Motivation and doing the work | Artist's Block 🎨

Hey, today I'm going to be talking about how to get to work when you don't feel like it. I'm talking about creative work specifically. I've been thinking a lot about procrastination and things like that in my life recently, trying to get to the bottom of it, and I have a few thoughts that I'll be sharing with you today. I've discovered that oftentimes it's our own high expectations for what we're about to do or paint that get in the way. You have this great idea, but you know that in reality it's not going to be easy, it's going to go through some ugly stages, and you're not sure if you'll be able or capable to bring it to the level of greatness, let's say, that you have in mind. So you kind of put it off because you don't want to get disappointed or frustrated, right? There are a few things to keep in mind though. It gets easier once you start it. It helps breaking the process down into small manageable parts. For example, you're working on a portrait and it's a mess right now. Try focusing on improving just one area as opposed to tackling the whole thing, because again, it can make you overwhelmed or frustrated and you wouldn't want to get into it at all. Which ties to the next point, that is, treat it as something fun, something you look forward to. Enjoy the process. It started because we enjoy painting, drawing, creating, and so on, and when the focus gets shifted to just the final result or what would people think, will it bring me attention, will I get something from it, it gets sidetracked and we need to bring it back to the process itself. Another thing that's worth thinking of is don't compare your work to the work of other established artists. You can get inspired, but compare it only to what you have done. Look at the progress you've made. It seems like a very similar thing, but it has drastically different outcomes. You can look at someone else's work and think, wow, they're so great and my work is nowhere near and get discouraged. Or you can look at someone else's work and think, wow, they're so great and they're doing it, maybe I can do that too. Or you like a particular approach and you maybe I should try it. You pick up a few things, you get inspired and want to keep going and growing. And speaking on this topic of today more broadly, usually in my life I've noticed that there are two different patterns, hence two ways of dealing with it, with art block. I don't really like this definition, but it makes sense here. Sometimes you know exactly what's going on and you need to deal with the situation. Let's say you got burned out after a big project, or you ran out of paints so you can't paint, or you have committed yourself to helping your friend with something and you feel good about that, but at the same time you need time for yourself, so it's a time management issue. Or you got harshly criticized and you still need time to recover. These are temporary obstacles, all of them can be addressed and resolved. But what if you stuck for no particular reason? Then I believe we should look at our own expectations and things I've talked about earlier. And then it makes sense sometimes to just push yourself to start and go step by step. Otherwise take a step back, put other people's opinions aside, free yourself mentally and go do something else, listen to new music, go to new places, get some new perspective. Life is not easy sometimes and our culture doesn't support us being creative, but rather falling in line and doing what we're told from the education system to some work environments, but that's a bit of a different topic. Things are not easy sometimes, which makes it hard to say screw it, I'm going to paint today. But sometimes we do have that opportunity to devote time to exploring new things and getting inspired again. I like taking walks, I'm staying in a new place again, so there are things to explore around. Walking makes me feel refreshed and puts me in a better state of mind. So maybe you need a change of perspective, a feeling of being more free or in control. Change your environment a little bit. Another thing that helps me a lot to get out of the rut is cleaning my room studio, reorganizing the space, refreshing some things. Your surroundings play a big role in how you feel and influence you in ways you don't even know. That's pretty much all I got for you today. Also I wanted to show you the little prints I made. It was a test run but they turned out to be quite gorgeous and I'm actually going to be giving some of them away. That's all. Thank you for being here. Have a good one and I'll see you next time. Bye!