Being realistic about limits - is it just resistance in disguise?
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Ok so have been indulging in a bit of Seth Godin, Steven Pressfield Etc reading and am wondering how one recognizes the difference between realistic about one’s limitations and the voice of the lizard brain just being a scaredy cat or what Pressfield calls the resistance?
I have spent a lot of the last 40 years or so being pretty conformist ( I am 54 now -up to 14 or so I was quite fearless and a bit of a handful relative to my conservative environment)I will acknowledge that some of my self-talk is pretty stupid and definitely fear-based but some of it does have a ring of truth.
For example here are some of mine: to expect to earn $ as an illustrator when you are teaching yourself stuff from the internet is a bit unrealistic? surely there is a one in a trillion chance that this will happen for you even if you were the most skilled self taught artist ever? If students who have been through art school struggle to make it, what hope does someone with no art school on their C.V. have? Up to this point, my way of dealing with these thoughts is to pretend I am just doing all this for fun and to learn something new maybe to do a book for family to pass around and say ‘look what my crazy auntie did once’
There is value in fear - it is the thing that stops you from driving into a raging river even when google maps tells you this is the right path to take to get to the nearest Starbucks.
I express these thoughts not to drag anyone else into the abyss of self-doubt with me, but to ask: how do you know which thoughts to listen to and which to ignore? Do you just assume it is all bs, throw caution to the wind and do the thing anyway?
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Just think instead of making this post you could have been practicing your work
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Some of the best advice I have internalized is from Tyrus Goshay. In a YouTube video he did with Will Terry, they talked about all of this anxiety and angst, and Tyrus said "BE FOUND WORKING." Like even if the world ends, you were doing your work that is important and you love. Tell the inner critics to Shut. Up. And get a copy of Lynda Barry's Picture This Just as a treat. It will help.
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@missmushy if the determination to illustrate belongs deep in your soul, you'll keep finding yourself doing it again and again, no matter any kind of thoughts in your mind. You may go thru ups and downs as everybody, but even thru that you'll keep doing it.
You can't avoid being who you are.
And you don't know if YOU personally will succeed money-wise in doing it or not, and when.
So, my personal slogan is to do all what I can, the best I can, with all my resources available.
For example, I don't have any illustration career in my town. But I have a Visual Arts professorship career. I took the first year and a half from them regarding visual arts subjects. I take online when my budget can afford it. I do the most I can with what I have. And then, I simply keep doing it, cause I love it, and cause I wanna improve, and because in the end, that's who I am and I don't know what's my destiny.
Downs can be hard, but in the end those self doubt thoughts just take you energy and joy away from you and keep you away of improving and having fun drawing
Just my penny... -
There is another thought out there called choosing yourself. If you choose yourself to do something then there is no competition anymore.
The calvary is not coming so push yourself and choose yourself.
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Appreciate the responses.
@rcartwright you’re right - we should shut the forum down and concentrate on practising 24/7 instead of posting crap!
@Eli will check out the book thanks for the reference
@catru appreciate the perspective- some days are easier than others to believe
@Jason-Bowen no expectation of calvary in my world - not looking for a shortcut or to be rescued - just trying to understand the inner process from another perspective. -
What a great topic!
You are totally right - there are so many great artists online trying to make it right now - my instagram is littered with people who are just killing it. And then you have people like Frank Frazetta who was encouraged as a child to paint and draw - so by 20 he already had 10,000 drawings done and mastered.
But listening to Will Terry and Lee White have been really helpful to me (sorry Jake Parker :p) on this specific note, because they are guys who came to the game late and threw themselves in and just did the work.
Maybe it's good for mental health to just know in the back of your head that if it doesn't pull through it's ok to just be those crazy aunts who wear silly hats and paint pretty things.
But there are so many ways to make money at this game, and so many people that don't know how to make objects but want to own them. I think there's a piece of pie for all of us - we just gotta find ourselves and our people. And, you know, do the work part. -
@kaitlinmakes Jake gets points for being self taught
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@rcartwright
Yes!
I think the world of all three of them, and I've never known better teachers
