Finding Fuel to Keep Your Creative Fire

It’s funny that after all these years, I still get that excited nervousness when I’m about to put something new into the world. I felt it when I originally wrote this post in 2020, and I still feel it today. There’s always a little vulnerability in taking something that existed only in your head, making it real and then handing it over for other people to have opinions about.

I used to think that with enough experience, that feeling might disappear. More than two decades into running a creative business, I know better. My confidence has grown tremendously and I trust myself as a designer in ways I couldn’t have when I started, but caring deeply about your work means there’s always going to be something at stake when you share it.

Learning How to Take Creative Criticism

If you’re a designer, artist or anyone else making something of your own, being open to critique is part of the deal. Sometimes feedback is thoughtful and constructive, and someone sees something you couldn’t see because you were simply too close to it. Those are the comments worth paying attention to, even when they sting a little.

Other feedback isn’t particularly useful at all. I remember getting a comment on social media shortly before I originally wrote this post that made me immediately defensive. Once I gave myself a little distance from it, I realized there wasn’t anything constructive in what had been said. It was simply someone’s opinion, and I didn’t have to give it any more power than that.

Not Every Opinion Deserves Equal Weight

One of the biggest things I’ve learned from putting my work in front of people for all these years is that you have to get better at deciding which voices matter. Listening to feedback doesn’t mean allowing every comment to steer the ship. Some criticism can make your work stronger. Some can teach you more about the person giving it than it ever will about your work.

I think the trick is staying open enough to learn without becoming so impressionable that you lose your own point of view. Let good feedback inform you. Let thoughtful criticism challenge you. Let the rest become fuel for your fire, and then get back to making the thing only you can make.

Confidence Comes From Continuing to Create

I don’t think creative confidence arrives one morning and suddenly you’re fearless. Mine certainly didn’t. It came from making a lot of jewelry, having ideas that worked and plenty that didn’t, putting collections into the world, listening to people respond to them and then doing it all over again.

Your skin gets a little thicker, but more importantly, your relationship with your own instincts gets stronger. You start recognizing the difference between criticism that can teach you something and criticism that simply isn’t yours to carry. That takes time, and I think the only real way to learn it is to keep creating.

Sharing Your Work Is Brave

There’s something inherently vulnerable about saying, “I made this,” and letting other people decide what they think. Some people will absolutely love what you do. Others won’t. If you’re trying to make something that pleases every single person, you’ll probably sand away all the interesting edges that made it yours in the first place.

I originally ended this post by asking what you were afraid to do and what was holding you back. I think those are still pretty good questions. Maybe there’s an idea you’ve been sitting on, something you want to make, a business you want to start or work you’re afraid to share because you’re not quite sure how it will be received.

You don’t need to wait until you’re completely confident. I’m not sure that day ever comes. Make it, learn from it, put it out there and see what happens. Then use whatever comes next as fuel for the next thing.

Keep feeding that creative fire,
Colleen

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: March 5, 2020
Updated: August 14, 2026