“Create before you consume”

“Create before you consume”, I repeat myself every morning to push myself to make a drawing before going to work, ànd especially before grabbing my phone and browsing to social media or email.

It’s a phrase I heard Marie Forleo saying in a new year’s video 2 years ago and I find it the best advice ever. I tried to find the video to put the link in this post but I can’t find it anymore… If anyone finds it please send me the link 🙂 . With “consuming” I mean mainly surfing on your smartphone or on the internet, on Facebook, Instagram, emails,…. to get inspiration, see what others are creating. Social media make me get trapped in the comparison game where I get envy of the seemingly perfect lives of other people, and it’s a time sucker: I pick up my phone and I immediately seem to loose one hour of my day… It’s like numbing my brain.

It’s also an advice Julia Cameron gives in “The Artist’s Way”. Have you read that book? She advises even to stop reading books during a whole week. Stop reading books ?!? OMG that’s really difficult for me. I thought books were indispensable, but it’s also a way to give into resistance: the monkey in your head loves that you read instead of creating yourself : it’s a way resistance is keeping you from writing, from drawing and painting, from being uncomfortable and vulnerable… From making potentially a fool from myself because people might find my creation crap.

I’m taking a big step out of my comfort zone now: I created a drawing course for beginners : “Simply Draw It”. Every monday evening it’s “Simply Draw It” drawing night at my place in Brussels, and I also created a “Simply Draw It” workshop for beginning urbansketchers. I’ll make a blogpost and Facebook Event for that as well.

I’m really nervous about this: what if nobody’s interested? OUCH! That hurts… 🙁 It’s of course a possibility: maybe nobody’s interested, or maybe people just don’t have time for this for the moment and nobody’ll show up… whatever…. It’s the same fear as when you make a drawing: “what if nobody likes it or people find it even ugly?” Of course some people will find it ugly and not be interested. What if nobody buys the book you wrote?…

What are your fears that prevent you from creating?

Just write them down and…. keep on the doing the work, because the more you do it the better you’ll become and the more fun you’ll have and there’ll be always someone who loves what you do and find the beauty in it. And if you give beauty and smiles to people, you’ll get beauty and smiles in return.

Love,

Barbara

PS: As I can’t stop consuming, I went to an exhibition this weekend: here’s some inspiring beauty from artist/ illustrator Serge Dehaes. I love how he uses the watercolours and pencils to create this soft atmosphere.

Here’s his website: https://www.sergedehaes.be/