Drawing can quickly become overwhelming for many reasons, most of which we’re usually not prepared for, such as anxiety, depression, creative burnout, perfectionism, or unrealistic art expectations. These not only take a toll on your art, but most importantly, you. It can affect your life in a variety of negative ways and have negative effects on social media artists. But it doesn’t have to. Here are 5 tricks for social media artists to stop depression and anxiety when online and how to keep posting art like a pro!
*Disclaimer: I’m not a medical health care professional. These tips are something that has worked for me and may not work for everyone. If you’ve been diagnosed with anxiety or depression or feel it’s so overwhelming and/or gets in the way of your daily life, please seek a medical health care professional and /or a licensed therapist.
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Social Media Artist: 7 Easy Ways to Stop Depression & Anxiety When You’re Online
1. Don’t Rely on External Sources for Your Confidence & Validation in Both Your Art & Personal Life
My absolute #1 rule as a social media artist, is : Be confident in yourself and don’t rely on social media for validation or approval! Social media is not going to give that to you, and certainly not overnight. Social media is a tool, and that’s it. It’s a means to help you achieve some artistic goals you may have but only if, you learn to play it’s game, and play it well (which can take months if not years, to get good at.)
Having hobbies you enjoy, a social circle, and /or people that support you will help you build confidence in those areas of your life where you’re not reliant on social media to give you validation or approval. Not only does this build your mental state up very positively, it also prevents anxiety and depression from seeping into those mental cracks.
- Social media can make you feel for more depressed, unqualified, or not as good as other artists you see online, setting you up for a ‘comparison’ mind set, where you feel you’re always in a competition with other artists
SOLUTION: The key here is to find a balance where you have enough confidence in your content and skills but low expectations from outside sources that don’t come from you. So, know that using social media for art can be extremely beneficial for your goals but it isn’t 100% necessary for you in reaching them. You don’t need social media as an artist.
2. Treat Being a Social Media Artist as a Job
In order to promote this blog’s content, I do need to use social media like Pinterest, so my articles get seen by more people. If I don’t, then my blog won’t grow. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of using it but I can say it definitely helps in promoting my content and finding new readers like yourself.
Depending on your art goals, social media can be a necessary evil for some of us artists. So, it’s important to set boundaries with it and know your own limitations.
- Know when you’re mentally prepared to log in, how long you should stay, and when to log out
- Think of ‘social media artist’ as a job title
- Set a timer for how long you want to spend on social media, and clock out when time’s up
- Have a clear goal of what you want to accomplish with your social media account in each session, before you log in
- This makes sure you don’t overstay your welcome, especially mentally and makes your interactions short and sweet.
I use Art Station as a portfolio website for my art. But seeing everyone else’s incredible work on a daily basis can be very defeating, making me compare my work to theirs. When I start getting in my own head and questioning my artistic skills, that’s when I know it’s time for me to take a break and log out for a few days or weeks. If you feel similar, then that’s your mind telling you it’s time to log out of your accounts.
3. Do Your Best to Not Bring Your Emotions Into It
A huge reason why social media artists can feel stressed, anxious, or depressed, is that we tie our emotions to it. When this happens, we become reliant on it as a source of validation, happiness, and other positive feelings. Not to mention that dopamine rush we get whenever we get likes, comments, or follows on our art.
It feels good, if not amazing to get seen for our art.
But beware, it’s also a trap! Using social media as an artist can become an addiction to satisfy those mental cravings and feelings if you’re not careful, pulling you further into those negative emotions. Especially when you don’t get the engagement you’re expecting.
SOLUTION: Leave your emotions at the door or in this case, at the login window. Understand that being a social media artist is either a hobby or profession, it’s not your entire identity! Try not to get too attached or caught up with the attention you may or didn’t receive on social media platforms. Engagement is a poor indicator on whether an artwork or post is good or not.
- This helps separate your online activity from your personal life, exactly like how you’d leave your personal life out of your job
- Approaching your social accounts as a tool and not an extension of your personality helps compartmentalize your social media life vs. your personal life and helps you see your goals clearer while not involving any personal feelings
4. Have a Back Up System or Ritual To Do When You Notice You’re Feeling Down from low engagement or negative responses
There are many times where I’ve felt let down by social media as an artist. And when I did, I felt worse about myself. I would be mentally abusive to myself or ask myself why I’m such a failure, ‘I suck’, or ‘I’m not good enough, no one will ever like or notice my art’.
But the truth is, those are just my fears and thoughts talking, not reality. Just one of the many negatives of social media art engagement.
To get myself out of these stressful feelings, I have a system of actions I take that help me positively cope with negative emotions from using social media.
When you have a backup system or ritual at-hand when you notice you’re feeling down from social media, you are better prepared to cope with those anxious and depressing feelings and bypass the unimportant things.
- It helps you cope with your feelings and emotions positively and gets you in a better mood, fast
- Makes getting on social media more manageable
- Will really help in preventing and blocking anxiety and depression
- Helps you stick to using social media for the long-term if that’s part of your art plan
SOCIAL MEDIA ARTIST DETOX SUGGESTIONS:
Here are just a few suggestions of what you can do to improve your mental state when being a social media artist feels overwhelming.
- Log out for as long as you need – it can be days, months, weeks, or even years
- Stay Away from Your Feed and ‘Explore’ Sections
- Find Out What’s Causing You’re Disappointment, Anxiety, or Sadness
- Find Other Hobbies That Make You Feel Good in Your Free Time, Instead of Scrolling Online : I like to play video games because it calms my thoughts
- Have a Social Circle or Someone to Talk To to Vent Your Frustrations
5. Social Media Artists : Be Prepared to Be Disappointed
I recently posted a character design that I spent weeks learning some cool new skills on, to my social media thinking I was going to get a ton of likes. Yeah. F’-n. Right. I only got 2 likes (which I’m grateful for).
I can’t tell you how many times social media has let me down. And it’s not because of my work. Mainly due to algorithms and how often you post new content.
But it’s this type of mentality and expectation that can really lead to depression and anxiety when you’re a social media artist because it’s a feeling of being let down after you had high hopes of success. And it doesn’t feel good.
When we feel a high high, we’re bound to feel a pretty low low.
So, we need to cope with this disappointment. This may be tough to hear, but both the good and bad outcomes are a possibility but the unfavorable outcomes are much more likely to happen, like not getting likes, followers, or even any type of engagement.
- Know that your content may not be popular or shown to a lot of people, when first creating an account
- It’s okay to not get a lot of likes or comments on your posts – it’s 100% normal and expected
- It’s more than okay to not be popular on social media as an artist, it doesn’t mean your art work is bad, it’s just not shown to a lot of people, maybe even no one
- The people you see on the front page or ‘the popular’ accounts are most likely in the top 1-3% of all accounts on the platform – That’s an incredibly low percentage and even harder for a new account to reach!
- Being on the many social platforms feels more like a competition between social media artists over who gets noticed more
- Instead, take yourself out of the competition and focus on content that you want to make
For a more in-depth look at using social media for art, its many drawbacks & benefits, check out this article Being a Social Media Artist is a Competition.
SOLUTION: Be confident with your art posts and content but have very low expectations of the engagement you may receive. When you’re mentally prepared for the worst outcomes, you’ve lowered your expectations with social media and will less likely to be disappointed on the many platforms out there, helping you to further prevent anxiety, depression, and other stressful feelings when you’re online.
6. Be Aware & Notice When You’re Feeling Down
As a semi – social media artist, I can’t tell you how important this next tip is.
When you are aware of and notice when social media is making you feel not good enough as an artist, when you’re feeling stressed, burnt out, anxious, or lost on these platforms, these are the moments when you can stop anxiety and depression from affecting you.
Noticing when and why these exact moments of feeling down happen not only help you understand your emotions and reactions better but greatly help you in preventing them once you understand the cause.
How to Notice Negative Mental Feelings When You’re a Social Media Artist
- Write down a short list or notes describing how you’re feeling when certain things happen on social media
- ie: How do you feel when you don’t get enough likes, comments, or followers?
- How do you feel when you lose followers – how does that affect you?
- What makes you feel happy on social media -for example is it more followers or more engagement of your art?
- Describe how certain results and actions make you feel
- Pin point the actions and outcomes on social media that make you feel negatively about yourself
- Once you know the cause of stress, anxiety, or depression, you can find solutions that will help in blocking these feelings
7. Set Blocks of Time To Be On Social Media
As simple as this sounds, setting a specific amount of time on social media as an artist is an invaluable tactic to stopping anxiety, depression, and all those other nasty feelings. When you have a set amount of time devoted to social media, not only will you accomplish your tasks faster but you’ll save your time for other important things instead of draining time on scrolling through other artists’ content.
Why is this a big deal? Well, the time you’re not scrolling is the time when you’re not comparing yourself to other artists on the platform, a huge reason why anxiety and depression can start from social media – comparing what you have with someone else. When you feel you don’t have what someone else has or you want what someone else has, that’s when depression, anxiety, and jealousy start, to name a few.
SOLUTION: Set a specific but short amount of time to be on social media, whether it’s 5, 10, or 30 min, or whatever works for you. Focus on doing only what you need to, like posting new art or checking stats. Limit or don’t use the explore and feed sections. When you eliminate how other people’s content makes it’s way to you, whether it’s looking through your feed or at notifications of someone else’s artwork, you eliminate the chance of comparing yourself to another artist, ultimately helping stop depression and anxiety from affecting you.
More Related Posts:
Check out some of these helpful resources for more awesome social media artist tips, tutorials, and more:
- Why Being a Social Media Artist is a Competition | Post
- 10 Dangerous, Lasting Mental Effects When Using Social Media for Art | Post
- Free Printable Copyright Cheat Sheet When Posting Art Online | Freebie
- Free Printable Stress Relief Cheat Sheet | Freebie
- NFT Art Theft: Why You Need to Protect Your Online Art Right Now | Post
- How to Beat & Prevent Creative Burnout in 12 Simple Ways | Post
- Art Success: 10 Brutal Truths Before You Start Drawing | Post
- How to Overcome Art Anxiety Fast & Be Confident with Your Art | Post
- How to Start Drawing with No Art Experience | Post
- H Art Critique Vs. Art Bashing: How to Art Critique the Right Way | Post
- Free Printable Drawing Art Therapy Anxiety Activity Sheets | Freebie
- 15 Simple Anxiety Art Therapy Activities to Help You Feel Calm Now | Post
- Realistic Digital Painting & Step by Step Process | Post
- Behind the Scenes Working As a 2D Concept Atist | Post
Would you like to see more topics on using social media for art and artists?
Let me know your thoughts and what you thought of this article in the comments below. See you in the next post!
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