The fear of ruining everything

Have you ever worked on something and liked it but felt paralysed by the fear of ruining it despite knowing it needed more work? You’re not alone!

Since the beginning of the year, I realised this fear prevented me from growing. Try things in your sketchbook, but to create a finished piece, it’s important not to be afraid of « ruining it » and doing it all over again. Creation is a mix of fail-and-try problem-solving and happy discoveries.

It’s exhausting and frustrating because sometimes, after 5 hours, you realise the problem is the composition or your mix of colours. It can even mean that you’re just stuck on your idea. But it’s important to breathe, take a break, and come back later for another session.My new habit is to review each session on Notion, explaining what I’ve done, what I need to do or try, and, more importantly, what I’ve learned! Now, I’m no longer trying to complete a painting in a single session: I need « new » eyes to see what’s wrong or right, to judge tangible things instead of emotional ones. It’s uncomfortable, but patience is important.

I created a step-by-step process to keep perfectionism/overthinking at bay. For example, I prime all my canvas at once, then draw all the sketches, work on the skies etc… so whenever I think « Oh God, this is so ugly, I’m such a fraud! » my brain knows that it’s ok, the ugly stage is part of the list, it’s exactly the stage I’m in and the next one is « ok this is what I wanted to ». Sounds silly if you’re not an anxious person or a perfectionist, but give it a go!

This new process turned out very handy whilst working on my last paintings. What do you do when you complete a set of 5 artworks, go to bed satisfied, and realize that none of them turned out how they were supposed to? First, you cry and make some coffee, then open Notion and read your notes, reflecting on what is precisely wrong: Lack of yellow? It's a beautiful image, but the composition is boring? These questions are more constructive than just saying you are an awful artist!

The more you think about a practical action, the less you'll be overwhelmed by thoughts like "you're a fraud!" or "you don't have any talent !". Creating a process is very simple, but it requires taking a few minutes just to think about how you're working. Here are some examples:

• How do you find inspiration? Books? Movies? Images? Where do you store things that inspire you?
• How do you want to work ? Which material? Which size? How many canvases do you need?
• If you work on canvas, can you prime all of them first, then create all your sketches once and for all?
• Can you paint all the dark values? Can you work on 3 pieces in one session with the same colors?
• When you don't like a painting, can you write precisely 3 reasons why? How can you change that ?

It's all about decomposing things into small steps and creating a clear process.

Let's meet in the comments and talk about your process.