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Yes, point taken. I was focusing on the kinds of debilitating things that keep us from achieving goals, rather than the sorts of practical considerations (mortgages, tuition, hunger pangs, vanity) that motivate us.
My "goal" is to be so impelled toward an end through desire and ardor and an appreciation of the pleasures of excellence, that I have no sense of being chased by fears that I'm not up to the task. If I could get there, I'm pretty sure that the mortgage would get paid and the unveilings would go well. I have never completely achieved this level of confidence or serenity (or success), but I'm under construction.
My experience is that long before the disappointing unveiling or the missed payment or the abrasive critique (which is usually spot on, at least technically), I have already disappointed myself in some way and I already knew it, by not being disciplined and true to the work. I can rarely feign surprise that I haven't worked up to my potential. Or if, on the other hand, I have done my work as well as I could, then others' critiques or disappointments aren't daggers that I feel I have to grasp and plunge into my own soul -- a tendency that young and vulnerable artists may have when faced with withering appraisals. There can be little satisfying progress in the dim light of such feelings, but we are in charge of disarming those fears.
And to come around to the point of the thread, the best instructors/critiquers guide us in that endeavor.
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