Who Gets to Decide if You're an Artist or Not?

Episode 13 Who gets to decide if you're an artist or not? You ever have those bad days as artist? You know the ones, where you're getting up on stage or your getting ready to start a new project and there's that little voice in your head telling you, "You shouldn't be here, leave this to the *real* artists. Everybody out there knows you're just full of crap. You're not really a [musician/writer/painter/insert your art here]."  Maybe you're not a career artist but you're someone who's just interested in creating and are trying something new like learning a new instrument, or taking a dance class, or trying out for community theater, and that little voice starts telling you "What are you even doing? You're not a [insert art here]! If you wanted to be an artist you should have started that when you were a kid! It's too late to do anything about it now, leave it to the *real* artists." That's what I like to call our "impostor syndrome" talking. It's the phenomenon where someone is actively creating and making art, but still feels like they don't belong. Maybe you're lucky and don't deal with that toxic voice in your head. But, as someone who is well acquainted with that voice and deals with it on a regular basis, it sucks. Pure and simple. Sucky as it is, it seems rather common in the artistic community. There's plenty of stories and interviews of successful and influential artists saying things like, "I don't know if I'd call what I'm doing art, per se." On a more local level, not only do I deal with this personally, but lot of my artist friends, students, and people that I interact with who want to create (even if it's just as a hobby), seem to get stuck on this impostor syndrome at one point or another and some never move past it. So even if you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to challenge this toxic voice, chances are there is someone in your artistic community who deals with this on a regular basis. So, what do we do when this voice pops in our heads, trying to stop us from creating? That's what we talk about in this episode of The Honest Songwriter podcast. We go over the need to develop a healthy response to this impostor syndrome and talk about how disciplined choices and behavior over time affect your identity as an artist. Most of all, in this episode, we give an answer to the question, "Who gets to decide if you're an artist or not?" (hint: the answer is *you*). The Honest Songwriter Podcast is 15-20 minutes of regular, open conversation about songwriting, what it's like to be a songwriter, and how to keep improving at the craft of songwriting. New episodes every three weeks! Sign up to stay up-to-date on new music and podcast episodes here: http://bit.ly/sign_up_kedwardsmith By signing up for the email list you'll get early access to new music, exclusive behind the scenes looks at writing process, and stay in the loop on new videos and podcast episodes. You can hear the latest songs released as part of my year-long songwriting challenge at this link: http://bit.ly/kedwardsmith_indie_releases