Define Success
I’ve always thought it would be so fun to make pencil drawings. I recently bought a large sketchbook and drawing pencils. It was hard to start playing around with it because my drawings felt embarrassingly awful.
Something I do that helps me creatively is…
Define Success
Have you ever tried to learn or do a creative project and it didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped? You felt like the project was a failure or that you just weren’t creative? What if we reframe your expectations going in, so that you set yourself up to succeed?
Here’s a great example. I’ve always thought it would be so fun to make pencil drawings. I recently bought a large sketchbook and drawing pencils. It was hard to start playing around with it because my drawings felt embarrassingly awful. It didn’t even feel fun. It felt…embarrassing. In order to give myself freedom to draw without judgement and be able to enjoy the process, I set an intention to “put some marks on a page” when I sat down to draw.
I decided that success to me was putting some marks on a page.
Putting some marks on a page was simple. I filled up two pages easily. I drew some shapes. Designs. Made colored squares to play with color combinations. I made big wallpaper-size swirls. A little leaf. A few words playing with fonts. And there were some scribbles.
And guess what? It was really fun! So fun, in fact, that I started doing this every day. I put marks on a page regularly. I still have no intention of sharing my drawings with anyone, and that’s totally fine. This is for me. Defining success as “putting marks on a page” gave me freedom to start drawing.
If I had not defined success as putting marks on a page I would have unconsciously kept feeling inadequate because I was thinking of success as drawing like experienced artists.
I know this is a very simplistic idea, but how many times do we get frustrated and give up (sometimes before we even start!) because we don’t live up to our idea of success?
???
What is a creative interest you want to try but haven’t because you don’t think you’d be good at it?
Can you define success as getting familiar with the tools used in (your creative interest)? Or getting familiar with the materials used in (your creative interest)? Or even finding out what is needed to start (your creative interest)?
If your creative interest is something that doesn’t take any or many supplies, can you define success as a general action like putting marks on paper or writing down words?
The point is to experiment and to let go of the mental barriers that keep you from doing it freely and fully.
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Creating makes me feel alive. I want you to experience that same vibrancy!