What Story Will I Tell Myself?

This weekend, I officially stepped away from teaching and began the process of closing down my education company.

After all these years of running courses, memberships, live calls and workshops, I woke up on Friday to a very different life. It's exciting. It's slightly terrifying. And - if I'm honest - it feels like standing at the bottom of a mountain with no idea what the climb will look like.

A few days ago, I received an email from a newsletter reader.

I'll keep the details private, but she'd taken part in a juried group exhibition, and had come away disappointed because her painting hadn't sold.

As I read her email, something struck me: she had completely missed the biggest success in the story.

The gallery owner had chosen her painting. Out of all the submissions, someone had looked at her work and decided it deserved a place on the wall.

That's no small thing - as artists, we want our work to be seen, understood and appreciated. That's what happened here.

But in her mind, that achievement hadn't even registered. The painting hadn't sold, so that became her headline.

I wrote back, pointing out what she couldn't see. I reminded her that the right buyer simply hadn't been in the room that day.

After I'd pressed send, though, I realised the message wasn't just for her - it was also for me.

This weekend, I'm beginning a completely new chapter of my life. For the first time in years, I'm putting all my time and energy into my own work.

I'm going to push myself to make paintings that are better than any I've made to date. I'm going to apply for exhibitions and prizes that feel out of reach. And I'm going to be showing vulnerable work to people whose opinion I respect.

Some things will work and some will not.

If I'm pushing my art, there will be studio failures - many days when nothing goes right. If I'm entering shows that are a stretch, there will rejection emails galore. 

The question is, what story will I tell myself?

Because our experience of life isn't created by the facts alone - we construct our experience out of the meaning we give those facts.

Let that sit for a minute because it might be the most profound thing I've ever shared --- every experience means nothing except the meaning we give it. 

My reader had two equally true facts available to her:

1) "A gallery owner chose my painting."

2) "My painting didn't sell."

She focused on the second and barely noticed the first, but if she'd told herself a different story, she might have been walking on air.

In recent years, I've learned to tell myself much better stories. I've become better at choosing a helpful meaning. I'm not perfect, but I'm better. 

As an example: around 70,000 people receive this newsletter every week.

Recently, I announced new paintings for sale and I sold a little over thirty of them.

If I wanted to tell myself a miserable story, I could. 

I could focus on the fact that almost everyone who reads these emails didn't buy a painting. I could conclude that my work doesn't connect; that you are not interested; and that means I'm not good enough.

It sounds ridiculous when I write it down, because I don't choose to look at it that way. 

The truth is that most people aren't looking to buy a painting - some simply enjoy following the journey, some support me in other ways, some might buy one years from now.

I don't see 69,970 rejections. I see thirty people who invited my work into their homes and that is beautiful. 

I didn't always think this way, but I've been practising this way of seeing for a few years now. 

And perhaps that's what I want to carry into this next chapter.

I want to make a commitment to be generous in the way I interpret my own life. I want to see the whole picture, not just the negatives.

If I don't get into a show, I can choose to be sad or angry about it, or I can choose to be proud that I was brave enough to try. 

If my paintings don't sell, I can be disappointed, or I can be thrilled that people saw them in a public space.

In short: I can stop allowing "negative" facts to erase encouraging ones.

As I step away from my old life, I realis I have very little control over what happens next.

I can't control who buys a painting, or which galleries say yes, or whether I make the shortlist .... but I can choose which story I pay attention to.

And the truth is that this choice - what to focus on - will shape this next chapter chapter of my life. The way I feel each day is in my hands :)