Today’s post is of a philosophical nature, so please do share your thoughts. The topic involves our “mindset” in learning and creating art. “We must believe that we can be successful.”
Of course this statement could be applied to any endeavor, not just art. Belief in the possibility of success is often touted as a key factor in determining whether or not we do succeed. Most of us have probably been taught the importance of approaching new experiences with confidence. Call it optimism; call it common sense; call it whatever you will. Confidence will take us far.
Confidence is, in itself, a skill that can be learned. Ultimate Academy lists several ideas for boosting confidence:
- The best way to attain confidence is by acquiring skills and training. When you learn a skill it becomes a part of you; it becomes one of your abilities. Learning a skill becomes an achievement as well, and this is a building block for your confidence.
- Find a picture that represents a past success and keep it handy. Keep in mind that prior achievements build confidence.
- Substitute any negative thoughts with positive ones. You can attain confidence by recognizing feelings of self-doubt, and banishing them. Replace them with your own favourite confidence-inspiring mantra.
- Keep a journal. By recording your accomplishments, big or small, you are able to remind yourself of your successes. Each success builds confidence in your abilities.
- Use the support of friends and family. Connecting with other individuals offers opportunities to reaffirm the belief in yourself, and perhaps give your confidence a boost.
But what happens if we don’t feel confident, if we don’t believe that we can succeed? Are we destined to fail?
For me, the answer is “Not at all!” — although later I’ll quaify this a bit. I’m drawing upon my personal experiences with art, both growing up and as an adult. I always wanted to be an artist, you see. I admired friends who could draw and paint, but I simply didn’t have any natural ability for art.
I wanted to believe that I could learn to draw, but after many futile attempts with “how to draw” books, I gave up. I remember buying those books, reading them, thinking how simple they made the drawing process appear. It was, these books taught, a matter of seeing shapes, and then drawing those shapes, and then — somehow — miraculously turning those shapes into recognizable objects. I could see the principle, but it just didn’t work for me.
So, even though I approached “learning to draw” with a fervent desire and a youthful “can do” attitude, I wasn’t successful. In fact, I failed so badly that any confidence I might have had quickly disappeared. My attempts at learning to draw discouraged me, convincing me that I absolutely could not draw, no matter how much I wanted to.
Now, fast forward through the decades, all the way to the year 2015. I won’t repeat the story of why I decided I should learn to draw — you can read it here if you want — but I remember the moment as if it happened yesterday. I took a deep breath. “I guess I have to learn to draw,” I said in a quiet voice.
Of course, even as I spoke those words, I knew I was fooling myself. Me? Learn to draw? Nope, that was never going to happen… but, I was going to give it a try. I was going to make a start. That’s all. I knew — not believed, not thought, but absolutely KNEW in my heart and soul — that I could never learn to draw. With luck I might make it through the first few exercises, but then, once I was expected to actually draw a recognizable object, it would become quite clear that I could not possibly succeed. At that point, I’d shrug, say “Oh, well, at least I tried,” and I’d once again feel the keen disappointment I’d known before whenever I tried learning to draw.
But this time was different. This time, I surprised myself. I saw myself making progress. That encouraged me to keep going. I made mistakes. I corrected my mistakes. And I kept right on going and going. In time, I became an “artist” — first in the eyes of my family and friends, and then in the eys of others who saw my drawings and paintings, and finally in my own eyes.
Now, my question is, how did this happen? How, when I had no self-confidence, no belief in even the possibility of success, did I ever learn to draw, to paint, to use oils, watercolors, inks, acrylics, pastels… and, oh, my goodness! It defies all logic.
Let me ask again, how did this happen? If “we must believe…” how was it that without even the slightest expectation of success, I actually learned to draw? Obviously we can approach art without believeing in ourselves and still succeed, so I can’t completely get behind the idea that we must believe in ourselves.
Quite the opposite, actually. I sometimes feel that had I approached “learning to draw” with confidence and determination, I would have quickly become so discouraged that, just as happened so many times before, I would have closed the books, put away my pencils, and given up any hope of ever succeeding.
Am I simply “wired differently”? That’s one possibility, of course. I think it helped me to have low expectations. I think I benefited in many ways by not trying to push myself to achieve. For me, it was just something fun — the idea of me learning to draw was hilarious — so I didn’t take myself seriously. No pressure. No frustration. No performance anxiety. I just did the best I could — and surprised myself.
Of course, later on, as my skills developed, I did find myself feeling those pressures and anxieties. I did sometimes find projects intimidating. I still do. This is why I so often set very low standards for my art. I’d rather succeed in a small way than to fail on a grand scale. Does that make sense?
Many times I’ve expressed a sort of gratitude for my “bad attitude” at the beginning of this art adventure. Had I approached “art” with confidence and an unwavering belief in the possibiity of success, surely I would have failed… wouldn’t I? I often think so, but maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe the reason I’m struggling now is because I didn’t start with expectations of success. Maybe my belief that I would utlimately fail placed some sort of unseen limitations upon me. Maybe subconsciously I’ve had this thought all along that “Well, I can do this much, but I’ll never be able to go any farther.”
That seems to be where I am in many ways. Yes, I can draw — as long as the subjects are fairly simple. Yes, I understand basic shading and blending techniques — but I’ll never really be good at using them. Yes, but… Yes, I can do this, but, no… I’ll never really be a good artist.
Is it possible that I’ve limited myself because of my initial lack of confidence, because I came to art without that essential belief that I could succeed? If so, is it possible now for me to develop a more positive, more confident mindset? Or am I doomed to always be a mediocre artist, someone who enjoys drawing and painting but who will never truly excel at art?
Does it even matter? If I’m enjoying the process — which I am — isn’t that really what’s important? Or would I find even greater pleasure in art if I approached it now with the belief that I can succeed?
Please weigh in and share your thoughts, share your experiences, and let’s help one another develop a mindset that works for each of us.
NOTE: The featured image for this post is AI-generated. We’ll talk about this image soon!
Artistcoveries 
‘I’d rather succeed in a small way than fail on a grand scale’ sounds just like me, too! I think one of the things I struggle with most is the question of what actually counts as art? Part of me wants to believe that all creativity counts, no matter at what level I do something, but another part of me differentiates (so judgemental!) between what I consider to be ‘real’ art and the rather basic messing about with paints/ pens/ pencils etc that I tend to do. I try to tell myself it’s often the creative process that brings real-time enjoyment more than the end product – the experience of actively doing something artistic rather than the passive achievement of having completed a ‘good’ piece of art – but I’m not sure I really believe it… Somehow the crippling desire for perfection still gets in the way for me, and that holds me back a lot. So it seems I definitely believe I can be creative, but I really don’t believe I can be an artist š
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Oh, yes. I share so many of those feelings. Part of it for me is that when I see someone as “an artist” then naturally anything they create is “art”, and likewise, if I don’t see myself as “an artist” — at least as a real artist — then nothing I create can really be called art. Yet then I look around the studio at all I’ve created, and I recognize that there IS some artistic value there, so why don’t I believe in myself? Maybe for me part of it is this belief I’ve always had that art “comes easily” to real artists. I have to work very hard at drawing and painting, so obviously I’m not a “real” artist — just someone who has learned a few art-related skills. More and more now, I am focusing on the enjoyment I find in drawing, even if the results fall far short of my hopes. Keeping my expectations low does help in that regard.
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Hi, Judith. I’m glad to see you back at your art blog. I keep thinking it’s time to return to mine, but then something always interferes, and I have no time. But as I’m experiencing this “world turned upside down” stage of events lately, I have been brought to the same rather existentialist questions about this kind of thing. So, here’s my two cents, philosophically speaking.
When I was a child, I was surrounded by a particular religion. My mother was in church every time the doors were open. I was enrolled in three different church’s schools for about half of my childhood on up through university. And then my extended family and inlaws were all of this same type of religion. In other words, my religion was inherited and indoctrinated, but never truly my own choosing. It was what was expected of me, and all that I knew. Considering those conditions, I prayed a lot. I prayed my little heart out for certain conditions to improve in our lives, and when that didn’t happen, I’d end up disappointed and start questioning what I had done wrong that God wouldn’t answer my prayers. Maybe I hadn’t confessed enough sins. Maybe I was using the wrong words. Maybe … I didn’t have enough faith. And maybe not “truly” believing that all it took was a hardcore confidence in “ask and you shall receive” was where I failed. Not once did I question the system. If my prayers didn’t come true, it was my fault for not believing hard enough or good enough or right enough in what everyone else told me was a sure-fire guarantee. It was my own fault that I was doing it wrong and not succeeding.
Fast forward to the present, and I am beginning to see some of this same pressure to have faith, be confident, and never doubt in communities where manifestation is the new “ask and you shall receive” philosophy. So, if you haven’t succeeded in manifesting your dreams yet, you probably just don’t have enough faith; you don’t “truly” believe. You’re not confident enough in your ability to succeed is why you’re not succeeding.
And though it took me my whole life to see this, this attitude is a form of victim blaming. To take the approach that your success is built on believing you can succeed ignores the fact that sometimes no matter how hard you believe, the answer is just going to be “NO.” Or your circumstances are trying to tell you that you have unrealistic expectations for your reality. Or that maybe it’s not confidence that you need, but discipline. If the change that you’re desperate for isn’t happening because you’re questioning yourself too much, maybe your doubt isn’t the problem. Maybe you just need to do the work and put in the hours regardless of how you feel about it because mastery does take thousands of hours when it comes to some skills.
This was me speaking to myself during this realization, btw, not you or anyone else reading this. Because I know how harsh that sounds to anyone who has tried and tried and STILL cannot succeed at whatever they want to change in their lives. But I realized there really is no difference between the effort, time, and tears that I put into thinking I was broken for not being able to pray or manifest my desires into reality through being more confident compared to the effort, time, and tears it would take for me to just do the work regardless of how good or bad I felt about my ability to do it. Either way, I’m blaming myself for my lack of success at getting the kind of life that I want for myself. But if I can put my feelings on a shelf and use discipline to make myself do whatever I can to make change happen, then at least I’m getting in those hours of practice and learning and making things move, even if I feel terrible, lack confidence, and will never feel like I’m good enough to move the mountains that I want and need to move.
Does discipline work where confidence, faith, and belief fail? Sometimes. But not even discipline comes with a guarantee that life will give us what we worked for. Sometimes, life just feels more like a clockwork orange than having any sense of conscious or divine justice. But that is where the existentialism kicks in, so I will stop there. š … I’ve heard that the difference between a professional and an amateur is not necessarily the quality of the work, but the quality of the mindset brought to the table. A professional will do the job regardless of the circumstances or feelings because they are a professional. Does confidence help? Of course! But if lack of confidence leads us to stall because we can’t do anything without first believing it can happen, then we may never get anything done and get stuck waiting for the universe to do something for us that maybe we could be doing for ourselves. The universe’s answer may still be, “No, what you want is never going to happen for you, no matter how hard you try, because there are other forces at work beyond your control.” But the word “discipline” actually means “to learn,” and learning can go a long way to combat how helpless we feel when we need to create change in our lives. Discipline itself can even help us learn confidence.
So, anyway, just some thoughts bubbling up today on the subject of philosophy and failure to feel confident about how to bring about change, whether that’s speaking of spiritual faith or imposter syndrome. We need to stop making ourselves feel like failures if we don’t achieve what we want. At the same time, we need to be willing to put in the work to create those changes without waiting for our feelings to catch up to us or lead the way. Discipline helps us choose skills over feelings. And sometimes that is more helpful than confidence or belief … even if no one wants to hear that. We prefer confidence or belief as the magic paintbrush that makes things happen because those things feel good, and often discipline doesn’t. ā¤
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I definitely agree with your thinking. It’s so easy to feel that we’re at fault for so many things, and then we add on guilt and shame and embarrassment and we just get ourselves buried deeper and deeper into the morass of unproductive thinking. As for confidence, I definitely think it’s over-rate in many ways. I was thinking about this earlier, because there’s a huge difference between what I call “pseudo-confidence” (where we tell ourselves all the reasons why we SHOULD be confident) and true confidence, where we KNOW without any doubt that we have the ability to succeed. Confidence can’t be faked. It comes only when we’ve put in the work, done the practice, and have improved our skills and abilities to the point where we KNOW we can succeed — or at the very least that our performance will be good. I guess what I’m saying, in a sense, is that true confidence doesn’t guarantee that we’ll succeed, but it does guarantee that we won’t fail. Life isn’t black/white, win/lose, succeed/fail. There’s all kinds of “in-betweens”, and success can also be relative in many ways. What one person considers “success” may be what another person would view as a “failure”. So what it comes down to, in so many ways, is that if there’s something we truly love or truly want to do, all we can do is learn, practice, ask for help, develop the physical skills required, obtain the knowledge we need (these go hand in hand) and as we move closer toward our own version of “success”, we can begin developing that mindset that does lead — eventually — to true confidence, that genuine sense of knowing that we have the ability to do something well, so we do it without needing to “pump ourselves up” or “fake it”. Not sure if any of these thoughts make a lot of sense out of context, but maybe the problem IMHO lies with “belief”. There is a big difference between believing in something and knowing something. Belief alone might be useful in some instances, but belief and confidence just aren’t the same to me.
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Beautifully said, and I agree. You can’t fake confidence. And while I do see how belief can lead to confidence, I don’t think it necessarily works the other way around. So, that’s where “lowering the bar” as you said earlier and falling back on plain old no-bells-and-whistles discipline can at least make sure you’re doing *something* toward the goal, even if it doesn’t succeed. And in most cases, something is better than nothing. You are 100% guaranteed to fail if you don’t try, regardless of whether or not you believe you can do it or feel confident that you can do it. The goal should be to just do it, regardless of outcome or feelings, if there is something you want to do. Belief and confidence can help, but I no longer question my lack of belief or confidence; I have learned instead to seek balance to any system/directive that tells me I’m failing because my belief or confidence isn’t good enough. ā¤
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Excellent point! Yes, we are 100% guaranteed to fail if we don’t try, and sometimes we end up surprising ourselves as I did when I decided (as an adult) to learn how to draw. Maybe our best course of action is to be sure we’re focusing on process and not concerning ourselves with results.
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Yes, I think that’s the key truth here. It’s the journey, not the destination. The journey doesn’t guarantee the destination, but it can sure make or break it.
I also thought of the Star card in tarot decks. There’s hope, faith, luck and such that means odds are in your favor. But sometimes, you just need to find a more practical solution to your problems. And that’s where the journey, the practice, the disciple, etc. can fill in the gaps when things like optimism and confidence are waning.
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I think, too, of the Sun card because for me, it represents “direct experience” or “hands on” learning. With art, as an example, we can read book after book, “learn” about different techniques, and we can watch video tutorials, and all of that is helpful. But we can’t really succeed until we do those things for ourselves. We need to try things, have the actual experiences, do things for ourselves before we’ll ever really “know” what we need to do.
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So true.
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This is such a good and healthy approach. I have a lot of areas in life where I struggle (socializing, executive functioning, house-cleaning), and I try to take this approach you outline here. I sort of bypass expectation, allow the results not to meet other people’s standards (or even my own, sometimes), and just do it. Then, at least the process can be fun!
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My husband always says, “If it’s not fun, don’t do it.” That’s not always practical, but he does have a point. As far as “confidence” goes, I just don’t think we can force ourselves to “BE” confident. We can’t pretend to “BE” confident. That said, more and more, I disagree with the idea that we can’t succeed unless we’re confident. Confidence follows success, not the other way around, as often as not. That’s my thinking at least! Confidence may assure us of success, but lack of confidence doesn’t guarantee failure!
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I think you’re right! It’s OK to do things when we’re scared or feeling unsure of our abilities.
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This is when we need to think about the “process” and not focus on the result, I think. If I approach something telling myself that I’ll succeed when I know I won’t, I’ll really just reinforce my negative feelings and that will spoil the whole thing. But if I go into it thinking “I won’t do great, but that’s all right. I’ll do my best and have fun,” then the results don’t matter, and chances are I’ll surprise myself by doing better than I expected. So, yeah, again, I don’t go along with the idea that “we MUST believe we’ll succeed.” I think that just leads to disappointment too many times.
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