06-29-2015, 12:13 AM
Glad to hear you're alive (or undead?) still Zombie. Keeping good habits is a problem for most of us I think. We cant rely on spontaneous inspiration to motivate us usually. Discipline is whats needed most of the time to keep improving at a steady pace. Unfortunately discipline isnt something you can develop overnight. It takes discipline to build discipline XD Its a muscle that needs to be used in order to get stronger.
Have you tried meditation? One of its many benefits is that it builds discipline. I need to do it more myself. Its taken me from the most undisciplined person ever to a moderately disciplined person. For a long time I didnt understand what mediation was but a few years back I got more interested in learning about it. To sum it up briefly I could say its all about not identifying yourself with your thoughts. You practice identifying yourself with the awareness of your thoughts. How many times have you known what you wanted to do but your thoughts crept in and prevented you? Your thoughts convince you you'll fail so you dont even try. You can try and counter the negative thoughts with positive thoughts but all this does is add fuel to the fire and puts you in conflict with yourself.
Mediation allows you to identify negative thoughts when they appear in your mind and gives you the ability to simply disregard them without adding fuel to the fire. You're not turning thoughts off but just learning to see them for what they are. A tool our brains have evolved in order to solve problems. Its so good are finding and solving problems that it creates problem that arnt even there in order to solve them. All thats needed to meditate is to pay attention to the sensation in your body. Things like the rising and falling of the stomach (breathing from the diaphragm not from the chest) as you breath. The feeling in your hands and feet ect. Thoughts will sneak back in. When that happens and you catch yourself getting wrapped up in thought bring your attention back to the breath. Each time you catch yourself in thought its like doing a push up with your awareness. The more times you become aware the stronger the awareness in you will get until its strength will more easily overpower thoughts. That wasnt so brief and forgive me if I seem preachy.
Also I know the feeling of going backwards. Just remember that its next to impossible most the time to see your own improvement happening. That and your abilities in art are like any other abilities you have. You need to warm up before your eye (or visualization ability) and hand (or muscle memory) start to work together. It takes typically an hour to warm up before you get in the zone. So some days you'll start drawing and get discouraged because your rusty and you think you should be able to draw better than your best drawing from a year ago. But that best drawing you forget only happened after you had thoroughly warmed up in both your eye and hand. So stick in there and dont get discouraged. That ability you used to create your best work is still in you. It just needs some coaxing to emerge.
Sorry for the wall of text. I got kinda carried away... Good luck in Scotland!
Have you tried meditation? One of its many benefits is that it builds discipline. I need to do it more myself. Its taken me from the most undisciplined person ever to a moderately disciplined person. For a long time I didnt understand what mediation was but a few years back I got more interested in learning about it. To sum it up briefly I could say its all about not identifying yourself with your thoughts. You practice identifying yourself with the awareness of your thoughts. How many times have you known what you wanted to do but your thoughts crept in and prevented you? Your thoughts convince you you'll fail so you dont even try. You can try and counter the negative thoughts with positive thoughts but all this does is add fuel to the fire and puts you in conflict with yourself.
Mediation allows you to identify negative thoughts when they appear in your mind and gives you the ability to simply disregard them without adding fuel to the fire. You're not turning thoughts off but just learning to see them for what they are. A tool our brains have evolved in order to solve problems. Its so good are finding and solving problems that it creates problem that arnt even there in order to solve them. All thats needed to meditate is to pay attention to the sensation in your body. Things like the rising and falling of the stomach (breathing from the diaphragm not from the chest) as you breath. The feeling in your hands and feet ect. Thoughts will sneak back in. When that happens and you catch yourself getting wrapped up in thought bring your attention back to the breath. Each time you catch yourself in thought its like doing a push up with your awareness. The more times you become aware the stronger the awareness in you will get until its strength will more easily overpower thoughts. That wasnt so brief and forgive me if I seem preachy.
Also I know the feeling of going backwards. Just remember that its next to impossible most the time to see your own improvement happening. That and your abilities in art are like any other abilities you have. You need to warm up before your eye (or visualization ability) and hand (or muscle memory) start to work together. It takes typically an hour to warm up before you get in the zone. So some days you'll start drawing and get discouraged because your rusty and you think you should be able to draw better than your best drawing from a year ago. But that best drawing you forget only happened after you had thoroughly warmed up in both your eye and hand. So stick in there and dont get discouraged. That ability you used to create your best work is still in you. It just needs some coaxing to emerge.
Sorry for the wall of text. I got kinda carried away... Good luck in Scotland!