Tag: Self-improvement

Improvement & Impatience: 3 years, 2 art works, 1 Kate
Art improvement does not happen overnight.
We know this. I know this. You know this. That old man sitting at a nearby park probably doesn’t care about art improvement but, still, even he knows this.
And yet.
It is the one of The Most Frustrating Thing Ever. Why couldn’t I just be good at the things I like to do in an instant? Like, why do learning curves even have to exist?? Why can’t I just become the next Einstein or the next Picasso or the next Marie Curie tomorrow???
You’re probably not as dramatically ambitious as yours truly, but I bet you’ve been frustrated and impatient before, right?
The Case of Improvement for Artists (hint: iz torture)
I love progress. And if you’re a self-improvement junkie like myself, obviously, one of your biggest goals in life is to consistently be a better version of yourself. But progress is slow and tedious and it kills me. (Well, not really literally. But you know what I mean.) Creative progress, especially, is a specific kind of torture for me.
See, I’ve always been an impatient person. But I’m more so an impatient creator. When it comes to my art and my writing, I want to hurry, hurry, hurry.
Hurry up and improve on your anatomy, Kate.
Hurry up and draw good noses, Kate.
Hurry up and write engaging stories, Kate.
Hurry up and create awesome content, Kate.
Hurry up, Kate.
I keep on pushing myself to hurry hurry hurry. That I need to keep moving forward. That I need to get better. And the thing is, in art, you don’t really see you’re improving. So I become even more greedy. I become more and more frustrated, and more and more impatient of myself.
Sometimes, to a point where I’m mentally scolding myself for not seemingly getting better.
We are our harshest critic already. But with myself and to myself, I am unforgiving. I never tolerated even an ounce of imperfection. It’s sad. Because we are also our most frequent company.
Can you imagine being in the company of someone so critical of you?
That drive for art improvement became toxic. I made it toxic, and it backfired. And so, in an attempt to gently remind myself that um Kate? You HAVE improved tho, I did the #DrawThisAgain art meme. It’s where you try to draw an old art and see the differences and changes.
I chose a really old work, one I did in 2016. Back when I still a complete watercolor noob and just starting out. I loved it — I still do. But recreating it with all the creative arsenal I picked up for three years, it was amazing.
And once I was done and took a step back, I thought to myself, “If 2016 watercolor noob Kate could only see me now…” I mean, I know she would never see the me now. That’s just how it is.
Who you are, right this second, will never get to see how much you’ll improve in the future.
But who you are, right this second, is also the only one who can look back to where you’ve come from and see how far you’ve come.
I now take comfort in having this truth. I’m probably going to tuck myself into it forever. Because, man, it’s far far better than the rusty old thoughts of “Not Being Enough.”
In business and management, looking at historical data is a sensible way of self-evaluation. But looking back is also a gift. A gentle reminder to your all-too-focused self, a small shift in perspective. That you are doing just fine.
So here I am, doing exactly that.
I first published this post on my Patreon page but I added a few words and wrote additional thoughts. You may see the original post, in its infancy, here.
Featured image by Yura Fresh via Unsplash
June 26, 2019
Perfection and Success: A Story of Cut Hands and Dreams Smashed
At 11:23 in the morning, a young girl who has only ever cooked eggs and rice in her life was in the kitchen with the stove top on. She was chopping an onion, preparing for her younger sister’s meal when she accidentally sliced her finger. As she ran around looking for Band Aids, she heard her uncle laughing in the living room. It was the kind of laugh that was three-quarters snort and a quarter derision.
“If you can’t even chop onions without hurting yourself, you’ll never be cut out as a chef.”
Now, the girl never thought she would ever be a Michelin-star cook. She has never even aspired to run her own restaurant. But those words still cut through her heart and crushed her.
I’m telling you this story for a reason. And I hope by now you get it.
We all have that one person in our lives, that young girl’s uncle. Someone who aces at being a Jamie Raincloud. A put-downer. A positivity vampire (you know, someone who sucks the positivity out of you).
And sometimes, it doesn’t even matter if what they’re saying is actually a big deal to you or not. You would still be hurt.
And as much as I want to explore that complicated area of feeling hurt on things that ultimately don’t matter, I want to take a rain check on that for now.
What I really want to focus here is that subtle nag at perfection and success the uncle in the story did. It’s like he was saying that the young girl, who has barely cooked a meal in her life, cannot be a chef just because she hurt herself in the middle of cooking. That someone completely novice can’t become a master all because of committing one common mistake.
Now, as an avid fan of Masterchef Australia for the past couple years, I think that’s loaded bullcrap.
I know for a fact that even home cooks, those people who are passionate about food and cooking, can hurt themselves in the middle of a panicky situation. Those well-renowned chefs only seem effortlessly perfect and successful in the kitchen now because of all the mistakes and little injuries they got early on in their careers. Mistakes that, well, they learned from. Their so-called perfection and success are only achievable by learning through their failures.
See, we all make tiny mistakes.
[bctt tweet=”To say that one tiny mistake can cost you your success or your career or your entire life is utterly foolish.” username=”@allthetrinkets”]
For years, I’ve had this voice whispering to me, my very own inner negative uncle. That perfectionist, positivity vampire telling me every tiny mistake I’ve done is pushing me farther and farther from perfection and success. I guess, these voices contributed to the anxious-filled, overthinking perfectionist that I have become.
Just last month, I was on my way to my first ever job interview. And I forgot to bring any valid I.D. to get inside the building. All throughout the bus ride, I kept thinking how I have screwed things up. They’re never gonna interview me because I’m incompetent. The HR of the company will whisper it throughout all the HR of all other companies in the city. No one will hire me. And so, I am an utter failure.
All these thoughts… because I left my I.D.
But see here’s the thing: I am still here. I’m still alive. And little by little, I’m moving forward. Making progress and achieving small successes.
Related: My Two Cents on Failure and How I Dealt With It
We, as a society, have reached a point where we condemn or ridicule every mundane mistake a person has made. And to be honest, it’s not a great time to be in. We can be so hung up on the smallest details and the tiniest flaws. So much so, that we forget to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
And I’m not saying mistakes are great. They aren’t, obviously. Mistakes suck balls. But judging someone’s character based on the mistakes they did is a bit… unfair, don’t you think?
So if you’re like me, beating yourself over every small mistakes you commit, here’s a reminder:
[bctt tweet=”No one should ever be measured by the mistakes they did. Your failures cannot measure what you are worth. And it should never.” username=”@allthetrinkets”]
It’s how you respond after such failures that matters more. Be it changing for the better. Or striving for improvement and progress, whatever that may be for you.
I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
How do YOU define perfection and success? Have you ever had a non-dream be shattered before? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments!
Kate xx
Photo from Lucas Swinden via Unsplash
April 29, 2019
The Lost Art of Trial and Error: Why we need to try and fail to succeed
Out of complete boredom, my younger brother borrowed my phone to play a Merriam Webster quiz.
And look hey. It’s not for the lack of games in my phone. I have one! A difficult puzzle platformer called Catbird. But my brother only wanted something to waste his time on, not his patience or his brain cells. And I get it; Catbird is basically like Flappy Bird. Definitely not something to just kill off boredom. But when I looked over his shoulder to check on how he was fairing, I was surprised at what I saw.
“What are you doing?” I asked him suspiciously.
“It’s okay,” he reassured me, “I have a plan.”
You know what he was doing? His grand strategy for the Merriam Webster quiz? He was clicking on random choices. Random. Like, zero consideration on whether that choice was the right one or not. I wasn’t surprised at all that he got a really low score afterwards.
I mean, how was that a winning plan?? You’re obviously bound to fail when you don’t think things through.
And then he did his grand game plan the second time. But this time, because the questions tend to repeat and he remembered the answers, he got more questions right. And he did this repeatedly until he passed.
Quite a cheeky strategy coming from my pure little brother, but it worked! So I figured this is something I could apply when playing Catbird. That instead of obsessing over winning, I could just try my best and learn from my failures.
Then I realized… whoa. This is a mindset I could have beyond games. I could apply it in my LIFE.
Perfectionism in games and in life
See, what I found disconcerting with my brother’s game plan was that it was not what is perceived to be a game plan. This idea of deliberately failing felt like an anti-thesis to the main goal of playing any game – to win. And as a card-carrying perfectionist, I was quite familiar with this.
Succeeding at first try is even next-level dopamine hit for me. And I’m sure it is for other people too. In fact, I recently found something on Pinterest about how to become a superstar blogger at day one, so I know I’m not alone.
The idea of being a successful blogger on your first try is also a kind of next-level dopamine hit. We bloggers have aspired to be that way, at one point or another. And maybe you still are.
The thing is, no one wants to fail.
Failing leaves an unpleasant taste to the mouth. We spray away failure like we spray away bad breath. We wouldn’t want to experience it if we could. This is why we want to succeed at first try. It means not going through all the awful feelings you get when you failed. It means going straight to medal. And foregoing trial and error is a concept that’s too good to be true.
But see, the heavy truth is this: Less than one percent of bloggers – or anyone for that matter – become successful at day one.
I admit, I pulled that number out of nowhere. And it really isn’t reflective of any statistics made on success. But you get my point.
Rarely anyone becomes successful at first try.
I already shared my two cents on failure before, and how it’s important. And I still stand on that ground. Failure is necessary for us to eventually achieve success. But more importantly, it is through failure that we learn from our mistakes. And eventually grow from it. And therefore succeed.
But how could we fail if we don’t give ourselves permission to do so? How could we experience failure and grow when we’re so adamant to avoid trial and error?
The Lost Art of Trial and Error
My mom, a mathematics teacher, taught me that when all else fails, when you can’t think of any other math technique to find the solution to a problem, do trial and error. It is the most underrated yet useful thing you can have for solving math problems.
Surprise surprise, it is also the most underrated yet useful thing you can have for solving any life problems.
But see, the problem with trial and error is that it is tedious. It takes suuuper long to get to the answer. And no one wants to take the long winding path, when they could just go for the shortcut. Honestly, even I don’t want to. But in this age of instant gratification, we’ve somehow completely forgotten the idea of trial and error.
When you start your blog, you want it to be seen and successful at day one.
If you’re trying out a new product, you want to see its effects overnight.
When you take on a new creative project, you expect things to go your way.
But you might not be successful at day one. You may not see if the product is effective until a month of consistent use. Maybe you’d reach a creative dead-end sooner than you anticipated.
Click to pin!
Maybe all you had to do was change a few things a bit. Tweak your process or try out a different one. Maybe you need to stop thinking things through so much and just click on whichever choice is in front of you. And if you make a mistake, you could always take notes. Eliminate that choice from your list for next time, and move forward.
And maybe, like my pure little brother with his cheeky game strategy, you too will pass your quiz.
I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
What do you think about trial and error? Can you think of a time when you couldn’t wait for the outcome to show? Share them in the comments below!
xx Kate
LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!
November 28, 2018
Trying everything all at once achieves nothing
When I was a kid (and I was unknowingly living the glory days of not having to stress over college) I used to play this game. I called it “Don’t Let the Balloon Touch the Floor.” It’s a simple game: you launch the balloon up in the air and not let it touch the floor. And I enjoyed it. I felt like one of those superheroes when they do that agility trickery-do. I felt like I could do anything.
Now, imagine what would happen if there were more than one balloon you have to keep from touching the floor. Imagine twelve balloons. Suddenly it’s not so enjoyable now, is it? It will become tiring. You’d have to be in different places and look at all twelve balloons at once. Before long, you’d be out of breath and frantic. You’d be overwhelmed.
That’s also what happens when you try to work on everything – and I mean every minute detail – in your life at the same time.
I find that high-achievers and perfectionists such as myself struggle with this. Not only do I try to juggle college and blogging and my art and the occasional freelancing I get. I want to do all of them at the same time – and do it per-fect-ly. I want to keep all these balloons from touching the floor because they are all important. They all hold significant places in my life. It just feels wrong to choose one from the other when I could do everything I can to keep all of them afloat, right? Right???
Wrong, Kate. W R O N G.
Look, I love Shakira and I love Zootopia and Judy but I don’t think this is what they meant by “trying everything”. And okay, there’s nothing wrong with trying to find that delicious middle ground where you manage to balance everything. Work-life balance is, like, every twenty-something’s dream. Being a Master Multitasker just feels like the Productivity Holy Grail.
But to perfectly manage every aspect in your life perfectly?? It’s just damn near impossible.
Here’s the difficult pill to swallow:
If you want to exercise more regularly, but also eat more nutritiously, and meditate, and be more productive and write more words a day and also, like, want to master crocheting all-at-freaking-once, can you possibly dream of achieving any one of those things?
(In case you’re curious, yes, that pill is still stuck in my throat.)
Surprisingly, there are people who could. But the vast majority of the world can’t. I can’t. A lot of the people I know can’t. And if you’re one of us and you’re agonizing over this, I want you to know there is absolutely nothing wrong you!
This simply means that you are human (not saying that those who can master multitask aren’t) and you have limitations. You can only do so much at a time. Some things, like self-improvement, are simply not something you can multitask. Trying to improve every aspect of your life all at once will leave you exhausted. Like trying to keep twelve balloons afloat.
Sure, maybe all of the things you have to improve are important. But you don’t have to accomplish them altogether. You can take on one thing and focus on only that one thing.
Instead of balloons, imagine you’re making pottery.
You have one lump of clay on top of the pottery wheel. You work your damn best and do your frakkin-hardest to turn that lump into a work of art. And when you’re done (and it will be a work of art, because I believe in your awesomeness) you move on to work on the next lump. Then the next lump. Then the next. Focus on one thing at a time. Until you’ve accomplished all the lumps you had to work on. Until all of them are works of art.
And look! You didn’t have to juggle everything all at once! Yay you!
Do you also struggle with wanting to self-improve on #AllTheThings? Would you rather multitask on personal goals or try one thing at a time? Share your thoughts below!
xx Kate
LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!
Photo from Ivory Mix
August 22, 2018