Putting a price on our work

We love creating but the tricky part is placing a value on what we create.  (Yes I know we are not alone in this - we probably have most artists for company as well as anyone else who needs to set a price for their work or services!)

When you spend time doing what you love it's hard to justify charging for your time - we tend not to equate having fun with work! (Hmmm..... I can feel a whole other blog coming on - one of my passions is a belief that we can all choose to have a work life doing what we love!).   Most of us are happy to charge for the materials we use but how do you put a price on the creative process?    Realistically if we all charged for the hours we actually spend designing and creating - we'd price ourselves out of the market!  Setting prices has certainly led Gemma and I to many hours of discussions and angst!  There's a whole lot of other emotional stuff at stake here too.

The value we place on our work is intrinsically bound up with how we feel about ourselves   What do we feel we are worth?  What is the value we place on something we've spent time lovingly creating?  What does it say about us as as people? 

If our self worth is low we can be easily knocked off balance and left feeling vulnerable and uncertain - not the best state of mind when trying to put a value on your work. We may feel what we put out into the world isn't good enough (or as good as that created by our peers) and constantly strive to do better - which can lead to procrastination and perfectionism.  How can we possibly put an objective value on what we create when we are influenced these negative belief patterns?  Ironically, creative people often have a precarious sense of self worth.

Tricky isn't it?! Fellow artists and crafters will know exactly what I'm talking about.  We are indeed our toughest critics.

So here at Seashack we are aware of the role that emotions and thoughts about ourselves play and how they sometimes trip us up when we are trying to put a value on our work.  Our ethos is to look at the world with loving eyes - and that includes the way we look at ourselves as well.  So we do our best to focus on being kind to ourselves and valuing who we are, knowing that emotions come and go and eventually we will feel more balanced and be able to value our work more objectively.

Shirley xx