Why Artists Need to Stop Trying to “Make It.”

One of the most damaging ideas ever sold to artists is the idea of “making it.”

Making it in music.
Making it in film.
Making it in art, writing, fashion, comedy—any creative field with an industry attached to it.

The idea sticks because it comes with clear markers of success. A record deal. A studio badge. A blue check. A chart position. A festival slot. A big payday. These milestones are presented as proof that you’ve arrived—that your work now matters, that you’ve crossed some invisible line into legitimacy.

But for a lot of artists, chasing those milestones ends up doing real harm. Often, it slowly pulls them away from the very thing that made their work meaningful in the first place.

That’s because industries aren’t designed to serve artists. They’re designed to generate profit. And once you understand and accept that fact, the whole framework starts to look different.

Industries exist to monetize attention, scale consumption, and reduce risk. They tend to reward predictability, familiarity, and repetition. Artists, on the other hand, are driven by something else entirely. Artists are here to explore, to question, to feel deeply, to reveal something human and real, and to translate that experience into work that connects.

Those two goals can overlap sometimes. But they are not the same goal.

When an artist makes “making it” the objective, the center of gravity quietly shifts. The work starts changing—not all at once, and not always consciously. Choices that once came from curiosity or truth begin to come from fea—fear of losing relevance, fear of alienating or losing an audience, fear of not living up to expectations, fear of being dropped or replaced.

That’s usually how integrity erodes. Not through one big compromise, but through a series of small, justifiable ones.

There’s a hard truth that most artists never hear clearly enough: it’s entirely possible to succeed at the highest levels of an industry and still fail as an artist.

You can win awards, earn money, and receive constant validation while making work that no longer reflects who you are, what you believe, or why you started creating in the first place. You can be highly visible and creatively empty. You can be financially successful and feel completely disconnected from your own voice.

That isn’t freedom. It’s captivity with better lighting.

The real goal of an artist isn’t to make it inside an industry. The real goal is to build a life that makes it possible to keep creating—honestly and freely—for as long as you’re alive. That means having the freedom to say what you mean. The freedom to change your mind. The freedom to evolve, to experiment, to fail publicly, and to tell the truth even when it’s uncomfortable or not immediately profitable.

Money still matters, of course, but only in the right role. Money is a tool. It’s fuel, not the destination. Its purpose is to reduce friction—to cover basic needs, buy time, and create space—so the work can happen more freely. It’s not meant to replace the reason you create in the first place.

If an artist were independently wealthy, the illusion would become obvious very quickly. The pressure to “make it” would lose its power. Industry validation would stop mattering. The work itself would be the point again.

That exposes the flaw in the whole system. Industry is not the goal.

It’s one possible distribution channel. It can amplify your work. It can provide infrastructure, resources, and reach. It can be useful. But usefulness is not authority, and access is not purpose.

An artist’s responsibility is not to an industry. It’s to the work—and to the people the work is meant to reach.

The highest calling of an artist is to create honestly, to communicate something real, and to impact culture in a meaningful way. That impact might happen through traditional channels, alternative platforms, direct relationships with an audience, or paths that haven’t been invented yet.

It might generate money quickly. It might not. That doesn’t invalidate the work.

Money and meaning are not the same objective.

Artists do need to earn enough to survive in a world that requires money for housing, healthcare, food, and basic dignity. Pretending otherwise is naïve. But confusing survival with purpose is far more dangerous.

When money becomes the goal, creativity becomes a means to an end.
When creation stays the goal, money becomes a servant.

That shift changes everything—how you plan, how you choose partners, how you define success, and what compromises you’re willing to make.

So instead of asking, “How do I make it?” A better question is: “How do I build a life that allows me to keep creating freely for the rest of my life?”

Because the artist who protects their freedom protects their voice. And the artist who protects their voice has the power to move culture.

That’s true success—whether the industry likes it or not.