In my mind creative people can fall into 2 camps; the hobbyist and the artist.
The Hobbyist
The Hobbyist is creative for the joy and pleasure of being creative. Their idea of success is just having time to be creative and enjoying it.
Being creative to them is either relaxing or simply a fun time. They do not need anything else out of their art or creativity. The hobbyist is someone who will have another job and is simply being creative because it is their hobby.
It is a simple and pure reason to create art of any type.
The Artist
The Artist is a person who wants a career focused around being creative. Art is more than a hobby to them. It is a passion that they can’t get enough of.
Yes, they enjoy creating and art most likely started as a hobby for them too. It has since grown and changed into something they want to do more of.
Where I fall
I fall into the artist camp. I started as a hobbyist. For most of my life I wrote because it was just something I enjoyed doing. I started to draw and doodle, because it was fun.
The issue I started to face was that I wanted to write more and do more with my visual art too. I never feel like I have enough time to do everything I want to do with my creative career.
I started to make life changes to help me make more time for my creativity. First it was small things, like making sure I had Saturdays to be creative and setting goals for my creativity. Then the changes became bigger, like leaving my office job and the commute, so that I had more time and less mental drain.
Another change I made in order to fall more into the artist camp was that I simply started to refer to my creativity as my art business and my creative career. I switched my brain into realizing and accepting this is the path I’m on.
Whether you chose to be a hobbyist or artist both are valid and can be successful. Just like life your art and creativity is yours. Only you can decide how much time, effort, and emotions you put into.
If you are hobbyist that does not mean you are less passionate about your creativity. It simply means you have decided to keep it as a hobby instead of a career.
This is part of Tiff’s Tips a blog series. I have also done a goal setting video series on YouTube.