Acceptance Changes Everything

If you have a tendency to put your art down, this post is for you.If you are dissatisfied with the work you make, this post is for you.If you spend a lot of time wishing you could make art like someone else you saw on Pinterest or Instagram, this post is for you.It's about acceptance - a word that is so much easier to say than to practice.For years, I have heard and read some version of "accept things as they are and you will feel better." At first, I kicked against it. Why accept things I don't like? Why not try to change them?And even after I began to understand why acceptance would help, I still found myself unable to do it. I still found myself fighting to control external circumstances - to keep things that needed to go, to stay mired in negative thoughts, to beat myself up for not being this or that way.But through my painting, I have learned - truly learned - the value and life-changing potential of true acceptance.Acceptance doesn't mean resignationWhat I didn't understand for a long time is that acceptance doesn't mean giving up. (Saying to yourself "well that drawing was terrible I guess I should accept that I am rubbish at this"). In truth, you can accept something you do not like and still work to change it.In fact, accepting where you are makes it far easier to start making changes.Say you love someone and they leave. The natural tendency is to resist the truth for as long as we can. Instead of accepting and moving on, we stay stuck in hurt and anger, blaming, re-living, asking 'why,' beating ourselves up for all we imagine we did wrong. But of course, all this is futile, because the reality remains stubbornly what it is. The key to being happy again is to accept that they're gone without placing any extra meaning on it. Once you do that, you can start finding new interests and having new adventures.Or say you gain a lot of weight and don't like the way you look. Again our natural tendency is to get mired in negative self-talk about how we shouldn't have gained the weight instead of accepting that this is our new size and shape, and moving to a solution from a place of self-love and self-care.Can you see how this relates to your art?Until you accept where you are, and embrace it, you can't move forward. You can't learn the things you want to learn. Your resistance to the reality of the situation is causing you to berate yourself, to compare yourself negatively to others, to put yourself down. And from that place, there is no chance of being truly creative.Accept and things immediately start to get better Other than a few vanishingly rare geniuses, the rest of us have to learn how to make strong art. We have to overcome all sorts of mental obstacles and learn all sorts of skills and gain all sorts of knowledge. If you are not yet making the art that you want to make, it just means that you do not yet have all the tools, or that you haven't practiced them enough yet.The key to your success is to accept exactly where you are. Is your drawing not good enough yet? OK. Accept that - which means accepting that the next 50 or 100 or 200 drawings won't be great. With the weight of expectation lifted, you are free to just go and make the damn drawings! And I guarantee that number 100 will be better than number one. It just will.Accepting where you are frees you up to find solutions ...Perhaps you need to play more to discover new things in your work. Great - now you can set aside "play time" whenever you go to paint and just see what happens.Perhaps you need to learn more about colour or composition. There are books and websites for that!Perhaps you need inspiration. Spend time doing and seeing things you love. See what sparks your interest.Perhaps you need time to practice skills that you have already learned. OK, set aside some time for that each day or each week.Do you see how it works?Accepting doesn't mean giving in. It means the opposite. It sets you free to set out on the journey to where you want to go. And I promise you that when you set out on that journey, you won't ever want to turn around and come back.If you are interested in the ideas discussed here, I have all kinds of free resources for you. You can sign up for my newsletter, listen to my podcasts, or come and join our private Facebook group to meet other artists and share ideas.