anonymous oomfie · 8mo
do you have any tips on staying motivated? a lot of what you've shared about your insecurities & ADHD sounds... very similar to my life, but i can't find myself able to commit to doing anything. the passion you show for improving your art is very inspiring, and i wonder if you have any tips about how you maintain your schedule and motivate yourself to stick with it? seeing you improve yourself over the past few months has been really impressive and makes me want to better myself too 😤😤
i’m glad 2 have inspired you that way :D to be honest, i still struggle a lot with being consistent with my schedule and such so really… the biggest most important step i’ve taken in my life to become more consistent/productive is working on being more forgiving of myself. i find myself getting into a cycle of a few days of consistency, falling off of it, and then feeling guilty about it, but i realized that me treating myself so badly for not being perfect never ever helped me get back on track, rather it did the opposite.
i never considered myself a perfectionist because i’ve never achieved that taste of perfection in any facet of my life so it’s not something i’ve been chasing. but recently i realized that even beating myself up mentally in a similar way for objectively “below average” moments of my life does nothing for me. letting some days just be failures and getting off to a bad start is ok.
idk this is kinda tangenty but i think the most important thing to do is to dig really really deep with yourself and be honest with what’s wrong. it’s never “i just suck” or “i’m not good enough at _____.” i’ve improved at art a lot faster now that i sat down and addressed my unhealthy relationship with it previously. i can rebound much more quickly whenever i inevitable have an off day – or week. you can do all the work you want on whatever subject or hobby but if there’s a big mental barrier there you’re scared to try addressing, it’ll inevitably cause you problems no matter how hard to look away from it.
sorry if that seems really vague and wishywashy, i spent many years looking for a special schedule hack or key to staying motivated but there really isn’t one super special trick that’s gonna revolutionize things for you, at least in my experience. more often than not, i’d try something, and then be excited for a bit abt it,,, before inevitably being super sad that it doesn’t work the same anymore. basically, my approach now is rather than try super hard on those aspects, i try super hard not to be mean to myself lol
