Have you ever been in a situation or conversation where your ideas or your work were being heavily criticized? Do you feel sad and rejected? Anxious and angry? Did you tear it all apart or quit all together?
Everyone has an opinion, but the opinion of everyone is not what you’re after. Achieving happiness is partly about living as your true self, creating great work and fulfilling your purpose. Your purpose and the craft that achieves that purpose are not intended for all audiences. Before you quit or get emotional, consider the perspective of all the people telling you who you are and what your ideas and work should be. This is how you get lost.
Perspective Is everything
Webster defines perspective as “a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.”
Perspectives can come in all shapes and sizes, such as male vs. female, adult vs. child, old vs. young, and marketing vs. sales, etc. When an individual shares his or her opinion, it is based exclusively on his or her worldview shaped by their own experiences. The family you were raised in shapes your worldview significantly and we know that no two families are exactly alike.
And, while there are experts on a subject or people who are experienced in one facet or another, their thoughts on a particular project, topic, or situation are still an opinion, which may or may not be valid.
What I’m saying is that it is an opinion is an opinion—it has no basis in fact.
Shutting Out the Noise
On my personal journey to this place—and I write this in the midst of this journey—there have been lots of opinions about my project, my business plans, and everything in between. So many opinions in fact that I decided to stop talking about it all together and even shelved it a few times.
Then, I came to recognize that the people who were so freely sharing their opinions and virtually “telling me what to do” were neither experienced in my endeavor nor my target audience. Suddenly, my eyes were wide open.
For most of my life, I have let the opinions of people who had no business having an opinion on my work tell me the who, what, when, why, and how of my work. I have given up so many projects and opportunities because of these opinions.
And, even worse, I allowed these opinions to fester in mind, ruminating over conversations and comebacks that went unsaid. For years, I have welled up with anxiety, frustration, and anger—stalling progress and wasting time.
Your work is art and, guess what, art is subjective.
Your work (or “art”) can be anything from developing a poster or billboard for a marketing campaign to building a program to help people lose weight to writing a book or even an email. Odds are that whatever you are creating, it is not for everyone. As Seth Godin says, anything that is for everyone is probably mediocre at best (and who wants to be mediocre)? Many of the people that will share their opinion of your work before it gets out the door are not the intended audience. It’s an opinion from a less than valid perspective.
At work—if you are employed by a company—you may have to play by certain rules to get your project out the door but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t let your inner artist shine in the project creation. What if you break all the rules and it works?
Breaking the Rules
Let’s start with what that means. I work in marketing. Quite literally, what we do is art, and it often takes a lot of people with various skill sets to get something out the door. We have brand guidelines, logos, and best practices, but there is a lot of wiggle room for creativity. Yet, I must coax team members into being more creative.
There is a lot of fear in letting creativity shine. I have been a victim of this for a very long time because I went through the approval loops, I didn’t fight for my ideas, and I ended up bored and frustrated by every single project.
The worst thing that can happen if you break all the rules is that it doesn’t work, and you learn something. You never know until you try.
Now, you might say, no, the worst thing that could happen is that I will get fired. Was it the right job for you if you got fired? What if your ideas are great and it’s just not the right place for those ideas?
Many times, the people looking at your resume or seeing a sampling of your work for another industry do not see what is possible. I know that for higher level positions in charge of creativity and strategy, I contract the candidate for a project first. Someone may be a fantastic marketer or designer or writer, but if they don’t understand the industry or make the effort to understand it for the project as well as put forth their best work, they don’t get the job.
If you’re a boss, create space where creativity wins. If you’re an employee, fight for creating great work.
The Judgement Game
The advent of social media has given anyone with an opinion (which is everyone) a microphone. The entire world believes they can and should spout their opinion loudly, publicly, and proudly about just about anything—even if they have no perspective to validate such opinions.
As a marketer, the judgement game is a day in, day out battle. In fact, I wish I had these strategies for dealing with judgement and opinions, 20 years ago—I’d be in a very different place right now (or at least I imagine that I would).
The thing about marketing is that you really don’t know until you try. You can create focus groups. You can shop the idea to everyone in leadership, but until you put it out there for the intended audience, you just really don’t know. For people playing at the highest levels of the “sport” called marketing, their campaigns can get smeared in the press and online.
Yet, the one thing that non-marketers don’t realize is that when these so-called “failed campaigns” are talked about in the press—good or bad—they are being talked about. Remember when IHOP became “IHOB”? Or Kraft asked kids to “share noods”? These campaigns are considered “failures” by trade magazines and Twitter had a field day. Yet, all those snarky tweets meant people were talking about IHOP and talking about Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese. IHOP increased revenue. Kraft, at the very least, achieved top of mind brand awareness.
Intention Matters
My point in all this is that whoever you are and whatever ideas you have—you can do what makes you happy—no matter what anyone tells you.
Your intention must be clear. Spend time on achieving that clarity then make it happen.
While there are people who go viral overnight for their TikTok dances or spitting on a microphone, those are still one in a million. And do we really know if these individuals are happy? They might have a lot of money and 15 minutes of fame, but do they wake up every morning with joy knowing their purpose in life is being fulfilled? Maybe.
Don’t wait to be the viral sensation.
Instead, create great work—paintings, stories, emails, conversations, and the like—and then put it out to the right audience, get feedback from those followers and continue to make it better for them. What anyone else has to say doesn’t matter. Your work is for your audience.
Create Your Greatest Work. Find Yourself. Live Happy.
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