Steps to Troubleshoot your goals and to get yourself on a path toward achieving them.
I’ve been asked a few times about how I’ve worked myself into a routine of consistently drawing and painting hours everyday, asking how I’ve developed the discipline to do such a thing. I figured I would consolidate my views into one post. This topic is in regards to drawing, but hopefully you may find this way of thinking to be applicable in whatever pursuit you value.
1. Make a list of things you enjoy doing, list anything and everything that is part of your routine or something you would like to do more but don’t do enough. literally write it down.
2. Now take that list , and we’re going to divide each activity into 3 categories: a. things that we *always* want to be *part of our life* and help us achieve our goals. b. Things that we enjoy doing but can get in the way of our goals. c. Things that we enjoy doing but do not help further our goals, and actively work against doing the things of a and b.
3. Define your primary goal. In my case I will define my goal as: developing the desire to devote the majority of my free time into making art.
Let me take examples from my own life: Relevant Informational tv/movies, with tangible artistic merit, “guilty pleasure” tv/movies, watching unproductive videos on youtube, watching productive videos on youtube, videogames with good artistic merit- low addictiveness, video games that are timesinks without any tangible benefit, exercising, camping, cycling, gardening, cooking, travelling, drawing, painting, hanging out with friends, drugs. Chatting on discord.
You may find it useful to do a time audit to get a better idea of your time spent.
At this point you should ask yourself, how much am i doing from each category and am I okay with this? What activities get in the way of our category A activities, am I okay with those things getting in the way? The activities that are never productive, make an attempt to cut them out of your life entirely, replace them with things that are more enjoyable.
But what if I don’t enjoy drawing?
Do you really not enjoy drawing? Are you certain?
I want you to draw me a bird with a human head riding a unicycle ontop of a tight rope! You don’t know how? Even better! Do it. Spend 5 minutes on this.
After the 5 minutes are up, I want you to try to recall everything you felt and thought about while tackling this silly task, and write them down.
Now answer me these questions.
Were you being self-deprecating because things did not come out as good as you hoped?
Next time you draw, I want you to try and keep track of negative thoughts that come your way, or when your mind wanders off and starts thinking about dinner, or an upcoming job interview etc. The important thing here is for you to learn what it is like to be in the moment, just simply focused on enjoying things without judgement. When you find your mind wandering, or being riddled with negative thoughts, try a common cognitive intervention such as mindfulness. If that doesn’t work, get up and stretch, maybe do dishes or clean for a bit, maybe go on a walk without your phone, or exercise. Then get back to it!
My attempt D:
The concept of process versus result focus are talked about by successful artists such as Kim Jung Gi and Claire Wendling. Many of us aren’t drawing because of enjoyment, but because we’ve created some type of reward for finishing a drawing.
“I was about to die, so now I’m happy to be alive,” Claire confides. “I don’t care about anything. More people should be thinking about this: it’s nice to be alive, breathing, and drawing.” (https://trojan-unicorn.com/blog/articles/exclusive-interview-artist-claire-wendling)
If you place your value into the results, you will invariably be riddled with pain, because a well cultivated craft is the product of thousands of tiny failed results, learning as we go. 99% of our time with a drawing is spent making the drawing, so why do you care so much about the 1% that comes after?
Think about your current routine of drawing. Many of us follow this specific routine of, doing dry things such as anatomy, perspective etc. we can look at our studies as “work”. What do people typically want to do when they finish work? They want to enjoy themselves, so they play video games or watch television. Instead, I am going to propose an alternative approach:
Do your work, studies, client work etc. and reward yourself with drawing anything you want.
Keep in mind we ultimately do work for ourselves, so think about what inspires you and draw that. Do not worry about the result, you can tear it up when you’re done, but allow yourself time to simply enjoy what you do without a critical eye. Draw a 3 headed goat riding a surfboard and laugh at how silly it came out, push paint around on a canvas for the sole purpose of seeing how colors lay ontop of eachother. Go outside and draw leaves, and lizards, birds and trees. Whatever makes you happy, you’re allowing yourself time to get lost in the craft the way a child would.
A child doesn’t care if their drawing is good, they simply have fun! They’re not stressed about homework, or cooking, or things they said weeks before. They’re simply here, existing in the present moment, getting lost in the sheer novelty of creating worlds with crayons.
Utilize techniques such as mindfulness to bring yourself into the present moment, and draw whatever you want, with no judgements.
The Path of Least Resistance.
This is my final point, and one that may sound more scary than the others. If i were to sit you in a waiting room, devoid of any stimuli, and put a pen and piece of paper in front of you. You will eventually draw, write, do origami etc. We as humans crave any stimulus.
This youtube video here may demonstrate my point (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4&t=5s Relevant points are from start of video until 6:05)
We are always naturally choosing the path of least resistance for entertainment, and when deprived of easier forms of entertainment (ie TV, video games, chatrooms) we will naturally gravitate towards ones that may appear to be more difficult (exercise, drawing etc).
You’re not avoiding drawing because it’s hard, you’re avoiding drawing because you’ve found easier ways to entertain yourself. If you are unable to do things such as tv and movies in moderation, then you need to abstain from them, or make them as inconvenient as possible. Uninstall your games, unsubscribe from netflix, unplug your internet, leave your phone behind.
Always have your sketchbook on hand and nearby.
It sounds extreme but think back to times in your life where you spent all week playing games or watching random stuff on tv purely to alleviate boredom. Do you feel good or bad about using your time this way?
Some additional resources :
https://youtu.be/P-SqvtoRgsI
https://youtu.be/CBnYgcmSJG8
“Effortless Mastery” By Kenny Werner covers these topics and more with far better insights than I can hope to achieve. Wholeheartedly recommend picking it up!
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