Do you struggle with keeping up regular practice?
I know exactly how you feel.
Do you beat yourself up about not practising regularly enough?
If you do you’re not alone.
Let’s face it, deep down we all know that the only reliable way to get better at drawing and painting is to practice regularly.
So why is it so hard to keep going? Are we really just naturally lazy and unmotivated?
You’re Not Lazy
I don’t think so. If you struggle with getting into a regular practice habit, you’re no different from the vast majority of people, including me. It’s not about will-power and forcing yourself to do it. That’s a great way to ensure that you don’t keep it up.
It’s about forming a habit.
The challenge for us is that deliberately forming habits is quite difficult.
We like to get into routines, we like repetition and we like to know where we are. Much of our day is already ruled by habits, but most of our routines and habits of thinking have been created without our conscious input. They’re not always positive.
When we try to get into a regular practice habit, we’re consciously trying to create a new, positive habit, and that’s a very different thing. And it can be difficult.
But finding it hard to do has nothing to do with laziness.
You Don’t Lack Motivation
You want to get better at drawing and painting, right? Then you’re motivated.
Maybe you think your not motivated enough. Perhaps if you were you wouldn’t have any trouble sitting down every day with your sketch pad and starting to draw.
Maybe you even begin to think that art might not be for you. Because if it was, you’d have no trouble practising. Sound familiar? Well, I’m here to officially let you know that you can stop beating yourself up.
You’re not lazy. You’re not unmotivated. Those are not your problems.
If we want to get into a regular drawing practice habit, to practice every day without fail, we just need to take a slightly different approach – a more positive and effective one that’s based on the way our brains actually work, not the way we wish they worked.
We can find that approach by understanding what habits are and how they are formed.
What Is a Habit?
Habits are represented in our brains by collections of neurons, which link together to create a pattern of thinking or behaviour that we fall into automatically. You can think of these collections or clusters as mental maps. They’re built gradually over time, and are strengthened by repetition.
Habits embed themselves into our daily routine when we make associations.
let’s say you always plop down on the sofa and switch the TV on when you get home from work. Over time, you come to associate switching on the TV with getting home from work so strongly that it happens without you thinking about it.
It’s a habit you might wish you could break, but struggle to do so, because over time you’ve built an association, one that’s so strong it’s almost impossible for you to disobey it. It’s become so deep-rooted that you literally have no choice in the matter – at least no conscious choice.
The Trigger
All habits have triggers. Your TV habit might be triggered by you arriving home from work. Or by finishing your dinner. Or putting the kids to bed. Something that you do every day, without fail, that’s immediately followed by picking up the remote.
Two powerful forces are at work here:
- Association. Neurons that fire together wire together. That’s association. When two sets of neurons fire together repeatedly – your ‘watching TV’ neuron set and your ‘finishing your dinner’ neuron set for example – links are formed between those two mental maps in your brain. These are not just metaphorical links. They are real, physical connections. When you try to break a habit it’s biology you’re fighting, not just psychology.
- Repetition. The more often we do something, the more it becomes hard-wired into our brains – literally. The more often a connection between two neurons fires, the more likely it is to fire again in the future.
These two things are the basis of all habits, good and bad. One reinforces the other. So if we want to create a positive new habit, the best thing to do is to use these two powerful forces, association and repetition, to help us do just that.
How To Create A Regular Practice Habit
OK, so we’ve decided that we want to get into a regular habit of drawing every day. How can we do that?
- Make it easier to repeat by starting small. This is really important. If you make your new habit hard at the beginning, you’ll run out of steam before you have a chance to get it established. When I first tried this, my habit was to open my sketch pad and pick up my pencil. That’s all. If I drew anything, that was a bonus (I always did).
- Use association to anchor your habit into your day. Decide carefully when you’re going to do your new regular practice habit. Choose a slice of uninterrupted time when you know no-one is going to disturb you. Early morning works really well. Now think about something you do every day, without fail, immediately before this bit of time. It might be putting the coffee on, it might be washing your face immediately after you get up. This act becomes the trigger for your habit, you do your new habit immediately after your trigger. With enough repetition you’ll build an association and begin to move naturally from your trigger to your habit without thinking.
- Take the time to feel good about it. Don’t forget this part. Every time you do your new habit, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Smile. Actually smile. It might sound silly, but this is a key part of getting the habit ingrained. When neural connections are accompanied by pleasure, they form much faster and more strongly. This is the essence of addiction, and why addiction is so hard to break. We want to become addicted to positive practice.
- Make it easier to repeat by preparing the ground. I’d recommend getting your materials and anything else you’ll need ready the night before. Get them ready now. Make it as easy as it can possibly be for you to do your new practice habit.
Sounds Great. Does It Work?
Yes. I didn’t make this stuff up. I’ve been doing this very thing lately and it really does work.
I came across this approach to habit creation at www.tinyhabits.com. You could do a lot worse than sign up for the 5 day habit course there, it’s free.
Here’s a couple of examples of tiny habits I started and where they’ve taken me:
- Regular exercise habit. I wanted to get back into exercising. At one time I used to ride my bike every morning before work, for just over an hour. Then I was moved to a different office with a much longer commute, and it became difficult to keep up. I fell out of the habit. To get going again, I decided on a trigger (brushing my teeth in the morning, one of the first things I do when I get up) and set myself the habit of riding round the block immediately afterwards.
Initially, the ride took only five minutes. It was easy. Very soon, I was into a regular habit and I started to slowly increase the time. After six weeks, I’m riding for twenty-five minutes every morning, without fail, and I can see and feel myself getting fitter.
At first, it seemed that there was no point to riding only for five minutes. And let’s face it, that wouldn’t get me fit. I was used to riding for over an hour, and anything less seemed like a waste of time. But starting very small, getting into the regular habit of riding every day, and then building on that is getting me fit, and I’ve found a level I can sustain – indefinitely.
- Regular writing habit. I wanted to write for this blog more regularly. So every morning, after putting the coffee on, I open up the latest piece of writing I’m working on (right now it’s this post). There’s no requirement for me to actually write anything. I have the computer booted up ready, and then as soon as the coffee is on I go straight to the computer and open the file.
In practice, I end up writing at least a little every morning now. I’ve built an association between putting the coffee on and sitting down to write that’s helped strengthen my writing habit.
This approach to habit forming really does work.
Commit Publicly
If you want an even stronger incentive, let people know what you’re doing. You’ll be much more likely to keep up your new regular practice habit if you make yourself accountable to someone. A friend perhaps, someone in your family. Tell them what you’re doing and let them know every day whether or not you’ve done it. You’ll be amazed what a difference that can make.
In fact, why not commit to it right here and now? I’ve set up a private forum for people who want to join me in getting a regular drawing practice habit started. It’s free, and a way to commit and get support from other people doing the same as you. You can join up at the end of this post.
Start Now
You’re standing at a fork in the road, right now, whilst you’re reading this post. At this very moment, you have an opportunity to change your future.
You can carry on down your usual road, or you can take a small leap of faith and try a slightly different path.
You’ve got nothing to lose.
If you start your positive practice habit today, tomorrow you’ll be drawing better. Only a little, but better than you are today. Where will you be in a year’s time? Two years?
You get my point. I’m trying to persuade you to take a small, initial step: Do these two simple things and they will have more effect on your learning than all the art books or courses you could possibly buy:
- List your anchors. Make a quick list of small acts you do every day without fail. Get up. Dry yourself after a shower. Put the coffee on. The simpler the better.
- Choose one. Select one of those anchors and make it your habit trigger. Immediately after doing it, you will open your sketch pad and pick up a pencil; go to your easel and pick up a stick of charcoal; squeeze out some paint onto your palette; whatever form your regular practice habit will take. There is no requirement for you to do anything beyond that.
There, you’re done. Now you just need to remember to do it tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.
Are You Ready To Change Your Life?
All right, ‘changing your life’ might sound a little dramatic. But if you get into a positive practice habit that you can sustain, you will have made an immediate change in your life, however small. And who knows where that might take you in a year or two.
Thanks for reading,
Paul
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As always Paul, your post is insightful and spot on.
Thanks Karen, that’s really good to hear. I do think this is one of those things that almost all of us struggle with at one time or another.
Hi Paul. Very good post. I see it the same way like you but have to say something “critcal”. As child you go every day to school at the same time. And since some years i do sports mostly at the same day and same day. But even i did school/sport for a long time and the connections in my brain shall be very strong, i really have no problem with taking a break from sport/school. Even worse: it was great to have free hours in school or have a good point to get not sweated (maybe because a friend wa visiting me or something). This is just an example for where a strong habit/trigger is exisiting but it’s really easy to let him go 😀
Anyway, you post was really inspiring!
Hi Simon,
Thanks for the comment, you make a good point.
But at least regarding school, there’s a difference between something you do because you’re unconsciously compelled to do it (like the example with the TV) and something you do because you have to (going to school). I think the difference is probably that your habits are things that you do naturally, without any influence form outside. Routines like school and practising sport at a set time are influenced by routines set by others.
I’ve been going to work at the same place five days a week for the last two years but would have no problem letting go of that. It’s not a habit in the same way that immediately opening my email when I switch on my PC is, it’s not something I do unconsciously. I think perhaps there’s a difference between what we might call routine and habit. I think we’re talking about different things.
But why not give it a go and see if it works for you? Try setting up an association for a positive habit and see if it makes it easier for you to keep that habit going. That’s what this post is really about.
Hi Paul- Very exciting stuff. I’d really like to join in on this challenge, though I will have to figure if I can tweak my schedule to allow it. I consider myself a professional artist–or at least I did before I had my daughter (now 2 years old.) Since her birth though I’ve had a hard time finding time and energy for my art. I wake every day at 5:30, but due to schedules and other issues I won’t bore you with, I can only manage 3 weekday mornings of studio time from 6-8, before the husband leaves for work. After that it’s full on Mommy time until evening, at which point I am ready to drop.
Aside from this though, I have another, and perhaps greater, mental challenge regarding production. When I enter the studio, given my time limits now, I am so strongly compelled to produced finished works that any thought of doing anything other than that seems like a luxury that I can’t afford myself right now. To be sure, I do need to do some production work in order to maintain the current professional relationships that I have. And yet I have very specific things that I KNOW I need to work on in order to improve and take my art to the next level. Intellectually I know I need to “just do it” but the work ethic combined with the time limitations is so strong that I just can’t seem to let it go. Any advice?
p.s. Looking back over what I’ve just written, I can see that this looks like I’m handing you a grab-bag of excuses, but I’m posting it any way 😉
Hi Jennifer.
I know exactly what you mean about finding time. We have a two year old little boy and finding practice time around him and a full time job is hard for me. And being a mum all day is decidedly more than a full time job. I know because I see how exhausted my wife is when I get home in the evenings. And on the days when I take over parental responsibilities, I feel how exhausting it is myself.
So that certainly doesn’t sound like a grab bag of excuses to me. It sounds like some difficult challenges that people who haven’t experienced that situation wouldn’t necessarily understand. I do!
The regular practice challenge is supposed to start very, very small. All you have to do to start with is sit down and open your sketch pad. You don’t even have to draw, paint or anything. Just make that five minute space.
For you, perhaps that five minute space is where you get to play a little, do something for yourself not subject to the demands of your market.
Once you have that small space in your day, you can experiment with it. Move it about and see where it fits best. try making it a little longer, a bit at a time, until you find a level you can sustain.
That’s what this is really about. Start really, really small, and then take it from there. Start with just opening your sketch pad. If you make a mark at all, that’s an added bonus.
Why not sign up anyway Jennifer, and perhaps as a group we can help you find a way to make this work for you? that’s what the private forum is for. If it doesn’t work out for you, there’s no shame in that.
Thanks Paul, I knew you have a toddler underfoot too, and that you’d likely understand. I really admire the way you find the time to write and do your creative work and studies too. Okay, I will give it a shot. I surely can manage 5 minutes…to start.
Fantastic Jennifer! Don’t forget to start a thread in the forum once you get in.
I’m just off to take this little toddler to the garden centre, but will be back soon 🙂
In addition to Jennifer i can just say that sometimes a fluent sketch is better then a perfect drawn picture. So even if you only spend 5 minutes the outcome can be very very good art.
You both could also integrate you little toddlers 🙂 Painting 5 minutes with them together. Would be interesting to see what they paint.
I knew some website where an artist re-painted child drawing. They were lovely.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathieus/what-would-a-childs-drawing-look-like-if-it-8q4
That’s a really nice idea Simon. I’ve got a few drawings of our little man but none of him actually drawing himself.
The other day I rolled out some wallpaper for him to draw on – the paper was bigger than he is! – and let him loose with some big charcoal sticks. Who would have thought such a little person could make so much mess in such a short time? He loved it. But so far it’s looking more likely that he’ll be a musician or a dancer 🙂
Hi Paul + Jennifer
No idea how you find time with a toddler – I am still struggling with the baby stage! They say hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it drives me mad to think how much time I used to have and wasted…the positive side is that I have much better time management skills nowadays and have learned to procrastinate a lot less. At the moment I don’t have a practise habit, but what I suppose I could call a ‘moving the mountain one teaspoon at a time’ approach i.e any spare 5 mins I get I try to do a little bit of practise. I’m up for trying the habit forming technique though, will see you in the forum!
Rosemary- I think one of the hardest things for me (beyond the lack of time/energy) is surrendering to the idea that things are simply different now. Having previously had 15 years of utter freedom to pursue art and career, I created a lot of suffering for myself initially post-baby, simply by harboring the expectation that I would operate in the same fashion as before. Well the game has changed, and life is much fuller because of it! But it’s time for a new game-plan. Still working that bit out, but it has helped just to realize that I need a new paradigm.
Simon- great advice. Just last week I actually annexed a part of my studio and outfitted it with a toddler easel, small table, finger paints, crayons, and lots and lots of dropcloths. 😉 Like Paul my daughter seems to have more of a proclivity for music right now, (much to musician Dad’s delight) but it will be fun to invite my her into my world.
Hi Rosemary, great to hear from you. I’m really glad you’ll be joining us. All that is sounding very familiar, particularly regarding time that could have been spent better!
Jennifer, I experienced that too, firstly when I went back to full time work and then when our little feller arrived. I think it inevitably takes some time to get used to a completely different situation. Our brains have to build lots of new maps which takes time, whereas circumstances can change on a sixpence!
On the plus side though, a major shake up in our lives might well be a very good time to be making some new habits because our heads are busy rewiring themselves anyway. Apparently, after toddler-hood and puberty, parenthood is the next life change that demands a complete rewiring of the brain (read that in a book somewhere recently, can’t remember which one) – which I’m sure all parents can relate to!
>dropcloths
Oh yes.
In writing one long standing technique is that rather than setting up minimum goals, you set up maximum goals.
So, all you have to do is open your word document, and whatever you type in fulfills your goal for the day, but you must not do more than 1000 words.
It is surprisingly effective, because after a while you really want to write more than your limit:)
Hi Thomas, thanks for commenting.
That’s a really interesting idea, one I’ve not come across before. I wonder how you’d apply that to drawing practice? A time limit perhaps?
I guess a time goal would be the best option.
1000 words takes 1 hour for most people on a good day. If you could do that number of words every day it adds up to three novels a year.
So what you are looking for is a maximum goal which is a little bit of a stretch but which is possible to do regularly.
Thanks Thomas, that’s certainly an interesting idea I intend to experiment with soon. I’m a bit busy with the seven day challenge right now though, and more than a little shocked to have over 70 people signed up!
Hi Paul,
Your post as always is spot on. Its all part of a return to the artist being an honest journeyman working in a community and not a genius who sits alone in a garret waiting for that masterpiece to pop out of the air. Art is something you do with you hands not your head.
Great post, and very motivating – thank you!
When I tried to get into the habit of drawing daily, I used this small website: http://dontbreakthechain.com/year
Basically, it is just a calendar tool which allows you to mark days on which you achieved your goal (pick up a pencil for at least five minutes..) and also counts them. It helped me to stick to it even on days I really had no time or was very sick, just so I wouldn’t have to “break the chain”. Maybe someone else who reads this might find it useful as well!
Cultivate a positive habit worth everything, even replace it with another less interesting.I found interesting the approach rotina and habit.
Paul, you are responsible for all us because you captivated us; I feel one in your herd.Thanks.
I hope this will help me find my way back to my practice thread with Paul.
Wow, thanks for the insightful post. As an art student I know I can utilize this practice, yet I do have a rather large discrepancy. I’m in between jobs, and have no schedule and very few habits. In order to increase my art flow, should I completely revamp my whole day-to-day into a more habitual manner of being?
(seriously, I may shower on one day, not the next, may go out to the store, may or may not drink coffee; I have a very fluctuating set of things I may or may not do, I blame ADHD)
Hi Randy,
There’s always one thing that you do every day, you just need to find it.
How about starting with getting up? The first thing I do when I get up is wash my face. That’s my trigger for starting my morning exercise.
If there isn’t something you always do immediately after getting up, then getting up itself can be your trigger. As soon as you get up, open your sketch pad and pick up a pencil. Habit done! Simple!
Remember not to push yourself to start with, just try to get that simple habit established.
First thing when you get up is a great time to start a habit. I find it’s much more difficult to get habits going later in the day when we’re starting to tire.
Hi there just wanted to give you a quick heads up. Thee words in your content seem to be running off the screen in Opera.
I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or somehing to
do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d
post too let you know. The design and style look great
though! Hope you get the issue solved soon. Manyy thanks
thanks! I’m sorry to hear it, but the site does work ok on the major browsers and I’m afraid I don’t have the time (or the technical know how, actually) to change it!
Hey, I just found out about your website and I really love your way of practicing, I was wondering if we could have a chat on Facebook messenger, because I want to hear your opinion on certain things .