Lennon Bone breaks down five mistakes that burn out artists: chasing algorithms instead of people, posting daily without reason, comparing yourself to others, treating art as product not experience, and skipping rest. Focus on connection and sales, match your effort to your skill level, and rest intentionally.
Let's talk about the five mistakes that artists who are trying to sell online make that leads them to creative burnout. So if you're in a season where you feel like you've lost the joy that you had for creating art and trying to get it out there, this video is definitely for you. By the way, my name is Lennon. I believe artists should be making more money. In my community, we've seen our artists make $340,000 this year, and I want to help more artists do that without burning out, without feeling fake, without feeling like they have to be some sort of influencer. So if you like this kind of stuff, hit follow. But let's jump into it. The first thing is creating for an algorithm instead of for people. This is a big one because we're always told, like, this is what the algorithm wants. This is what the algorithm wants. We're in a time in social media history where we don't need to worry so much about the algorithm. We need to be thinking about our people. And in turn, when we think about our people and we talk to our people, we start conversations. We will be rewarded for that because the algorithm just wants people to be on the platform longer. Don't chase engagement or views, Just chase connection. Okay. Number two, trying to post every day instead of posting with a purpose in mind. Again, a lot of artists will get lost in trying to make views the thing. Views is not the thing you want. If you're trying to sell your work, sales is what you want. So if you think every view has the opportunity to be the right viewer, it does something in our brain to allow us to feel lighter. And you never know who's paying attention to what you put out there. One of my Clients only has 400 followers, maybe, and had their biggest sales day yet. Number three, you get caught in a comparison trap. I would encourage you, unless you're really inspired by somebody, like truly inspired, to stop following a lot of artists on social media and instead look outside of the art world and see what you can be inspired by. Because if you know that your skill set when it comes to marketing and business and content isn't up to the level of some of these artists that you follow, you got to be in line with who you are right now. And there is nothing wrong with that. So if it's causing you to feel pressure, let it go for now. Come back to it later. Number four, you feel like your art is a product and not an experience. When you're thinking about selling, a lot of times you end up working your brain so hard to try to find the right words to say that you forget about the emotion that draws people in. I say it all the time. Some people don't like this. But you don't make art. You are the art. So get people to connect with you and they will connect with your work. And one of the biggest culprits is as creatives, you ignore rest. If you're already in burnout, it's too late. You will have to rest. Your body is forcing you to. So rest really looks like life. Letting go of expectations for what your content or your marketing should be doing, and just focusing on the doing. Collecting data and then doing it again and making sure that you're making time for the things that matter to you most. Even outside of art.
