maker, actor, or dancer, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Also a person skilled at a particular task or occupation.”
The creative (n) is, “A person whose job involves creative work, involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something.” And a professional (n) is one who is "Engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime."
Artists draw from their experiences, emotions, impulses, talents to create work that resonates with their audience, while others create for their own personal satisfaction, whether or not others “get it.” Artists lean heavily on their heart to lead the work. This can be a good thing, when we create authentic work that resonates with lots of people.
Creative Professionals can’t just not care if others “get it” or not, if we fail to connect with our intended audience, we have failed our job. Instead of letting their heart lead, creative professionals pay more attention to their gut instincts. Guts mean the digestive system, the belly, stomach intestines. It makes total sense, especially when you live in the developing world where making sure you provide for the necessities is at the top of our priority list.
So if you ask me what the difference is between an artist and the creative professional, I would say that the artist’s main goal is self-expression; the creative professional’s goal is to serve their client, whether people think it’s art or not.
Do I have to quit my job to pursue my passion ?
Because I'm writing to creatives in the developing world, most of us realize that we can't just quit our jobs to follow our art. We don't have social systems like unemployment benefits or universal healthcare to fall back on. We have a very strong sense of shame and honor, and we want to support ourselves. As responsible grown-ups, we have our own bills to pay. Some of us even have to help support our families. We can't just quit our jobs to pursue our passion. We don't dare indulge our dreams at the expense of real world responsibilities.
When we are seriously considering the question of passion vs profitability, most of us are coming from a position of relative comfort. It was only when I was really thinking about this question that I realized that pursuing your passion is actually a rare privilege. Following your dreams are part of the "self-actualization" tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's only when our stomachs are satisfied and silent, when we are not anxious over our personal safety, security, or about money (or lack thereof) that we can begin to let our imagination overflow with creative thoughts. We can't even consider pursuing our passion if we're working hard just to secure our next meal or guarantee that we will still have a roof over our heads next week. We can't really play freely, which is necessary for most creative endeavors, if we're running away from poverty, malnutrition, sickness, religious or ethnic persecution, political oppression, or other situations of extreme lack or discomfort.
It's only when we're not worrying over basic needs, or even stressing about relationship drama or even the cacophony of our own destructive thought patterns that we can actually hear our innermost self whispering, “Let’s make something awesome!” When our more basic needs are satisfied, that's when we can really start to act on our creative ideas and can begin to thrive.
If you want to feed your passion,
first you need to feed your stomach.
How you soon make your dreams a reality largely depends on where “creativity” lies in your personal hierarchy of needs.
Is financial security more important, and doing the work you love can wait for when you're more stable? For some of us, living a life of comfort and securing our finances is more important than enjoying the work that you do. This is especially true if you’re the breadwinner of the family. If this is you, food, shelter and security are more important than pursuing your passions. As a freelancer, you prioritize opportunities that max out the economy aspect, and maybe find your deep joy with your home life.
Or you have a strong sense of delayed gratification, doing the kind of jobs that you enjoy a little bit in pursuit of the work that you know will eventually bring you a lot of enjoyment. This is what I was thinking when I took on my first and only video editing project. It was not that much fun, but I considered it one step towards fulfilling my dream on working on animation projects. If this is you, as you’re learning how to do your best work, you might take on projects that you don't necessarily like for the promise of developing skills necessary for more enjoyable and fulfilling work in the future.
Or is doing work that you love the most important thing, and you'd be content with a simpler life? Most artistic people I know would be unhappy to be in a job, no matter how well it paid, if it meant that they couldn’t use creativity on a daily basis. This is certainly the case for me! We have a deep well of creativity and a compulsion to draw from it regularly. If we keep our creative gifts bottled up, it could affect our general well-being. We may feel depressed or deeply dissatisfied with life, no matter how well provided our physical needs are, or how well-loved we are by family and friends.
For this kind of person, we would rather live simply, content with just the basic necessities, if it meant we could do the work that we love everyday. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” and we want this saying to be true in our lives. If this is you too, you prefer to max out on work that brings you most joy and meaning, even if it doesn’t pay that well. It's not just artists, a lot of other people (such as school teachers, public servants, NGO and ministry workers, stay at home parents and caregivers) would choose to do the work they love instead of a job with more money or glory.
If this is you, while you’re learning how to do your best work, you might take on projects that take you longer to finish than the average person, even charging lower prices. But you don’t mind the longer hours and lower pay, because every project is hours of enjoyable creative work, so it fulfills you in deeper ways than just financial provision. There's also the hope that as you upgrade your skills, your will be good enough that it will command better prices in the future.
But there is no guarantee for success. If the only work you’re doing is paying so little that it means subsisting on instant noodles in your parent’s spare room, even after years of developing your skills, you’ll end up resenting the very work that you used to love.
As I wrote in my previous posts, if we want to really succeed as artistic people in the developing world, we need to balance passion and practicality. We need to find "our sweet spot" between enjoyment, excellence and economy.
Up Next: Set Your Targets Now that we're more familiar with our actual needs and with trying to find your sweet spot, we need to set goals and targets for ourselves. We need a picture of the life we want to live so that we can chart a path and make a plan, so that we can start making our way towards that future.
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