Redefining Success as a Chronically Ill Artist
How to measure creative growth on your own terms, even when your body won't cooperate
Success is a loaded word in creative spaces.
We’re told it means consistency, output, visibility. We’re taught to measure it in published pages, finished paintings, sales, exhibitions, metrics. And when you live with chronic illness, when your energy, attention, mobility, or emotional capacity fluctuate, you may start to believe that you don’t qualify anymore.
You may stop calling yourself a working artist.
You may disown your ambitions.
You may begin to believe that the version of success you once held is no longer available to you.
It’s not true. Or maybe it is true and what’s healthier is to redefine what success really means for you.
I want to offer something different. I want to talk about what success can mean when you are living in a body that interrupts. I want to ask what success looks like when it is defined not by output, but by integrity. Not by pace, but by presence.
And I want to start with something I know personally:
Chronic illness doesn’t make you less creative. But it does ask you to get very honest about what creative life is actually sustainable.
What Happens to Creative Identity When You Can’t Keep Up
Working full-time as a writer and trying to manage my health quietly behind the scenes, I have spent a lot of time performing stability. I wrote through chronic pain. I wrote through depressive episodes. I published when I could barely think. I delivered projects while my body was falling apart. And I called that success.
Eventually, it stopped working. Not just the hustle, but the story I had wrapped around it. I was producing, but I was hollow. My art didn’t feel like mine anymore. And when I stopped pushing, when I finally let my symptoms set the pace, I was terrified I had lost everything that made me a real writer.
But the opposite was true.
Slowness gave me clarity.
Limitation gave me language.
And illness gave me a reason to redefine everything I thought success had to be.
Mostly.
Why Traditional Success Models Don’t Work for Chronically Ill Creatives
The dominant models of creative success are built on expectations of:
Consistent energy
Predictable emotional states
Linear progress
External validation
Visibility and productivity
For many of us, none of these are guaranteed. Our days may be non-linear. Our energy may spike and crash. Our ability to promote ourselves may be limited by cognitive fatigue or anxiety. Our creative rhythm may be cyclical, interrupted, or sensory-dependent.
And when we try to measure our work by these traditional yardsticks, we end up carrying shame we don’t deserve.
You are not failing. You are creating under conditions that most systems don’t account for. Here’s something I recently wrote all about this:
A More Humane Definition of Creative Success
Here’s what I’ve learned to ask instead:
Did I show up for my creative self today in any way, even if no one saw it?
Did I listen to what my body asked for before making something?
Did I allow myself to pivot, pause, or pare back without punishment?
Did I find any joy, connection, or self-recognition in the process?
Did I honor my capacity without trying to override it?
That’s my success framework now. It isn’t always neat. It isn’t always legible to the outside world. But it is mine. And it lets me keep going without betraying myself.
Some days, success is a finished essay.
Some days, it’s a single stitch.
Some days, it’s knowing when to stop before I unravel.
And I want to be honest here, it’s not easy. I don’t always feel graceful about the pace I have to work at. I’m a single woman supporting myself through creative labor. There’s financial pressure. There’s internal urgency. There’s fear. Slowing down hasn’t always felt like a choice so much as a necessity I resisted until I couldn’t anymore. But what I’ve learned is that my brain and body are going to do what they’re going to do. Fighting them drains more energy than I have to spare. Learning to listen, adjust, and move with my real rhythm gives me a kind of creative freedom I never found through pushing.
What You Might Redefine
If you’re navigating chronic illness or disability, you might be holding yourself to an invisible standard that doesn’t reflect your current truth. You might feel behind. You might be comparing yourself to people whose bodies don’t interrupt their creative time the way yours does.
Here are a few things you’re allowed to redefine:
Timeframes: You don’t need to finish fast to prove you’re serious.
Visibility: You don’t have to be online every day to be seen.
Output: You don’t have to produce constantly to be valid.
Pace: You’re allowed to follow your natural rhythm, even if no one else understands it.
Rest: Pausing does not disqualify you from being an artist.
It's tough to figure out what to redefine and how. For me, online visibility is one that I can usually let go of. And I’m usually able to embrace pausing for rest. I love naps. But I’m deadline-oriented so changing time frames is hard for me. And as hard as I keep trying, I sometimes equate my worth-per-hour with my productivity and that’s all tied up with financial insecurity. I’m working at it.
Creativity Is Still Alive Here
Even if your practice is different now.
Even if your energy is scarce.
Even if your work lives in fragments.
Even if your days look nothing like what they used to.
The creative part of you is still here. It may need new forms, new timelines, and new definitions, but it is not gone.
I work with clients navigating all of this. Artists in flare. Writers in grief. Makers who are finding their way back after illness, burnout, diagnosis, or years of silence. These are the stories I know, because they are also mine.
In our 1:1 Creativity and Wellness Sessions, we explore what your creative life can look like now. We name the limits without shame. We map the energy you do have. We build sustainable practices that feel honest, not exhausting.
If you’re ready to redefine what creative success means for your body and your life, I’d love to help.
Sessions are held over Zoom, with alternative formats available (email/text-based coaching for those who prefer it).
Don’t see a time that works for you? Send me an email and we’ll work something out.
ZOOM ALTERNATIVES NOTE: these are designed as hour-long Zoom sessions. However, everyone’s needs and communication preferences are different, and I am happy to work with you in alternative ways including via an exchange of emails or text messages. Email me to figure out what works best.
A Reflection to Begin With
What would change if you stopped measuring your creative worth by your pace?
Write it down. Answer slowly. Let your body be part of the response.
You don’t need to keep up. You just need to keep close to yourself.
Not ready to book a session but want to keep getting tips?
Kathryn, Trying to keep up here while struggling with months of housing issues and chronic fatigue/fibro has been so hard. In giving myself permission to slow down with my creative work, I felt a sense of relief. Success is harder to gauge when we're exhausted! Thanks for this post!
Great stuff, Kathryn--and I think it applies to even those without chronic illness but who simply struggle to balance day-to-day demands between creative work and all the rest.