DEALING WITH SELF DOUBT AND BAD THOUGHTS
In this post I will once again show you some of my works and speak about the most common problems I have as an artist. I will share my experiences in hope to find some answers for myself and in hope to help you find your answers. In my future posts I will try to not only share my art with you but also share my experiences, ask questions and speak about the topics that concern me and I'm interested in. I hope my posts are helpfull to others, I hope you like my art and I hope that I can find some answers for myself and good advices from you! Enjoy!
SELF DOUBT
I bet all of you have been to a point where you think maybe you're not good enough. That your art is not good enough. That you are not sure if people will like it or not. That what you do is not good enough and that thought stands in the way of u being happy with what u do. Yes I've been there too! It's like having this voice in your head that keeps telling you that people may not like what you do! You keep comparing yourself to others. You keep watcvhing what they have done and you feel worhtless. Well let me tell you something - You are not worthless! I've been there and I've been sucked in that black hole called self doubt. I haven't painted for months, everything seemed senseless. I even almost gave up on creating art. One moment I was happy with my work but the next one I wasn't and I kept goind up and down that roller coaster again and again, and again. Now the first thing I did to get out of that situation was to stop comparing my art to other people's art! Stop comparing yourself to others! We all have different styles, we all have different ways on creating and we are all unique in our own way, and that is good! Learn to appreciate yourself for who you are. Learn to accept critique and try to learn from what others have to say. Don't take everything people say about your art too literally but collect every bit of advice and information that you think will be helpful to you. Understand that what you are doing is a process, sometimes a long and slow one, and sometimes not so long and slow, but in either ways it's a process. All the best people in the world were once like you filled with self doubt and that helped them in a way maybe. Maybe that's what motivated them to become so good at what they do. But I'm sure that they are good at their job mostly because they enjoy this process of learning and perfecting themselves. In an earlier stage of my life I was too doubtful about my paintings and I never shared them with others. And that was the biggest mistake I made. Sharing your art with others is helpful in so many ways. First you will gain self esteem from the people who like what you do, also you will gain some good advices and helpful critique from the ones that don't agree with you. In either ways you gain something and you will be surprised how quickly you will start growing towards the ebetter person you want to be!
BAD THOUGHTS
The next problem I want to adress is having bad thoughts. Bad thoughts can be as poison for you and your work! The difference between self doubt and bad thoughts is that the self doubt comes from outside sources, and the bad thoughts are already there. Nested deep in your head, they don't give you peace of mind and the peace you need to create! The bad thoughts are harder to get rid of (at least to me). To me they came as a fix ideas out of nowhere. It wasn't doubt "will people like my art or won't". It was "Nobody is going to like this no matter what you do". It was "No matter how hard you try you can't do that". It was horrible. I would catch myself painting a piece and constantly not being happy about it, then splashing it all with white paint and start all over again. At first I thought that's self critisism and is good for me. But little by little that thoughts had spread in my mind. I felt misserable! I wasn't happy! I didn't enjoy what I was doing anymore! And it's really hard to tell "F**k off" to these thoughts. I've lost my balance between healthy self critisism and negativity. It's all about that balance in both situations. You need to find your balance. Don't lose your sense of self critique but also dont be too harsh and negative on yourself! Again the thing that helped me in this situation was sharing my art with others. At first I didnt believe the positive things people said about my works. And again it's a process of healing. With every positive thing I heard about myself and my art slowly but steadily I started gaining that self esteem and positivity. All to a point that at one moment I got rid of the bad thoughts that had poisoned my mind. My advice in both these situations is be brave and share with others! Keep sharing your art, your work and your ideas with others no matter how smal they are. You will be surprised how better you will feel and how much you will gain as you share!
Feel free to give me any advice or share your own experience about those problems. How you fixed it and how you got out of these sort of situations. I hope you like my art in this post, I hope you enjoyed reading it and I hope it has been helpful! Follow me at @vvassilev if you like what I do and want to see more.