My Work Shows My Worth

As a creative one of the most heart wrenching parts is getting your work critiqued. I know it’s a normal thing but when someone points out a flaw especially when it’s something you’ve spent so many hours working on, you can’t help but take it to heart. You begin to question everything that you are doing. I experienced this the month of my video editing masterclass.

Our instructor gave us an activity to edit a music video. He gave us the freedom to edit the video and come up with a creative way to tell the song's story. He then told us that at the last week of our class he would give us his feedback. When I heard this, I felt my heart race knowing he meant he was going to “Critique” our work; and that terrified me. With this in mind, I set such high expectations for myself that left me feeling anxious as I began editing.

The day of the presentation, my hand was shaking as I sat in my seat waiting for my turn to come next. Upon waiting, many thoughts filled my head from telling myself that, “I did my best so it should be fine” to “what if he hates it? What if I’m not actually cut out to edit?” My heart rate was slowly going up as I kept turning in my chair. It was until I recalled my instructor telling us before that during “Our Roasting” the time he gives his critique on how we edit, that this was just feedback and to think of it as him aiding us in making improvements. It wasn’t meant to hurt us.

The thought reassured me and so during my time to present, I took his words as things to improve my video. After I was done I realized there were more positive things he mentioned in my edit then there were negative. I was thrilled! This experience taught me that taking on feedback and criticism from someone isn’t all that bad. Actually just recently my teacher sent us a bonus lecture sharing how he handles criticism. He shared that in the face of criticisms it’s normal to feel nervous and anxious but what we have to remember is simple that “our value is not based on our work.”

He shared that it was really common for artists and creatives to feel that their identity comes from the work that they do. But we need to remember to separate ourselves from our work, because it does not make us who we are. We each have something special that makes us us. So having been in the industry for a few years already he’s learned to keep that thought in mind, especially when being critiqued by a client.

He advised us that when working with clients, being prepared for feedback is part of the job, we just need to remember that during these periods it’s a collaboration, and both you and your client want the best result.