3. Make conversations about your artwork a priority

Ditch the guilt around talking about yourself too much, and think about how much time you spend talking out loud about your artwork. It can really help to regularly make the effort to speak about what you’ve been working on. There’s a learning curve that comes out of forcing yourself to name things. Set up catch-ups or phone calls with others artists to check in with each other regarding your work. Hopefully these conversations can happen with family and friends or co-workers, and can be used as an artistic compass to check you are on course, on the whole, with making work.

If you can name the thing you’re doing, and explain why and describe it well to others, it’s a good sign you’re focused and really engaged with what you’re doing.