Crackbook

[jsel]

I hate myself sometimes. I remember really pushing myself 2 years ago when I started, I did get frustrated a lot more about the results of my art which made it even harder to work. I recall being way more dutiful and hardworking and how good it felt at the end of the day once I had done over 10 hours of work. I remember watching the old Dan Warren streams that mentioned how much you gotta practice to make it in the industry and seeing multiple forum posts geared towards hard-work mentality. The 2 times I consistently worked hard was the summer of 2013 and the first 2 months of school in 2013. Both ended in a burnout, but that was because I had'nt learned to not be frustrated with the resulting artwork.
And now? What of this summer? I did a mere fraction of the work I could have done, I barely broke a sweat which is even more puzzling since I dont get frustrated by bad results now. Perhaps me being frustrated caused me to push myself harder, or maybe its just that my discipline has regressed to nothingness. Maybe I subconsciously feel like my art has reached adequate quality for the time I put in and theres no need to rush, since theres plenty of time left once I go fulltime freelance. Consciously I think thats bullshit. Ive been contemplating moving to a better apartment, when I go to school again, which would force me to work more, since I would run out of money otherwise, but it seems too risky. I wish I had that initial drive and dutifulness back, in all the ways Ive improved over the past, this is the one way Ive regressed.

TL;TR: how do I get my initial sense of duty back?


Ps: Even after writing all that self depreciating stuff I dont feel bothered at all. I mean, I should be mad, or disheartened by it, but I dont feel that way. Is there such a thing as being too carefree about oneself?

I'm feeling very similar man. I think the answer is to not get too attached to your results. If you are capable of seeing the mistakes you've made in a piece, take that lesson and only that - don't allow yourself to be emotionally perturbed by the mistakes, just fix them and move on.

If you're feeling adequate and carefree, but not where you want to be, then maybe you need to instill some anxiety into yourself. What if in 10 years you have this exact thought all over again? There's really not a lot of time in the human life span. It's just long enough to do some great things, and it's way too easy to wait until those things accidentally pass you by because you were feeling complacent. 

Conjure up some reasons to fight and focus on those as much as you can when your not doing or getting where you want. There's no time to be carefree.

Keep the fight up, and fight hard if this is really worth it to you. If you're not fighting hard, then it's not really worth it to you, is it?

Good Luck!