How I deal with feeling “behind”
If there’s one feeling I know well as both an artist and a teacher, it’s the sense of being behind. Behind on projects. Behind on deadlines. Behind on where I thought I’d be by now. Some weeks it feels like no matter how much I get done, there’s still more waiting for me on the other side of it.
That feeling followed me through graduate school, adjuncting, building courses, running a studio practice, doing markets, maintaining shops, answering emails, trying to make work, trying to have a life outside of work…all of it. A lot of artists carry some version of this around. There’s always another thing you could be doing. Another project to finish. Another opportunity to apply for. Another artist who seems further ahead.
For a long time, I let that feeling push me into habits that were not helping me. I overcommitted. I stayed up too late trying to squeeze more hours out of the day. I said yes to projects because I was worried opportunities would disappear if I didn’t grab them immediately. Underneath all of that was comparison. I was measuring my work and progress against other people instead of paying attention to what actually made sense for my own life.
The problem with that mindset is that there will always be someone doing more than you. Someone posting more work, announcing more exhibitions, selling more prints, launching more projects, or getting more attention online. If success is measured by trying to keep pace with everyone else, you never really arrive anywhere stable.
It took me a while to realize that feeling behind usually has less to do with time and more to do with expectation.
One thing that helps me now is naming the feeling before I spiral into it. I’ll stop and think, “OK, I’m feeling behind right now.” That creates enough distance for me to step back and look at what’s actually going on instead of immediately reacting to the pressure. Usually, when I slow down enough to examine it, I realize I’m measuring myself against a pace that doesn’t even fit the reality of my life.
That became especially clear once I accepted how many directions my time goes in. Teaching, grading, course design, meetings, studio work, writing, online shops, social media, life stuff…it all takes time and energy. My week is never going to look like someone who works in the studio full-time, so expecting the same output never made much sense. Once I stopped pretending otherwise, some of that pressure eased up.
Breaking projects down has helped too. Large projects become overwhelming very quickly if I only focus on the finished version in my head. A course rebuild, a new series, a portfolio update, a show…it all feels impossible when I look at it as one giant thing sitting in front of me. What helps is narrowing my focus down to the next actual step. Finish one collage. Edit one page. Photograph one piece. Write one section.
That approach works in teaching too. Students get overwhelmed by long-term projects all the time, especially when they only see the final outcome instead of the smaller steps that build toward it. Helping them break projects into manageable parts constantly reminds me to do the same thing in my own work.
I’ve also had to learn that quieter stretches are not automatically failures. There are periods where I don’t make as much work, or where things feel less productive from the outside. I used to panic during those times because I thought every slowdown meant I was losing momentum. Now I see those periods differently. Sometimes they’re where ideas settle into place. Sometimes they’re where burnout finally catches up with me and forces me to slow down. Sometimes they’re just part of the rhythm of a long creative life.
Not every season is going to look the same, and trying to force that consistency usually makes things worse.
The language I use around all of this matters too. If I keep repeating “I’m behind,” eventually everything starts to feel late or unfinished. So I try to redirect my focus toward something more useful. Instead of asking why I’m not done yet, I ask what the next step is. Instead of focusing on the timeline I imagined six months ago, I focus on the work that’s actually in front of me now.
Talking to other artists helps more than I can explain. Every time I have an honest conversation with someone about workload, burnout, unfinished projects, or creative pressure, I’m reminded that almost everyone feels this way at some point. It just doesn’t always show up publicly because most people share the polished version instead of the middle of the process.
The longer I do this, the more I think about creative work in terms of the long view. A career is not built in a season. It’s built over years and years of making things, changing direction, trying new approaches, failing at some of them, starting over, and continuing anyway. That perspective helps when I start slipping back into that “I should be further along” mindset. Further along than what? According to who?
At this point, I care less about whether I’m ahead or behind and more about whether the work still feels connected to me. Am I still making things? Am I still curious? Am I still showing up, even if it looks different than it used to? Most of the artists I admire are not the ones who moved the fastest. They’re the ones who kept going. And that’s the part I try to hold onto when the pressure starts creeping back in.
