A question for the creatives

[I-am-someone]

As some of you may have read, I have been extremely busy lately. I have been working on my portfolio for days and nights on end.

I have come to a strange conclusion: I tend to be really afraid of people's judgement of my work. If someone says something negative about it, it's like someone just just punched me in the stomach. When people react positively, I feel almost nothing.
This may just be temporary because I have been working non-stop for 2 weeks with little sleep and I'm at the point of breaking down completely, but I do sense that this is a problem that lies deeper in me.

Fortunatly, people react positively to my work about 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time people are giving me constructive criticism. But still, for some reason, I'm never really happy with what I've made. I can truly create some of the coolest things in a matter of minutes.
Now... for those of you who are creative or have a job that relies largely on the input given by others... how the hell do you deal with other people's judgement of your work? What kind of mindset advice can you give me?

I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback, because this is something that I am going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.

 

[Brother_Rapp]

Your work should be an expression of you. The only criticism of value should be in how it is presented (the form).

Example: There's a difference between what you say and how many pages it takes to write it down. Someone may say that you took too many pages and that you should cut it down. But if cutting the number of pages down changes what you say, then you shouldn't do it.

Example: In building a car someone may say that you should have built a fast car or a bigger car. But if it was your intention to build the car that you liked, then screw 'em.

In the end, it is you who has to live with the decisions that you make. Will you truly be able to sleep at night, if those decisions are based on the likes of others? Fyck 'em.

 

[earthshyne]

One of the toughest things to learn...

... about this topic is to separate yourself from your work.

I've been a writer for longer than I care to remember, and it is only relatively recently that I have developed a way to be proud of what I do, but resist emotional attachment to my work.

If you can compartmentalize like that, you'll save yourself tons of grief. But I'll be frank... it ain't easy.

 

[Jariel]

Originally posted by I-am-someone
I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback, because this is something that I am going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.

That's your answer! Accept every judgement as a form of constructive feedback. If people don't like your work, find out why if possible and learn from it. Nobody can expect to be instantly successful, no matter how hard they work. You always need to be finetuning your artform and adapting to the things you learn because that's how you improve.

Embrace the criticism and learn to love it. If someone is particularly harsh, let it drive you towards proving them wrong.

 

[Desdinova]

About a year ago, I worked on a small music project that me and my woman did. Even though it was kinda rushed to meet a deadline, it turned out fairly well considering my inexperience with the music software I was using.

Now, I had a few people tell me how great it sounded, including one guy who is an entertainer. One of my woman's bandmates really 5hit all over the work I had done. I did this wrong, I should have used this kind of microphone, etc. This is coming from a guy who has nothing to show for his "professionalism", but I have 13 years of experience backing me, and recordings to show for it. When people do this to me, it just makes me more determined to outdo them. I'm in the process of doing that right now with my own project