Don't get too attached to your work

I like to work. Actually, that's an understatement - I really love working.

Not all the time, obviously. Sometimes I like to spend 6 hours playing a video game and the other 12 hours that I am awake watching YouTube, movies or different TV shows... or play other games.

But working is a pretty important part of my life, and the reason why I manage to stay away from depressive episodes for the most part. I've been working since I was 16 years old, making my own money, so I guess that's one of the reasons, besides the fact that I simply like what I do.

However, as a creator, one thing that can both improve my work, and my mood, can also ruin it. I'm talking about getting attached to what I do.

It's really hard not to honestly. If you spend several hours working on something, putting effort into it, hoping it will turn out good, you will get attached to that thing, one way or another, especially if you like the result.

And that's completely okay. Getting attached to your work can mean that you'll try harder to make something good, which, if you plan on sharing with others, can only be great for you.

The thing is that getting too attached to your work can also have downsides, in different ways. First, if you make something that you plan to share with others, such as writing an article, or working on a piece of visual art, or on a song, or anything similar, no matter how attached you might be to it at the end of the process, and no matter how much you like the final result, it's possible that others might not like it as much, or at all.

For example, I wrote a lot of articles in the past that I really liked, some of them even fairly long (+1800 words) , articles that I put a lot of effort into, and yet did very poorly because not a lot of people got interested in them. On the other side of the spectrum I also wrote articles in 10 minutes that required no effort and some of those did really well.

Same thing happened with a lot of other projects. I worked enormously on 3D scenes that barely got any views, and yet scenes that I made in only a few hours, or days, got a lot more attention. Same happened with graphic design. Some of the packages I created and uploaded on Graphic River that took me very little time and that I don't particularly like sell a lot better than others that are obviously much better.

This can really ruin your motivation. Seeing how a project you really love and worked really hard on gets forgotten really easily or receives little to no attention can ruin your mood and can get you to wonder why the hell you're even trying.

The way I got over all that is by trying not to get too attached to my work when it comes to sharing it to other people. I allow myself to be attached to the project I work on, whatever it is, from articles to 3D scenes, because I know it can help me get motivated to work more on them.

However, once I finish them, and I share them, I just move to something else. I don't linger around to see how many people like my creation, how many share it, and so on. If people like it, that's great. If they don't, well, too bad, I'm already working on my next thing.

This comes naturally as well once you work enough in a particular field. I obviously cared a lot about what people thought when I first started writing articles, and whenever others disliked what I did, I was really sad. But as time passed, and as I got to write and publish over 2000 articles, I stopped caring that much. I became aware that some articles do really well, while others don't, sometimes regardless of the amount of work I put in.

Now I try to focus on the parts that excite me, either about the process, or the final result, and I chase my own satisfaction. Obviously I'm not perfect at it. I'm still really happy when other people like my work, and I really appreciate it. But I try to value my opinion just as much.

This is a very complicated topic wrapped in a very simple and short article. There are a lot of variables that you need to keep in mind when deciding how you're gonna treat your work.

If you care too little about what others think, then you might get to a point where you're so stubborn with what you make that you disregard some really valuable feedback that might help you improve.

If you care too much about what other people say, you'll never create something in your own style. You'll always try to please other people, and you'll end up creating something you might not even like because of them, despite the fact that you'll never be able to please everyone. Your motivation will also depend on others, which is never a good thing.

You can easily become too arrogant, or care too much, so you need to balance it out. But the point is that you must not get too attached to your work, to the point where your motivation is gonna have to suffer based on what people say. Sometimes your work will do well, even if you don't particularly like it. Sometimes your favourite projects won't get any attention.

Just focus on working, on doing things that you like, and on being better than yesterday.