#172 - You Have To Build A Good Drawing Habit Up Slowly
You will stumble. Just pick yourself back up again.
YouTube Video - Practice Drawing Rotating Interlocking Cube And Cylinder Model
woman once confided in me that she was angry with her dietician: 75 grams of pasta! She’d taken it to her dietician in a pouch to show how little that was. “Give that to your other clients!” she had said. And only 200 grams of yogurt!
I remember my wife wanting us to switch to eating raw vegetables from one day to the next. I wasn’t ready for it mentally, and I think my body and microbiomes probably weren’t either.
Mentally, we’re used to eating certain volumes and craving certain foods, and it takes time to adjust to that.
You don’t start running marathons from one day to the next. You build it up slowly, starting with shorter distances every other day and slowly increasing the frequency and distances.
Changing habits from one day to the next can be done, but it will be exceptionally hard in the first period and will require superhuman willpower.
If you want to develop a new good habit, you can also build it up slowly. This is a more pleasant, controlled approach, with many little wins worth celebrating along the way.
And sometimes, you stumble, but pick yourself up again and continue.
The same holds for creating an art habit. Drawing every day may be something that happens for you one day, but start smaller. Draw if you have a moment, and draw something small, something manageable, something you can draw quickly. It’s okay if you skip a day or two. Slowly build up that daily drawing habit over time. It will eventually become second nature if you do it that way.
It’s okay if you fall off the bandwagon occasionally. It’s okay if you eat too much one day, forget to work out, or skip a drawing session. Tomorrow is another day, another shot at slowly building up to that desired regular habit.
Bad habits are different. You have to cut them immediately. Stop smoking immediately; don’t wait until you “finish your last pack.” Quit drinking immediately. Stop addictions immediately. Go cold turkey.
Bad habits are impossible to stop slowly, and good habits are impossible to start quickly.