3 Reasons You're Not Seeing Progress in Your Art
LifeLongerLearner_Website
THE POWER OF SELF-DEVELOPMENT
I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve transformed into a hustler who is eager to keep molding the better version of myself. I’m addicted to acquiring new knowledge as I know this is the key for growth. Continuous learning is essential to be great, and I want to be great. I want to leave a behind a legacy that my family will be proud of.
We have all been told we should be lifelong learners, well I take this to heart. Learning shouldn’t stop after high school or college. Receiving that little piece of paper doesn’t mean you can hit the cruise button because school and education don’t always overlap. If anything, it should be a spring board that launches you into a new phase of seeking knowledge as you are now on your own.
My life depends on personal development. My mission is to cultivate and grow habits so I can routinely focus on becoming better every day. The best thing about it is when you focus on self-help, you are enabling yourself to help others at the same time. It’s a win-win.
Unfortunately, many people don’t understand that they control their own circumstances. I'm going to enlighten you with 3 reasons why you're not improving with your art.
1. INVEST IN YOURSELF
Sorry if I'm being a little harsh here but I see people throwing pity parties for themselves all the time.
If you’re not getting the results you desire, it’s your fault. Do something about it.
Why make your life harder by focusing on the negatives? Why accept your situation when you have the power to change it?
I want you to ask yourself:
How do you want to feel?
What do you want to do?
Who do you want to be?
If you can’t answer these questions, then you need to start investing more time into your self development. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it but you have to know what you want in life. You have to have something to work towards. When you have goals, you can now start investing in yourself and gain some momentum.
Hopefully my words are stinging a bit and you’re ready to start making the investment, but you may be asking, "Where do I start?"
You begin to answer these questions when you start to acquire knowledge.
2. ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE
What we put in our minds is extremely important because we are the sum of our influences. What we let in our lives shapes who we become. So devouring self-help material is the first step to becoming the person you want to be.
You can think and speak yourself into existence
If you think and tell yourself you can’t. You’ll always be right. On the other hand, if you think and tell yourself that you can, a whole new world of possibilities present themselves to you. This is why you need to consume content that will fuel the positive thoughts so you’re always in the mindset of I can and I will.
You should be taking advantage of the power of books. The American bookworm is a rare species these days with all the distraction of new technologies at your fingertips. The Pew Research Center reported that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year.
Books allow you to digest someone else's life experiences in a fraction of the time it took them to live out and write the book. You cram in years of knowledge and learn ways to apply something positive to your lifestyle.
I started collecting books over the past year but I haven’t gotten to read all of them yet. I was told that nothing was more important than an unread library as I have knowledge just waiting to be consumed at the tip of my fingers.
You may be saying, “Scotty, I hate reading, I just don’t have the time nor patience to read a book.”
Then I reply with, “Well good thing there are audio books and podcasts, so people can read to you. All you have to do is listen.”
Hands down, podcasts and audio books have been the biggest source of personal growth for me in 2015. They are so convenient because you can queue them up when you're at the office or on long car rides. It fills my mind with fuel to execute my ideas. At the end of this post I will list my favorite reads and listenings so you can get an idea of where I derive my self-help content from.
There are other sources like websites that you can acquire knowledge and inspiration from. I’m also a believer that you can devour photography, music and even culinary arts for more unique knowledge and inspiration.
Now you may be asking, "After I start consuming, how do I apply it to my life?"
3. ASK QUESTIONS AND SEEK ANSWERS
You’ve now been gorging on self-development content, good for you, you should seriously be proud of yourself because your are taking action in changing your life. You’re beginning to formulate some answers to those questions I had you ask yourself earlier.
The powerful thing about acquiring new knowledge is that it begins to answer those internal life questions you were once unable to answer. When you have a question regarding your purpose, you research and find some personal development material that will enlighten you or it will lead you to the next resource that will solve the problem.
You will continue to have more questions that you desire the answers for. Your teachers always said having and asking questions is a good thing. It means you’re being curious about the world you are living in instead of being a robot. As I said earlier, school and education don’t always overlap. You need to educate yourself and examine the world.
I’ve found that this is constantly happening to me and I continue to have my questions answered because I’m seeking out new knowledge. I gain clarity on what I’m supposed to be doing with my life at this very moment and I know I'm headed in the right direction. I was so lost until I started investing in my personal development and now I feel like I see the world differently. I feel I’ve unlocked the equation to becoming the successful person I’ve always wanted to be.
The key to succeeding and taking your life to the next level isn’t about doing more but about becoming more.
Jim Rohn states, “The level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development.”
This means that you’re success is tied to your personal development. You will plateau and only reach a certain level of success if you become complacent with where you are in life. Without a drive to better yourself, you are wasting opportunities to accomplish more and experience growth.
MY PERSPECTIVE
Every morning I wake up and feel like I’m better than when I went to bed the night before. I feel like I’m the most improved and the greatest version of myself. I understand who I am and what I want to do. I’m constantly evolving and staying at the top of my game by devoting myself to self-development.
I feel like I’ve done something with my life, yet I feel like I haven’t done enough. There is always something else I want to accomplish and another level I feel I can push myself to. Most importantly, there are millions of more people I feel I can help.
I become more passionate about my art as my craftsmanship improves. Every day I see progress and I continue to find more fulfillment. This satisfaction has provided a whole new world of focus, all because of my dedication for personal growth. My focus is on a totally different level and I’ll discuss the key steps of gaining this focus in my next post.
So those questions that I had you ask yourself earlier:
How do you want to feel?
What do you want to do?
Who do you want to be?
I can stand in front of you and give you answers to each one and speak with conviction. I think and speak myself into existence because I believe in what I am doing. I back that up with my actions. Consuming and practicing daily self-help material has given me answers, yet it provides me with questions that I aggressively hunt down the explanations.
I get asked a decent amount of what I consume for self-help material. Below you can read the personal development content that I consume on a daily basis to fuel my creativity. If you have recommendations for me, please shoot me an e-mail as I am always trying to find something new.
Podcasts (you can listen to these all free on the iPhone Podcast App or Stitcher App on Android):
the seanwes podcast
seanwes tv
Behind the Brand
Lambo Goal
The Podcast Dude
The Ask Gary Vee Show
Smart Passive Income
SightShift: Lead podcast with Chris McAlister
The Dave Ramsey Show
The Art of Charm
The School of greatness with Lewis Howes
The EntreLeadership Podcast
The Chalene Show
Build Your Tribe
The James Altucher Show
This Is Your Life with Michael Hyatt
The Ziglar Show
The Daily Boost
The Social Media Marketing Podcast with Michael Stelzner
Adventures in Design
Ted Talks
Andy J. Miller - Creative Pep Talk
Speakers / Authors – Books, Audio Books
Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Successful People
Zig Ziglar (anything he has published)
John Maxwell (anything he has published)
Jim Rohn (anything he has published)
Seth Godin (anything he has published)
Doyald Young (anything he has published)
Gary Vaynerchuk (anything he has published)
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (anything he has published)
Dave Ramsey (anything he has published)
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
Show your Work! by Austin Kleon
The Five Love Languages by Gary D. Chapman
Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen your Creative Mind by Jocelyn K. Glei
Sign Painters by Faythe Levine, Sam Macon, Ed Ruscha
Hand to Type: Scripts, Hand-Lettering and Calligraphy by R. Klanten, J. Middendorp, H. Hellige
Websites:
The Copyblogger
YouTube: Gary Vaynerchuk
YouTube: seanwes tv
Audible.com
Abduzeedo
From Up North
Typography Served
Behance
Dribbble
Speaking of results, all my hard work has led to me getting a feature on the seanwes network. Sean launched is Learn Lettering 2.0 and I got the chance to be interviewed in a new series called Lettering Masters. You can view it when you sign up for the Free Start Class at LearnLettering.com/Scotty
[button open_new_tab="true" color="accent-color" hover_text_color_override="#fff" size="medium" url="https://seanwes.com/learn/" text="ACCESS LETTERING MASTERS" color_override=""]
–
If you have found value in this post, you can share this or sign up for my weekly newsletter. If you have any questions or topics you’d like me to cover, please feel free to email me directly as I’d love to hear from you so I can keep growing as an artist and a teacher.