the problem with reaching goals – A Handbook for Emerging Artists

How can I minimize or prevent losing momentum upon reaching a goal?

Working towards a goal builds up momentum: the closer you get, the more worthwhile your efforts can feel. This momentum can get scattered by reaching a finishing line; instead of stabilizing your work rhythm and thus your artistic identity further (knowledge of progress, of having manifested something), it can lead to parts of your identity crumbling, to be replaced by a vacuum: who are you? Why are you?

The deeper your identification with goals and challenges, the harder their absence can hit you: having had an exhibition opening, having finished a difficult piece, having published a catalog of your work – accomplishments can generate a lack of structure, direction and purpose. A limbo. You accumulated knowledge, skill and will, but then seem to have lost the platform to invest it in.

Processes and goals

Since goals are usually singular, temporary events, it makes sense to rather focus on what accompanies you more permanently: the processes that lead to them. Habitualizing these turn them into your life’s permanent backbone: being in the studio on time, preparing the next work, putting in a certain number of hours every day. Goals can be harnessed for increased productivity and motivation, at the risk of experiencing a motivational low upon their attainment. By analyzing your personal experiences with processes and goals, you can establish a balance that benefits from using both.

Forming habits

The long-term solution here is to establish habits, which can start today: habits are formed by repeating your actions consistently, based on specific triggers: once you finished your cup of tea, you put it in the sink. Once you get out of bed, you make the bed. This works for every part of your life, including your artistic practice: once you brushed your teeth, you get dressed; once you got dressed, you leave for the studio; once you entered the studio, you turn off your phone’s notifications and put it aside; once you disabled your phone, you sit down to work for an hour. The banality of these actions, combined by stacking them together (“habit stacking”), results in a powerful approach to life (and work): since you get used to these sequences, you question them less. Since you question them less, you can focus on your work more efficiently.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carceri series, 18th century

Apart from your habits, there are a few further strategies to consider:

Establish reliable habits: To consistently come up with new ideas is your perpetual reality as an artist: let it become your routine. Instead of defining yourself through your achievements and goals, consider establishing processes that will become habitual – reducing the impact of reaching your goals. Since quality is the consequence of quantity (of the amount of time you invest), this approach can result in your work’s quality to increase as well.
Work on multiple pieces/projects in parallel: Experiment with working on parallel sets of production processes – with the intention of them not being finished at the same time (if they would, this might exacerbate the whole problem of losing momentum). Note that finishing a piece/project might require you to temporarily focus it exclusively. Experiment with the various ways of working in parallel to find out which work for you (staying within one medium; touching various media but sticking to an overarching topic; working on multiple independent projects or with different collaborators, etc).
Prepone preproduction: Instead of focussing on projects consecutively, experiment with preponing the preproduction phase of upcoming projects right into your current phase – even if those later projects are utopian and unconfirmed. This lets you think about them without actual pressure, which can be both enriching and empowering; once you do focus on them, you are already somewhat familiar with their parameters. This can result in a more soothing gradient into new domains, which can come in handy once the current project is done.
Generate a list of potential futures: Establish and maintain a list of potential research areas and future projects. Let this list include both full-blown projects (a work series, a collaboration, a body of work for an exhibition) as well as smaller fragments of investigation (researching specific tools, writing about your work, deepening your understanding about a previously untouched work aesthetic). Let this be your timeline of potential futures: you won’t ever be able to dive into all of them, but having them available in a rough overview will help you see the many areas of potential investigation. This will return agency to you, enabling you to look at these list of utopias, and engage with them.

Setting up process-based work habits will influence your attitude toward goals, and lets you use the best of “both worlds”: the streamlined reliability of habits as your structural backbone, mixed with the short motivational overdrive and bursts of peak performance offered by goals. Used adequately and sensitively, this can minimize your loss of momentum upon reaching goals.

I feel disassociated from my work. What can I do after having lost motivation or momentum?

There are endless reasons for artists to feel disassociated from their work: accomplishing something can lead to post-achievement depression; both success and failure can feed emotional isolation and doubts. If you lost motivation or momentum, your situation isn’t too different from that of someone who just starts out – both situations are based on doubts, featuring various ambiguities on how to get going. It can be worthwhile to revisit the chapters on how to start, focus, investigate and increase the pressure; in addition, consider the following strategies:

Create a list of previous artistic choices: While a finished piece can feel like an answer to its viewers, it also always represents an open set of questions to its creator. Every finished artwork carries these questions within itself; strands to pursue further, manifestations that may want additional, potentially better solutions. Go through your previous artworks and list the formal and semantic attributes used to create them: format, palette, movement, duration, speed; thoughts, influences, references, etc. Understand what happened in the works, and examine what touches you. Some choices might feel to be dead ends, while others might make you giddy. Having a list with your formal and semantic choices lets you remember your passion, and see where you could delve into next. A list of your previous artistic choices is a personal map of paths to pursue.
Be social: Meet friends to discuss your situation. This gives you a voice, and enables them to offer insights and empathy, which could strengthen you to move on. Alternatively, take time off: consider vacation (even a day without the internet and your smartphone can be blissful), consider going to the movies or a library etc. While working might have required a certain focus through isolation, now can be the time to rekindle family and friendships, and to understand how to better balance life and work in the future.
Be withdrawn: Experiment with introspection: meditation, visiting museums or the gym, listening to podcasts, reading: it can pay off to not surround yourself with other people’s energies, but to rather stay focused on yourself. This lets you dive into your situation, your art practice, or your medium’s history – which often serves as a reminder of the many paths untaken in our own artistic practice. Analyzing art that inspires you (including your own work!) can remind you of why you started making art in the first place.
Engage in side tasks: Even if you’re down, it might be possible to engage with low-commitment tasks: skimming through an older publication of your work, going through your archive. What about cleaning your studio, uncluttering your flat, making proper photos of your work or sorting your archive. These activities can enable your mind to wander, with the added benefit of getting work done. They can help you remember what you’ve accomplished so far, and create space to breathe and focus. Being exposed to sketches from several years ago (or even sorting your invoices while doing taxes) might help you remember previous efforts, and thus highlight future domains of investigation.
In case of a reached goal: post-process it: Depending on the goal you reached, now might be a good time to post-process what you did; this can include writing a diary entry, sending out a newsletter, updating your CV/website or social media, or letting gatekeepers/your network know about it.

I finished something and feel down. Shouldn’t I be happy and satisfied?

Working towards goals can lead to structure and focus, and enable peak performances: processes, collaborations and time schedules sometimes all work in unison towards accomplishing your targets. Streamlined work phases can be deeply and holistically satisfying: you know what to do, how to do it, and why you’re doing it. Even if your specific experience of working towards a goal is less positive, actually reaching a finishing line can easily influence your work structures negatively. Instead of experiencing bliss, you might experience hardships: your expectations might not be met (your hopes and ideas about what would happen upon reaching the goal), your structures might crumble (rented studios or tools need to be returned, collaborations with specific people end), and, if unlucky, a burnout might emerge as a result of the overtime you invested. While the idea of reaching goals is positive, its reality is often more ambiguous.

The value of your artistic practice

Understand that your previous satisfaction most likely came from pursuing your artistic practice while also having a goal towards which to work: you had a platform – one that required and rewarded your focus. Losing this platform is bound to result in frustration. While reaching your goal might have resulted in temporary happiness, the loss of momentum is often way more noticeable – which is why you need to get back to work and reestablish yourself: by reestablishing your artistic platform. For this, you don’t necessarily need a new project or goal: their lack doesn’t diminish the validity and importance of your artmaking practice. What’s relevant is for you to grasp the importance of your artistic practice as basis of your identity: you are an artist because you pursue an artistic practice. As long as you do this, you have a voice – which can ultimately lead to further visibility, projects and goals. Over an artist’s life, it seems most important to gradually minimize this loss of self. To this end, strong work habits seem the best strategy.

One step at a time..

For now though, if you feel unmotivated or depressed: take your time. Accept the challenge of your situation: to eventually get back to work. Focus on establishing a daily work habit in the spirit of beginner’s mind, and of reestablishing yourself as an artist (to yourself): you might have achieved a lot just days ago, and might have solved an insurmountable challenge. Yet with this challenge gone, you need to take care of the new one: to continue working. Instead of worrying about goals, focus on being the person who does specific actions: who’s in the studio on time, creates a clean studio, draws for fifteen minutes. Who stops before it gets to be too much.

Don’t expect yourself to work a full day; it’s OK to attend to (re-)forming the habit of simply getting to the studio at all. Considering the circumstances, achieving this isn’t nothing; it’s a lot. If you manage to get to the studio every day, you’ll eventually want to do more there. Small tasks is all it needs to get there: progress through tiny steps – without risking further self-alienation. Consider ritualizing the beginning: get dressed. Brush your teeth. Take your shoes on. Focus on the small, innocent steps without which no studio day can start. Once there, start cleaning. Read a book. Ignore your phone. Revisit unfinished work. Write down your thoughts, then leave for a walk: you’ve done enough. You managed to get dressed. You managed to get to the studio. It’s through the repetition of gradual, basic steps like this that you reestablish yourself.

Being without direction is part of the cycle

Your artistic practice is both opportunity and struggle. Whatever you create is what you get judged by – if not by others, then by yourself. Reaching a goal manifests your many inabilities, while removing your motivating force. To transcend this, strongly consider replacing a goal-based with a process-based approach. Once you understand life (and your artmaking) as a process, it’s easier to be OK with being stalled, to be without direction: it’s part of the endless artistic cycle. At the same time, don’t rush: you will develop subconscious inclinations on what to pursue next, similar to an athlete whose body aches to finally get back to training after a week’s vacation. To get back to a collector who was interested in your work, to call your gallery and meet for coffee, to visit friends or colleagues – or to do none of these, but simply stay home, watch a movie and sulk. It’s ok: this too shall pass.

Consider reading these strategies on how to continue your practice when feeling disassociated from it, and the various chapters on how to start (focusing, investigating, and increasing your commitment) your artmaking.