Transcripts
1. Welcome to the Cliff of Comparison: Hey, creative. How many times a day do you scroll through
social media and think, Oh, they're farther
along than me, or they have a bigger
creative business than me, or their art is
better than mine. I totally, totally get it. It is so easy to fall into the trap of
comparison these days. And I want to let
you know that it is totally normal out here in
the creative wilderness. But when we fall into
this trap of comparison, we fall away from our
unique creative path, and the world misses
out on our gifts. And what if your
unique creative gifts are what sparks action
in somebody else? What if your specific timeline
is the very thing that leads you to your own dream creative business
in three years? What if owning your
creative style is what leads you to your
dream collaboration? See, comparison traps our
creative authenticity. And when our creative
authenticity is trapped, the world misses out. That's why today in the
creative wilderness, we're visiting the
Cliff of comparison, where I'm going to
share my tips for how to navigate through
this common space out here to confidently move forward and share your unique creative
voice with the world. Hey, I'm Liz. I'm
an illustrator, educator, and creative
business owner. I've spent many years
navigating the highs, lows, and unknowns of
the creative wilderness, which is why now I am so stoked to share my tips
and notes with you in this series so that you can gain more confidence on
your creative trek and know that you're
not alone out there. So while I've spent many
years learning to trust myself on my unique path as an artist and creative
business owner, I still visit the cliff
of comparison every so often when I start to compare my timeline to others
or my art to others, or my business to others. Over time, I've learned that too much time on the Cliff
of comparison robs us and the world of the gifts of our unique individual paths
through this wilderness. But when we leap
off of the cliff of comparison and own
our authenticity, we can actually make a bigger
creative splash or impact, be of greater service,
and fall in love with the unique gifts that we
have to offer the world. That's why today I'm sharing my main tips for how to
navigate through the cliff of comparison so you can own your unique journey
and give the world the gift of your
authentic creative voice. Are you ready to dive in? Let's get started. By the way, if you've taken one
of the classes in this creative
wilderness tips series before and are already well acquainted with how it
works and what you need, and you can jump straight
ahead to lesson number four.
2. Your Class Project: In this lesson,
we're chatting about your creative wilderness
class project. Your class project
for this portion of the Creative wilderness
Tips series is to print off the Creative
WildernesFeld guide PDF and fill out the Cliff
of comparison section. In this section, you'll
find the following prompts. One, keys to the kingdom, two intentional social media and three, lean into comparison. You'll learn about these
prompts throughout this class so that you can fill them out in
your field guide. You can find the creative
wilderness Field guide linked in the projects and resources section of this class. You can find that by
navigating to the Projects and Resources tab and going to the
right hand side of the page where you'll see
resources and you'll see the Creative
wilderness field guide linked and ready to download. Once you've finished filling out this class portion
of the field guide, go ahead and upload it to
the class project section. You can do this by
navigating to the Projects and Resources tab
and clicking Create Project. Once you're here, you'll see a few options to
share your project. Go ahead and fill in
the project title with the name of this series. And in the project description, you can add images from your completed field
guide by clicking Image. This will bring you straight
to your files where you can select the images
you'd like to upload. You can also type additional
observations from your experience in
this portion of the creative wilderness
into this space. Once you've included all of
your images and observations, go ahead and go to the
cover image section to upload an image
for your project. Again, you'll be
brought to your files where you can select your image, click open, and then place it just how you want
it in the cropped space. Press submit. Make sure that when you're finished uploading everything, you hit Publish. That way, it'll go to the
class project gallery. In the next lesson,
we'll go over the materials you'll
need for this class. I'll see you there.
3. Gather Your Materials: In this lesson, we're going over the materials you'll
need for this class. For this class, you'll
need your creative wilderness field guide, a pen, pencil or writing
utensil of choice, and a phone to take a photo of your completed field guide to upload for your class project. And that's it. And
the next lesson, we'll go over the signs to
look for to know that you're approaching the cliff of
comparison. I'll see you there.
4. Recognize the Cliff of Comparison: In this lesson, I'm sharing the main signs to
look for to recognize that you're approaching
the cliff of comparison on your creative
wilderness journey. Sign number one, looking
around for your answers. So one of the ways it's really
easy to get to the cliff of comparison is when we start
looking around too much. These days, this can happen often hand easily
thanks to social media. So while social media is an incredible tool to build connection and seek inspiration, it can quickly become a space of looking outside of
ourselves for our answers. It can become a place where
we frantically look for our next creative idea or how to structure our creative business or what products we should sell. Rather than turning inward into our own path and our
creative intuition, we look outward to try to find the answers
that we're seeking. When we spiral into this type
of comparative self talk, we can put a ton of authority
on external resources, lose touch with our innate
creative intuition, and shut down the wisdom, gifts, and answers that exist on our unique
creative path. These thoughts can make us believe that everybody else out here in the creative wilderness
has all of the answers, has the keys to the kingdom, or they know some
secret formula, and somehow we are the only ones missing out on the information. And that's just not true. Nobody knows. Everybody's
figuring it out as we go. We are tiny humans flying
through space on a sphere, and that's a lot to figure out. So when we start believing that everybody
else has the answers, it's easy to get into
this grasping energy, trying to get what
other people have or use their path
as our own towards a seemingly easier
route because it looks more linear than
our spiraling journey. Grasping energy that comes from believing everybody
else besides you on the Cliff of Comparison
has the answers is a trick because the truth
is the answer is in you. Your personal journey is
the key to the kingdom. The people on the
cliff of comparison are all figuring it
out just like you are. They are a wonderful community
who can answer some of our questions and be our leaders and our teachers
for portions of our path, but they do not have the end all be all answers to
everything on your journey. The end all be all answers
exist within your own truth. The end all be all
answers exist within you. So the people you see
and compare yourself to, they don't have all the answers, but they are taking action and they're putting things
out there into the world. They might offer up a service that they've never
booked before. They might have a service
that they book all of the time that they're constantly
refining and refining. They may post one of
their paintings on Instagram that a
ton of people love, but maybe they didn't really
love it all that much. We can't see what's actually
happening behind the scenes, and nobody has all of
the answers because that's the whole point of
the creative wilderness. There is no A to B linear path. There is not one formula that
is going to fit everybody. Everybody is figuring
it out as we go. There are things we can
learn from each other and things we can
experience with each other. But at the end of the day,
we get to find and carve out our own authentic way of walking this
creative wilderness, and that is the most
beautiful part. Now, I'm not saying that you're alone and isolated
in this journey. No, we are all out
here together. I'm just saying that we're
all walking out here on unique creative
paths that can live and breathe and
connect together into a beautiful whole
thriving ecosystem. So take a moment now on your field guide to journal
about the answers that you think other people currently have that you don't
on your journey. Then reflect on how you can
both find the information you desire and trust your unique
spin on what you learn. Sign number two, you've recently been to
the Bog of Burnout. If you've recently visited
the Bog of Burnout, then you are likely
on the fast track to the cliff of
comparison if you don't take time to heal from the burnout before
continuing forward. Sitting in the Bog of
burnout can be like a trap door that funnels you straight onto the
cliff of comparison. When we're exhausted by
our creative journey and can't find the
joy in our work, it's so easy to look at
everybody else's path and think that they
have it better or figured out or easier. When we take time to rest
and heal from burnout, we can see other
people's pads more realistically and look at
our own path with more love, joy, compassion, and clarity. And by the way, if
you are looking for tips on how to prevent and heal from burnout on your creative
wilderness journey, then you can visit
the Bog of Burnout episode in this series by navigating to my
profile page and going to the creative
wilderness Tips section. Sign number three, you've
recently been in Playful Pond. If you've recently
visited Playful Pond, then you've entered back
into this creative flow and a sense of joy for your unique creative path,
which is awesome. Leaving Playful
Pond to continue on your creative journey can
feel super fluid, fun, and easeful at first
because we've tapped back into the power and impact of our unique
creative voice. This means that we are open
to receiving inspiration, which is incredible and can also quickly lead to being more
open to external forces, entering into our
journey to make us believe that our path
isn't supposed to be easy or that we're doing it
wrong because it feels easy or that there's only one
way to walk this journey, which all of those
are lies, by the way. If we're not aware of
this, then as soon as those external voices
enter into our journey, we can deem them as
better than our own, and our sense of
playful openness can come to a screeching halt. There's that quote, comparison
is the thief of joy. When we're on the
cliff of comparison, it can rob us of the joys
of our own creative journey and process and even
lead us to stop making any creative work at all because we start to
think we're not as good as other people or
that we're never going to get to that
point that they're at. For example, if you just started your creative
wilderness journey and you're starting
to compare your work to somebody who's 12 years in, of course, they're
farther along, but that doesn't mean
that your unique path, timeline or creative journey
is wrong or invaluable. It just means that
you're at a different place in the
creative wilderness. The magic of the creative
wilderness ecosystem comes to life when you own, honor, and trust
the timing, pace, and perspectives of your
unique creative path. So to recap, the
three main signs that you're walking straight
towards the cliff of comparison are you're looking
around for your answers. You've recently been
in the Bogle burnout, and you've recently
visited Playful Pond. Now that you know
the signs to look for on the way to the
cliff of comparison, join me in the next
lesson where I'll share my main tips for how to navigate that space
when you end up there, so that rather than falling
off of the edge of the cliff, you can leap into something so much better.
I'll see you there.
5. Tips to Navigate the Cliff of Comparison: In this lesson, I'm
sharing my main tips to avoid falling off of
the cliff of comparison so that you can
authentically and confidently move forward on your unique creative
wilderness path. Tip number one, limit your
time on social media. I know this might seem like a really obvious tip
that is shared a lot, but it's also a simple
way to decrease the time we spend on the cliff of comparison in our journeys. Now, simple doesn't
always mean easy, right? It's simple to say, Okay, I'll just limit the time
I spend on social media, but it's different to actually
take action to do so. Social media is an incredible
tool for connection, inspiration and
creative business. And if you love social
media, amazing. Own that. I personally love Instagram to connect with
fellow creatives, but I've also come to find that social media
can quickly become quicksand straight
onto the cliff of comparison if I'm not aware of how much time I'm using it. So when we slide from inspiration into comparison
on social media, we are brought out
of our own internal creative intuition
and into beliefs that everybody else's work
is better than our own and that everybody else has
somehow figured it all out. To prevent this from
happening and use social media as the
incredible tool that it is while also preventing it from becoming a portal
to the cliff of comparison, set intentional
boundaries around your time on the platforms. For example, you can set really specific time limits
on social media, like, I'll spend 15 minutes on
social in the morning, 15 minutes at lunch and 15
minutes at the end of the day. To hold yourself accountable
to your boundaries, you can set a reminder on
your phone or use an app like the focus feature on the
iPhone or freedom T tracker. You can use these
tools to stay true to your time boundaries
in order to focus on the task at hand and break the habit of hopping on social for long
stretches of time. Tip number two, be intentional
with social media. What can be even more powerful than just setting
time boundaries with social media is to pair an intention with
your time boundaries. So when you are at
your designated time block to hop on social, take a breath to
set an intention. Ask yourself, why am I getting
on social media right now? Is it to connect with another creative, respond to comments, respond to DMs, or distract
myself or create a real? By setting a direct intention before you get on the platform, you can use social media
for an even deeper sense of purpose than the endless
scroll of comparison. Also, by knowing why you are hopping on social
media at the moment, you can more easily honor
your time block because it is clear when you have completed
your intentional task. For example, it's very clear if your intention is to hop on
Instagram to make a real. Once you've created the
real, your task is done. So it's an intentional task that is tangible and has
a clear endpoint. This can be especially helpful and powerful when
you find yourself in a season when you're spending more time on
the cliff of comparison. Rather than mindlessly hopping
on social out of habit, setting an intention can reset your relationship with social
media to find more balance, ease, and purpose with
your use of the platforms. So take a moment now in
your field guide to list some ways you can
be more intentional with your time on social media. For example, this
list might look like connecting with
creatives and DMs, creating a meaningful post, creating a fun reel, sharing my process on
stories, et cetera. See, social media isn't bad, but it can start to
feel bad or gross when we're using it in ways
that just don't benefit, nourish, or add to our
creative wilderness journeys. Tip number three, take
time for solitude. The cliff of comparison is really dangerous
because it can quickly lead us away from our creative intuition and
out of trusting ourselves. And one of the biggest purposes, I think, of the creative
wilderness journey, is to learn or really re learn how to deeply
trust yourself, your unique creative intuition and your specific creative path. Creative intuition isn't
always loud, though. Oftentimes, it can
be a quiet whisper, gently telling you
which direction to go next in the
creative wilderness. The noise of
comparison can easily overpower and drown
out this inner voice. That's why it's so
important to make intentional quiet
time for solitude, so you can tap back into and hear your creative
intuition again. Because the more
that you can tune in here and honor your
creative intuition, the more authentic and honest
your creative work can be. Hearing, honoring, and trusting your creative intuition is like coming home to yourself and
to your unique creative path. Nobody out here is going to do this journey quite like you. But when we get to the
cliff of comparison, all of that power can seem
to fly out the window. Bye, right? As I
mentioned earlier, when we're on the
cliff of comparison, we can start to believe
that everybody else has the answers except for us. But as you know now,
that's just not true. That's why it's so
important to schedule intentional solitude and quiet time for
yourself to tune in, trust, and honor the answers your unique creative intuition is sharing with
you specifically. This can help you get off
of the cliff of comparison and back into flow with your
unique creative journey. Tip number four, turn
comparison into community. The cliff of
comparison is not only a dangerous place for losing
trust in our own journey, but it's also dangerous because it can turn us against
our community. The cliff of comparison can turn what could be a
supportive community into competition out of the fear that there isn't
enough success to go around. Oftentimes, comparison
and competition can be rooted in
feelings of jealousy. Jealousy can turn us away from the possibility of
deep connection, but it's also a very
valuable lens to examine what we truly want in our own lives and
creative journeys. So the next time
you feel jealous, ask yourself, is this
actually something I desire? Maybe you're jealous
of that creative who just started
their own business, or maybe you're jealous
of that illustrator who just licensed
their own products. Ask if those milestones are something you desire
on your own journey. If they are, what is standing in the way
of you reaching them? Is it fear, confusion
on next steps, a belief that you
don't deserve it? What is stopping you from moving towards what
you truly desire? Rather than letting the
feelings of competition and jealousy lead you to fall
off a cliff of comparison, lean into those feelings to gain clarity on what
it is you truly want, what is blocking you
from reaching that, and how you can start to
take steps towards it. Further, you can
ask not only how this comparison and
jealousy can guide you, but how those people you see
as competition can actually become a community to support you on the
way to your dreams. So on Instagram, for example, when you're in the rabbit hole of looking at other
people's artwork and accounts and you start to compare yourself
to their journeys, how can you shift your mindset towards collaboration by asking, how can this person be
part of my community? That question can open up a new dialogue and start
a new conversation. Rather than closing off
connection and shutting down, that question opens
up possibilities to comment on their posts or
send them a DM to connect. How can you bring people into your creative community
and support system for collaboration
instead of competition? Because we do not
need to be competing against each other out here
in the creative wilderness. We need to be lifting each other up and cheering
each other on. This journey can be hard
enough as it is alone. We need to support
each other on it. This is like an
ecosystem of plants. Trees can provide shade and protection for
smaller plants while smaller plants can provide food and nourishment
for animals. It is all connected, and we are all connected. Leaning into community
will lead you away from the cliff of comparison and
deeper into that connection. Tip number five, check
your burnout barometer. So when we're on a high in
the creative wilderness, making work that we love and feeling totally confident
about our journeys, it's pretty rare to get
stuck on the cliff of comparison because we're so in flow with the
creative process, right? In those moments, you're
likely not looking around saying, Why
am I not there yet? Because you're filled up and energized by your own
creative work and path. But when we work too hard and
don't make time for rest, this energy can start to deplete us and lead us to burnout. And when we're burned
out, it is much, much easier to fall
off the cliff of comparison because it seems like everybody else
is moving ahead, making traction, and creating amazing work while we're
too tired to do anything. So check your burnout
barometer often on your creative wilderness
track to make sure you're not unknowingly
leaking energy. You can do a burnout
barometer check in along your journey by asking yourself Am I balancing
enough rest with my work? Am I feeling the edges
of burnout creeping in? And do I need more rest than
I'm currently giving myself? Then you can more quickly
and easily recognize ahead of time if your burnout barometer is leaking energy, so you can course correct before the burnout
fully takes over. One great way to check in with your burnout barometer
is to ask if you have been making more frequent
or longer visits to the cliff of comparison. If you've been feeling
like you're stuck in a comparison loop and
have comparison fatigue, then it's a good sign that your burnout barometer is
signaling you to stop, rest, and take care of yourself. Again, comparison is a
focus on the external, so it's only natural that we
will spend more time there when we aren't focusing on honoring our internal
needs first. So check in with your
burnout barometer along the way to course correct, take care of
yourself, and nourish yourself so that you can avoid too much time on
the cliff of comparison. Tip number six, lean
into comparison. Now, this tip might
sound strange at first, but if you find yourself stuck on the cliff of comparison, then lean into it. I first learned and
practiced this after a session with Dylan Mirzwinski's
creative coaching group. We were talking about
making artwork that felt similar to the artists
that inspire us and how this inspiration can seem to overtake our own
creative process to the point that we don't actually feel like we're in
our style when we're making. Dylan brought up
the great tip to lean into that comparison
when she said, even if you made art that looked exactly like your favorite
artists all the time, you still couldn't escape you. I love this because essentially, you always shines through. No matter what you do,
you can't avoid yourself. So, for example, I have Alisa Congdon print in
my studio that I love. And if I tried to make
an illustration as practice that looked
exactly like that print, there would still be elements of me and my creative style in it because I can't avoid myself out here in the
creative wilderness. I can't avoid myself
in my practice. So take a moment in your
field guide to go put this tip of leaning into
comparison into practice. Pick an artist whose
work you totally adore and love that you also
compare yourself to. Then make a copy of that work. I am not saying to
do this and then publicize it or share it or
sell it, definitely not. This is a personal practice and you're not going
to sell this work. Take a moment to copy that work, and you can do that directly
in your field guide, or you can take a photo and paste it into your field guide. When you practice leaning
into this comparison and copying what you see
as a personal exploration, you can find the aspects that feel true to you and
the aspects that don't this will lead you into a deeper understanding of yourself and your
unique journey. When you lean into
the comparison, you'll be led back to
trusting yourself. And that is where
the magic happens. You can't escape you out here
in the creative wilderness, and that is the best news ever. So to recap, the main tips to avoid falling
off of the cliff of comparison are limit
your time on social media, be intentional
with social media. Take time for solitude, turn comparison into community, check your burnout barometer, and lean into comparison. These tips will help you avoid falling off of the
cliff of comparison and instead leap into the next part of your creative wilderness
journey with more ease, flow, and trust in
your unique path. Join me in the next lesson
where you'll publish your class project.
I'll see you there.
6. Publish Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about publishing
your class project. So once you've completed this section of the
Creative Wilderness, take a photo of your
completed cliff of comparison portion of the Creative Wilderness
Field Guide. Then upload that photo to the class project
section of this class. Remember, you can upload your class project
by going to the Projects and Resources tab and clicking the
Create Project button. Once you've uploaded your
photo, be sure to hit Publish. Also, be sure to check out other class projects
from your fellow creatives in the
project gallery. We're all out here together, so let's show support for
each other's journeys. Lastly, let me know in
the discussion section what you're comparing
yourself to right now and how you're moving away from the cliff of comparison on your creative
wilderness journey. Then join me in the next lesson, where I'll share where
we're headed next on our creative wilderness
trek. I'll see you there.
7. Thank You and Next Steps: Thank you so much
for tuning into this class in the Creative
Wilderness series. I hope you're feeling
more equipped, confident, and totally stoked to keep trekking through the
wilderness together. Remember that the
cliff of comparison is a totally normal stop on the
creative wilderness journey, but you don't have
to get stuck there. Instead, lean into your
creative authenticity because your unique
creative voice and path is what makes the
powerful connections the positive impact and holds the
answers for your journey. The next stop on our
Creative Wilderness trek, we are confidently leaping
off of the cliff of comparison and diving
straight into Community Cove. There you'll learn my best tips for how to build a
community that can cheer you on and be supportive as you make your creative
wilderness trek. In the meantime, if you want continued encouragement for your creative
wilderness journey, you can download
a free PepT that I've recorded just
for you to listen to anytime you need to get pumped up and confident about
your next steps forward. Lastly, be sure to follow me
here on Skillshare to stay up to date on new classes by
hitting that follow button. Check out more of my
work at lesbrinle.com. And come hang out with me on Instagram at Liz
Brindley Artwork. Say wild, stay creative,
and I'll see you soon. When we take time to rest
and heal from burnout, we can see that others paths, they're more when we. Uh, okay. Tip number two, B intentional with social media. This crow. Tip number two. Tip number
two. Tip number two. Okay. This Crow. Tip number two. You done? No. It's
this crow, though. Yo. Chill. Okay, what Spiders just spinning webs off my hat. Okay. I'll see you there. Boom.
Liz Brindley, Illustrator
