by Tara Joyce | Mar 17, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
It needs to be good. No. It needs to be great. If it isn’t, it’s not worth anything.
My sentiment is, of course, not true. Despite how I may feel, the worth of it, of anything, lies not in its goodness (or lack thereof) but in what is being expressed and shared through it.
After all, “goodness” and “greatness” aren’t real measures of anything. You may feel it’s good, while I may feel it’s not. Who’s right? We both are.
So who really cares what’s good? Why let your fear of not being IT stop you from expressing? If you are doing your best, that is what matters. As creators, what we truly desire is to do our best with the resources we have. Good or not, your expression has value.
As you expand your resources, you’ll find you reach a place where you can do better than you did before. You may find yourself feeling your work from before is not as good as you feel it could be today. This is not a sign of your ineptitude. This is a sign that you have improved and grown. You now have more information, more practice, and more support than you’ve ever had before.
You are better, you have improved, and now you’re seeing how you’ve grown. Resist the temptation to feel upset by your previous expressions, feeling they are not good enough. They are beautiful artifacts of your growth between now and then. Before, you simply weren’t able to see how you would and could express yourself better—and now you are. That’s invaluable stuff.
photo credit: Ana C.
by Tara Joyce | Nov 21, 2014 | Cultural Creativity
Helpful creative feedback is encouraging, sensitive, honest, and constructive.
Creating is an arduous process that employs your very heart and soul. It is an act that leaves you, the creator, totally vulnerable to those who experience your creation. Helpful creative feedback comes from honouring this sacred creative space and meeting you, the creator, in it.
Helpful creative feedback is sensitive to the fact that you are doing your best, that your creation is not perfect nor is intended to be, and that what you truly desire is the opportunity to grow, express, and improve.
Helpful creative feedback is not about what I would do if I were you, or about what I want your expression to say or represent. Helpful creative feedback is about helping your creation to grow.
That doesn’t mean my creative feedback can’t share my negative experiences of your creation, but if your expression should anger me, it’s my responsibility to understand why it does, before I attempt to share those feelings with you, the creator, or direct them at your creation. When I do decide to share my feedback, positive and/or negative, it becomes helpful when I share it constructively, communicating in a way I would want to be spoken to should I have chosen to put the time, energy, and love into something enough to birth it into this world. Helpful creative feedback requires empathy for the creator and for the creation.
The amount of help my creative feedback provides to you depends on the depth of understanding I have about my own experience, and about how it’s not THE TRUTH. My experience is simply my perspective, nothing more. It’s just one perspective for you and your creation to learn and grow from. It holds no more weight than that. With this knowledge and humility in hand, I can be truly helpful to you, and provide you with the sensitive, honest, and constructive feedback you really need to grow.
photo credit: Josh Ardle
