I think of confidence as a fluid state of mind. It changes as you work on a project. There are areas where you feel certain about your skills, and sections where you feel less sure. To build your confidence, it is important to recognize when the positive state shows up, thus avoiding the dreaded focus on where you flounder. Keeping an eye on your confidence will help you maintain a balanced perspective. And speaking of perspectives, display one of your first projects where you work. It will remind you of how much your skills have developed gained over time. Tuning into the confident state of mind will help your brain build neural pathways for this state of mind. I think of them as freeways, easily accessible and faster than the slow side streets.
Never heard this word? Neither has Webster, Cambridge, Urban or Oxford. Or me. I made it up. The word, however, corrects a mistake in understanding of the word “confidence.” Confidence is a noun that implies that it is a thing. Once you get it, it’s yours, quite like a car parked in the garage. When you want to go somewhere, you can walk to your garage knowing it will be waiting for you. But the same is not true when you sit down to draw, paint, make jewelry, or create any other art form. We mistakenly think that once we acquire confidence in art making, we have crossed over to the realm of self-assurance. Making the word a noun subtly influences our thinking that it can be acquired once and for all. This error in language is called a semantically ill-formed word. “Confidencing” corrects the inaccuracy. It is a verb, after all.
I have certainly had a difficult time with this issue, and fortunately, less so now. It would have been helpful for me to consider these principles that I have known for a long time. Painting just picked me up and threw me around for too long. But really, the opposite is true: my mind tossed me about.
So, a reminder to us all. Focus on what we are doing well, and we will not only have a happier time of it, we will learn even faster.
The following podcast, hosted by Nicholas Wilton from Art2Life, is an interview of one of my favorite artists, Robert Szot. He talks about moving to New York City to become a painter without any art experience or education under his belt. Big confidence, right? A little later he implies a dip in confidence when he says nothing has made him more excited than painting or more depressed than painting. So, like the moon, confidence waxes and wanes.
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JEXaiuXfF7k?si=bVonnSQ9cPwrdoLX
