From Scarcity to Abundance: Shift Your Mindset
Hello there, my friend, and welcome to this week's blog. Let’s talk about how to overcome some of our most basic fears when it comes to our creativity. These are limiting beliefs that come up again and again and we need to practice how to flip them on their head. Learning how to do this will help us gain more confidence and continue to move forward. Here are three that come up all the time.
Limiting Belief #1: I’m not talented enough.
Let me stop you right there because you do have talent! Your talent is different from my talent. And both of our level of talent is different from somebody like Picasso. Now, the reason I bring him up as an example is because if you look at his early work, while now it is considered to be fantastic, he was learning how to draw. And he did it in a very unique way. It wasn’t realism. He focused on how he loved to draw. And he continued to evolve. That's true for us too. We need to embrace where we are in the journey right now, and embrace the fact that our talent is unique. It's different from the next person. And that’s what makes it really valuable.
We need to bust through this fear around having no talent because each and every one of us does have talent. Let’s reverse that limiting belief and repeat to ourselves: I am unique and my artwork is unique. I'm not going to compare myself to everybody else. I'm going to do my thing, because my thing is what brings me the most joy and is the most unique.
Limiting Belief #2: It’s all been done before – how can I possibly stand out.
Especially in today's world where you can see everybody's work all the time on social media, we can fall into this trap. It shows up as “how can I possibly stand out” or as “the market must be saturated so there can’t possibly be room for me.”
Seeing so much artwork everywhere online is super overwhelming and leads us to think: how can I possibly come up with something new? The point here is, give yourself grace. You may not come up with something completely new. But whatever you come up with has never been done before by YOU. And that again, is where your unique qualities and your unique talents and your unique perspective shines through. Let’s flip this fear around as well, and realize that even back in the day, during Picasso’s time, everything had been done before too. That didn’t stop him, did it?
A few pro tips here:
Create before you consume. Shut off all of the distractions. Stop scrolling on Instagram or Pinterest. You can do that later but when you’re in creation mode, don’t go there. Figure out when you do your best work. Is that in the morning, afternoon or evening. Protect that time for yourself.
Get inspiration from your own photographs. This is a great way to ensure you aren’t copying anyone. And it’s a great way to develop unique color palettes. Nature has an amazing way of showcasing color palettes that work beautifully. You might want to explore the Adobe capture app. It’s free and you can download it on your phone. Take pictures with it and it will suggest color palettes from elements in the photo.
Remember to put your blinders on and focus on your own work. This is one of the best ways to reduce overwhelm and keep moving forward.
Limiting Belief #3: I can’t handle the tech – it’s seems so overwhelming.
Here’s the thing. Maybe we are intimidated by technology because it’s changing so fast and because we think we’re too old to keep up. We are NOT. In fact, we need to embrace technology because the speed with which things are changing is a huge advantage for us. Things that used to be really hard are becoming easier every day.
I didn't use to be very tech savvy. I was the person in the family who would give my iPhone to my husband when I couldn't get it to work. Now I'm kind of a tech boss in a limited but important way for my creative business. I've learned how to do Facebook lives. I've learned how to use a fabulous app called Ecamm. It allows me to share my screen when I’m teaching and show you step by step how to move forward. I've also learned how to use technology like Kajabi, which is where I house all of my course materials.
The great news is that you can do hard things, my friend. You just have to take it one step at a time. This fear of technology can be flipped around and you’ll realize that you can do it! And when you do, it's incredibly empowering.
Here’s another pro tip for you:
This approach works for me so give it a try. When I’m learning something new it often feels like complete Greek. And my head is exploding trying to take all this new information in. My trick is to let things sit in my brain for a bit. The human brain is a miraculous muscle. New information is percolating in there somewhere. A few days, or a week later, when I come back to that new thing, I understand it a bit more. At least I kind of understand what the vocabulary words mean. I keep going and after a bit more time goes by, things start to make sense and I’m more confident that I’m getting the picture. The key is perseverance!
Don't think 10 steps ahead. Just think about the step you're in right now. And the very next one after that. It might take us a little bit of time to learn some of these things. But we can definitely learn them.
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Bye for now. And I'll see you next week.
Remember,
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
