Four Years

August 2007 I read The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron with a great group of women online. One of the tasks was to write morning pages every morning. Three pages of whatever comes to mind. Four years on and I'm still writing my morning pages. I can't do without them. I can whine and moan or ramble on about all the little daily things in my life. I get answers to problems when I write. Answers that were probably stored in the back of my mind but the pages help bring them to the forefront. Well this morning I wasn't really thinking about much of anything except how happy I am with my latest nearly finished painting and I started on a ramble. I thought I would share some of it with you here.

Small doable actions do add up to a lot. Small steps, one foot in front of the other and you move forward. Forward motion is what you must always strive for. Its not about talent. Its about drive and perseverance. Its about always turning up at the easel and believing in yourself. Skills develop with continual practice and before you know it people will say you have an 'awesome talent'. You smile politely knowing you have skills that came from hard work not 'talent'. Anyone can do it! They just need to have the guts to just stick with it. They need to develop the self discipline needed to get through the long lonely hours in the studio spent in total isolation. They need to wade through the endless self doubt and fears and just keep going. The need to keep believing in themselves and keep the negative voices in their head quiet. Above all they need to keep believing in their dreams. Doable goals need to be set and when reached more goals need to be in place so you always move forward. Your dreams must always be clear in your mind and you must always have a strong belief that you will reach them. Focus on your goals and dreams so you can wade through rejection and criticism while retaining your confidence in yourself.

No attention is paid to grammar while I do my morning pages. I just ramble on. I do fight fears and self doubt constantly. I squash those negative voices in my head. When I started to paint I showed my work to no one. Not one person! Through hard work and the support of some wonderful friends (you know who you are ) I can now confidently walk into a gallery and ask the director if they would be interested in showing my work. My skills have developed to a point where I struggle less and enjoy the whole painting process more. I still have fears, I still have doubts and I still have negative voices in my head but my confidence outweighs them. Small steps, one foot in front of the other and you move forward.