It is the question that haunts everyone who believes: "But is what I do good?". It seems reasonable. He even seems responsible. And yet, it is one of the most paralyzing questions that exist, because it is badly raised from the roots. Let's take it apart.
Why "is it good?" it's a trap
The problem is that "good" behaves as if it were an objective property of the work, just like "red" or "six feet tall." But it is not. Artistic quality is a judgment that depends on at least four constantly changing variables:
The context. A piece that is brilliant in one context is mediocre in another. The Impressionists were rejected as "bad" in their time. Bach fell into oblivion for almost a century. The same work, different judgment, depending on who and when you look.
The taste of he who judges. There is no universal court of art. There are people with different sensitivities. What seems profound to one seems pretentious to another. Looking for a single verdict is looking for something that does not exist.
Your moment. The same work seems great to you one day and painful the next, without the work having changed. What changed was your status. As we saw in the trap of constant gaze, your judgment about your own work is anything but stable.
The comparison. "Good" almost always hides a "good compared to...". And there comes the creative envy: You compare yourself to your favorite artist in his best work and, of course, you lose. But that comparison is misleading.
"We are not asked to make perfect art. We are asked to make art. The rest is ego."
Recurring idea in the work of Julia CameronWhy does this question block so much?
Ask "is it good?" while you create is like stepping on the brake and the accelerator at the same time. Creation needs a state of play, of exploration, without judgment. Judgment needs distance and coldness. When you try to do both at the same time, neither works: you neither believe freely nor judge wisely.
Cameron explains it with the metaphor of the Censor. If you let the question "is this good?" accompanies you in every stroke, the Censor has a free way to stop you before you start. That is why the method insists on radically separate the creation phase from the evaluation phase. First it is done. Then, another day, it is judged.
The questions that do work
Change the question and change everything. Instead of "is it good?", try these:
Does it make me feel alive to do it?
The first function of art is not to be good for others, it is to keep yourself alive. If creating gives you energy, meaning and presence, that is already a valuable response, independent of technical quality.
Am I improving compared to a year ago?
"Good" is absolute and unattainable. "Better than before" is concrete and measurable. Compare your work today with yours from a year ago, not with that of a master. You will almost always see real progress, and that is useful information.
Does it communicate what I wanted to communicate?
This question does have an answer. You had an intention; Look at it and see if the piece transmits it. If not, you know exactly what to check. It's infinitely more useful than a vague "I'm not convinced."
Does it reach anyone?
If your work truly touches just one person, it has already fulfilled a function. You don't need everyone's approval. You need connection with someone. Art that matters to one person is worth more than art that impresses a thousand without touching any.
The six month experiment
There is an exercise that disarms the trick question better than any argument. Take something you did six months or a year ago that seemed mediocre at the time, and look at it again today. One of two things almost always happens: either it seems better than you remembered, or you see clearly how you have grown since then. In both cases, the conclusion is the same: your hot quality judgment was unreliable.
This reveals something uncomfortable about the question "is it good?": the answer you give yourself the day you finish a work is usually wrong. You're too close, too tired, too inside. The verdict you issue at that moment is not information about the work, it is information about your mood that day.
If your immediate judgment is so unreliable, there is little point in letting it decide whether you continue or quit. That's why a simple rule is useful: Never decide the value of a work the same day you finish it, and never abandon a project on a bad day.. Save, wait, come back. The question "is it good?" It loses almost all of its power when you take away the urgency of answering it now.
Morning pages as an antidote
The specific tool to deactivate the trick question is the morning pages: three pages written by hand every morning, without purpose, without quality, without anyone reading them. Its value is precisely in that They are freed from the question "is it good?". Nobody judges them, not even you.
Writing morning pages every day trains you in something rare and valuable: create without evaluating. And that muscle is transferred. The more you practice producing without judgment on the page, the easier it will be to do so in your "real" art. The trick question loses power.
It is also worth remembering that the question "is it good?" It changes meaning depending on what you believe. If you make art for yourself, as a life practice, the technical quality is almost irrelevant: what matters is what doing it gives you. If you make art to make a living, then you do need quality criteria, but concrete and professional criteria, not a vague existential judgment about whether you are "worth it." Confusing the two planes is a source of much useless suffering: people who paint for pleasure, torturing themselves as if they were competing in a gallery, and people who want to become professional, waiting for a mystical enlightenment instead of studying their craft. Clarify so that you believe, and the right question appears alone. It's almost never "is it good?"; is "does it serve what I want it to serve?"
If behind your obsession with "being good" there is a feeling that you do not deserve to call yourself an artist, that is no longer a quality problem: it is imposter syndrome, and has its own work path. The good news is that in both cases the solution is the same: keep doing it, with less judgment and more continuity.