I talked a little bit about this when I wrote about when creative people cannot create. But I really want to expand on the importance of having a morning routine.
You’ll basically meet three types of artists. The first time is the successful artists. They make a living doing the job they love.
The second type has much larger numbers. Significantly larger. It is the artists who want to make a living in art but are either failing or will fail.
The third type, we won’t talk about. They’re irrelevant for this discussion. They’re the ones who do art for the love of art, and have no intention of selling it whatsoever. Nothing against this group. They’re just irrelevant for this article.
Where a morning routine comes in
Anyone ever heard of Jerry Rice? The saying goes that he woke up every morning at 4:30AM because Cris Carter woke up at 5AM.
You may dismiss this as a joke, but it’s no joke. There’s a reason he has every single record in the record book. He worked harder than everyone else. And that’s not me saying it. It’s all his peers.
Today, Drew Brees is about to break every passing record in the book. It’s because like Rice a generation before, Brees is known as the hardest working man amongst hard working men in a brutal game.
Why not apply this to art? I totally believe that mindset is underrated, especially for artists. The difference between the ones who make it and the ones who don’t is often mindset. Mindset will surpass talent. Well, let’s be real. Everyone who’s gotten this far has some talent. So assuming you do have some talent…
Mine
I wake up at 5:45AM Mondays thru Fridays and I get to sleep in until 6AM on the weekends. I’m doing a random morning sketch, then doing a quick social media plug. I don’t stay on social media as social media is a terrible time sink. You could get lost there for hours and not get anything done. I think it’s possibly even worse than television.
I’m also practicing my foreign language. This of course has nothing to do with art, but I’m tired of being monolingual.
When I was taking photography seriously, I’d wake up at ungodly hours and shoot. Those are often the best times to shoot anyways.
Yeah, I never claimed to be good at photography. It was just one of those things that I did. However, if I kept up with it, I would have worked every morning on it until I got really good.
But this mindset really helped my musician skills and now my art skills.
I started this blog just for my short stories. I didn’t take it seriously for years. Then on January 1st of this year, I decided that I was going to take my art seriously.
As an artist, your biggest enemy is obscurity. Don’t ever get discouraged by anyone who doesn’t like you or your art. Who cares? Let it go in one ear and out the other.
However, if nobody knows you exist, you’ll never sell you art.
I’ve recognized that immediately. And so I plan accordingly. I write this blog to help out other artists. And I also use the main site to sell the art.
My morning routine also involves a bit of promotion because marketing matters. If you don’t take marketing seriously, good luck making it as an artist. You’d have to get lucky, and I personally don’t ever like relying on luck.
