Tag: traditional artist

I often deal with a severe lack of motivation to do anything creative. It’s a weird feeling, because I love to draw and create stuff, but at the same time thinking about starting it or doing it just seems like a chore, and overwhelming, or it always seems like I physically do not have the energy to do anything but, nothing.

It’s actually really frustrating and depressing, and hard to find the words to describe; the best thing I have found that sums it up pretty well is this person’s post I saved years ago:

This is the best way I can think of describing this, and the fact that it seems like you can’t stop going down a procrastination rabbit hole. I used to have this terrible habit of literally watching the clock all day when I was off work, and I couldn’t keep fixating on the idea that precious time was wasting away, minute by minute, hour by hour, and I am not doing anything.

I have very vivid images I play in my head often. I often envision a present or a future that I want, and what it will look like. This really makes me more anxious, more depressed, because I’m not living in this ideal that I think I want. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on this, but that probably makes the procrastination worse too. It makes me feel painfully inadequate trying to live up to an ideal; in my head. So when I consciously procrastinate, my mood often goes way down because while I’m procrastinating, watching the clock, thinking about what I “should” be doing to improve XYZ aspect of my life, I am also envisioning an ideal vividly and in pretty colors. It’s often the art I want to make, the way I want it to look. The lifestyle that I want to have. It’s really not fun, sometimes it’s exciting to envision, but mostly its just exhausting.

That’s why mindfulness is important, but I struggle with that too. But living in the present (the real one) is so important, it helps you realize that things are not as bad as you are thinking. I struggled most of life being aimless, things were a little rough in my younger years. I think that is where a lot of the restlessness comes from; there was a point where I only just recently began realizing that I could be achieving my goals, like when people used to tell me I was going to be a great artist and I never believed it; now, I am in a much better place in that regard because I believe it myself. I believe that now I can achieve the goals I wanted for so long. But now that I believe these things, it’s like the rest of me is trying to catch up with all this missed enthusiasm, and it’s just piling up all at once. I don’t know. Overanalyzing is also a bad habit, but I think that’s the gist of it.

Starting a blog is actually a good step in the right direction I feel in building good habits. I also have to shut down useless talk such as “we’ll see if I can stick to it this time” or “yeah let’s see how long this lasts”. I’m going to try to be gentler to myself. I don’t make resolutions, but I will say that this is what I am focusing on going into 2023.