So you’re not an artist, you’re not a designer. You don’t have that many ideas. You don’t have that much time. You can’t find the pencil sharpener.
The good news? You don’t need all that. The only thing you need to start creating visuals, is a voice in your head saying: you can do this!
I’m not normally an annoying person, but I’ve been told I’ve crossed the line by quoting Brendon Burchard too many times:
“I believe in my ability to figure things out.”
What I love about this quote is that it’s not trying to trick you into some false positive thinking. It’s a reminder that it’s okay not to know everything and it’s more important to have confidence in working things out when you get to them.
To honor this you-can-figure-things-out issue and to show that it wasn’t easy for me in the beginning either (and at times still aren’t), I dug up a few of my early visuals.
Drumrolll, please! Ta- daaa!
Do you get what I was trying to say there? Yeah, me neither…
And here we have the Perfectionist Monster (the imaginary friend who often accompanied me in my creative journey and even made it into my early visuals).
Did they go viral? 5 likes (including myself and my mom)
Ok, the perfectionist monster was actually loved by my early followers. If you’re one of them reading this, thank you!
Am I particulary proud of them? Nope.
Did they get me here? Absoultely!
These (and many other) visuals built the bridge towards a strong belief that I can actually do this.
It’s curious how once we’ve mastered something, our brain somewhat discards the struggle of mastering that something. It feels like we’ve always known how to play football, we’ve always had a master’s degree, always known how to drive a car.
Though, can you still remember your first driving lesson?
I bet the car died in a junction and even though it was clearly marked as a training vehicle, someone still beeped at you. Your palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy (I hope you didn’t throw up your mom’s spaghetti).
Eminem aside, learning how to drive once seemed complicated, at moments impossible, but now you can no longer relate to that feeling. Driving is effortless. The same goes for most things in life, explaining ideas visually included.
When you feel overwhelmed with the immensity of a project, remind yourself about all the things you’ve done that felt impossible, about all the goals you’ve achieved that seemed way out of reach.
Know that you’ve accomplished so much already and trust that you'll figure out this new part of your life as well.
If all this feels too cheesy for you, I offer another perspective on the topic. It’s from the movie Edge of Tomorrow.
The character Giff puts it this way:
“Yeah, well, I've never been with two girls at the same time before. But you can bet, when that day comes, I'll make it work.”
Janis Ozlins / ozo.art
P.S.
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Good to see your first few illustrations. Gives me a lot of hope. Getting there 😃
It's great to see some of your early illustrations. It's good motivation to just getting started.