I usually post two social media posts a week, one on Mondays and another on Wednesdays. The Wednesday reels are more time consuming. I have to edit the video and add text. Of course, I also need the time to make the actual art itself which is being posted.
Making something else to substitute my usual posts
This schedule hasn’t been an issue for months. But lately I’ve had little time. So, in the past weeks, I started making charcoal drawings which are slightly faster than making a watercolour painting. Part of me felt it was a drawing not as “worthy” as my paintings, but at the same time, I felt the stories were good.
The impossible goal that I could not meet
This past week I was ambitiously working on a painting. I wasn’t able to finish my painting on time. The idea of missing a deadline bothers me, even if it is a self-imposed one. I thought about posting a “work in progress”. These are fine but my goal is always to have the finished product by the timelines.
While my discipline helps in pushing me to make art, it can also backfire. There’s a part of me that says how bad I am when I’m not meeting expectations. So I work hard to avoid the criticism.
The analysis of what is the cause of the trouble
This week though, I realized that it didn’t make a huge difference if I post on Thursday instead of Wednesday. I could get a finished product out a day later. Also, I wondered whether I needed to adjust the post schedule. Opening up to this, I wondered why it was difficult now when I had done this for many months without issue.
I realized that I had my drawing class consuming all of Monday evening. This meant that I only had 1 evening and 1 morning to make a post on Wednesday morning. Unless I am very productive at the end of the week and weekends to stockpile my art work, it is actually setting myself up to miss my deadlines.
The genesis of a new idea
Being kind to myself means that I actually pause the part of me that says how bad I am because I’m not meeting my expectations.
Being kind to myself means I can become curious to ask: “What is different now than before? What is the true issue here?”
Being kind to myself helps me seek out alternative reasons of what is happening. My default explanation is, “Well you are just incapable and incompetent.” Despite how true it might feel to me, I realize – when out of the moment – that it is probably not true.
A link back to CBT therapy
There’s this therapy concept of how our minds are actually mouldable in thought patterns. This seems to be the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, where you are trying to cut new paths of thoughts in the grass outside of well trodden paths of self-inflicted horrible criticism. It’s pretty difficult to do.
Being kind to myself means I can become curious to ask: “What is different now than before? What is the true issue here?”
But, like any muscle memory, once you keep practicing the same thoughts, it becomes a little easier. The grasses start bending aside. Eventually there is a small dirt path. It’s an alternative route, and one that ultimately is a little nicer and easier way to live.