Artist Problems: The Need for Focus!
Hi there! Thank you for checking out my art blog! I'd like to document my personal struggles with creativity and art, keeping things genuine and authentic - what really goes on behind the scenes of learning something new. I hope that you'll find some clarity for your challenges here as well!
Art Block
Jumping right in, art block sucks. It's mentally painful, but I like to consider it a sign that you're ready to shed your skin. You're ready to level up! Seriously! There are different types of art block, so there are many different ways to handle and trudge through it like the war hero you are.
There will never be one "cure" to art block, but there's a lot of things you can do to combat it head on. Art block is ALL mentality. It gives us a clue to how our mind/soul or as the Greek philosophers say "psyche," is doing on a particular day, where our confidence lies, and it reveals parts of us that we might need to address and refine first in order to reach our dreams.
3 Things that Slow Us Down
There are several things that slow us down when we are trying to reach our goals. I find lack of focus of where you're going and what you want to accomplish will slow you down. For example, recently I had 5 different projects in mind, and along with a full time job, I was struggling to make things happen.
I realized my failure was because of 3 things. One was lack of focus. I didn't deliberately decide to focus on a project and see to it's completion. Yet, there was something that lead to this! I couldn't focus on one thing, because, number two, I felt the need to do EACH project during the same week. I wasn't setting realistic goals. I was worrying more than doing, and I wasn't planning using the finite time that we have. Believing I had to have everything done by the end of the week just wasn't practical or a feasible goal, but I still put that pressure on myself which caused a lot of unnecessary stress. Not good.
Number 3 was simply not believing in myself, but I asked for it. I had impossible goals, not constrained or planned within logical time frames, and I failed of course. I don't see failure as a bad thing as long as we examine what happened, it always teaches us, and I confidently claim that many failures create quick learners! 😊
I was being way too hard on myself when I wasn't focused in the first place. It created a cycle of yuck.
But engrain this in the depths of your psyche...perseverance and positivity ALWAYS wins. It will take you where you need to be...which will be Iron Man:
Here's a few resources and things that have been helping me:
1.) Tim Ferriss is an amazing author and blogger who is all about making the most out of life through time management and health. He also loves to learn anything and everything new that he can: cooking, languages, business, etc! Super inspirational. He has a Twitter, Insta, FB, you name it.
One of the questions he asks himself when he's in a rut is:
"If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?"
That really starts to clarify some things. He proposes this scenario:
If the doctor told you that you had to work minimal hours such as just 2 hours a day or even 2 hours a week, or else the stress on your body would actually kill you, what would you have to cut out in order to get things done?
I LOVE dramatic questions like these, haha! It really gets you thinking and sorting out all the nonsense. This is from his awesome book "The 4-Hour Workweek."
It's helped me tremendously, and I started to go to bed a little happier because I made a decision that if I finished one very "doable" project, it set me up to feel better and think more positively. It set me up to keep going because I was proud of myself.
2.) I'm deciding to keep my goals small. Just work on the project that I know will make me proud of myself when I'm in bed at night. 💤 Proud of myself for myself. Not worrying about how others see my art. I think this is important.
As artists we express ourselves and then throw our work up for everyone to see...or NOT to see, and we can lose confidence in ourselves. I've noticed the times I really, truly believed in my art, my comics, or my characters, I had no care in the world if no one saw it or if I didn't get a response to it like I was hoping. I was happy with it and that's all that mattered. Following your heart and your own inspirations will allow your art to improve and soar faster than ever! Every time I worried about what others would judge my art to be, my art suffered severely.
3.) I've decided to stick to one project this week, until I see it's completion. I'm doing a small series of dinosaur raptors based off of birds. :) Just a set of 3, and I'm allowing myself to commit to studies of birds and lizards for practice. My first was based off an ostrich!
Hope you guys found some value out of this! I want to go into more depth with this with YouTube videos, but this will suffice, until I can figure out where I'd like to go with YouTube and get a slightly more compliant computer.
💜 PS!!! I have an exciting plan to release a special blog post each week in the form similar to a newsletter full of goodies! I want to give you guys loads of inspiration and post anything positive or exciting that I run across throughout the week, e.g., the quote that has stuck with me all week, music, art resources, fancy doodads/tech, books, whatever gets me going in hope that it'll strike inspiration for you, too. :)
Good luck with your art endeavors! 💓
-Addie