5 things I learned, painting for 30 days!

Short-term goals, for long-term success. We get pumped to achieve a long-term goal, and during the first few days of starting something new, we do everything in our power to achieve that goal. Fast. The problem here is we strive to reach somewhere ambitious ‘fast’. The very definition of reaching a goal far away is to not be fast! But be ‘consistent’. Being driven, pumped, and enthusiastic for the first 5 days won't guarantee you reaching your dream that requires, say ….60 days of persistent hard work. What you actually do is trigger your brain to think, your goal is right there- which pumps it in an attempt to reach the destination sooner, thus you put all your brain’s energy into reaching somewhere quickly. Only to reach a midway, where you feel all drained, and the goal still being far away!

And so you cant become overwhelmed at the start, thinking you can do it all and substantially reduce the time required to reach your goal. What you can and should do is learn to “enjoy” and give “ample time” to the skill required to reach that goal you want to achieve.

Yes, start motivated !! Yes, be excited at the onset of the journey to a destination, you so desire to achieve.

But don’t forget — it's not a sprint, it's a marathon!

That's why you won't see athletes breaking their bodies the first 5 days of January as part of a new year resolution, to leave it all… just by the end of the first week of the new year. They are consistently exercising on the first day of the new year and so are at it, on the last day !!

And that's what painting a single painting for 30 continuous days taught me. I set up short-term goals to complete a small part of the painting, and didn't give much thought to pondering upon how many days I will take to complete the painting? or How can I complete it sooner? I just immersed myself in the present, and most importantly enjoyed “painting”. I didn't contemplate being tired or getting sick of doing it over and over again, but just enjoyed immersing myself in the ecstasy I achieved, in completing the small part of the painting I did every day.

And before I could actually contemplate on achieving the goal, I did it! On the 30th day, my painting was complete.

I surely have read a lot in productivity, and psychology books about persistence being the key to success, but doing a painting project that required immersing myself in the process and actually enjoying the process, then truly actualized that concept of “persistency” for me!

Incubation period Habit takes time. I am not a painter or know anything about painting by any means. My mom is a great painter, but sadly I didn't get her painting genes. LOL. However, I do enjoy the process of “completing a task”. And that's why I picked up a short-term project of painting a canvas painting, which was intensely numbered, and one where I had to use the pre-provided oil paints to cover the white canvas with colors.

In the beginning, when I started painting, I felt uncomfortable. As everyone does so, with a new habit or with a new change! My back used to hurt, I used to feel tired after 5 minutes of keeping my hands strictly functional and disciplined while attempting to paint a small sliver of canvas with the color ‘x’. I used to find various reasons, to just give up the idea of painting, and call it a day! However, what I did enjoy was the timelessness I felt while painting. The feeling of accomplishment after a 30-minute painting session was worth the back pain!

And the feeling of love for painting grew stronger and stronger as days passed. Even if I didn't feel like painting the day after, I still convinced my mind to try it out for 5 minutes, just for the sake of being consistent. That feeling grew stronger and stronger, and that 30-minute session is what I started craving every day. I looked forward to it. AKA my painting task became my habit. And when a job becomes a habit, your brain is automatically triggered to follow it every day, like the breaths you take, without a thought!

What I am implying here is that habit takes time. It isn't going to be overnight that you start loving a new thing you have started doing. Whether it would be to exercise every day, brush at night every day, or drink warm water first thing in the morning every day.

And what bigger message I am trying to send here is that-

“Don’t beat yourself up for doing a task wrong the first time you do it. Trust yourself. Trust the process of repetition. And know that habit takes time !! Focus on just doing something better every damn time, with hope in your head that eventually, it will become like breathing. Effortless!

Perfection is not the answer. Perseverance is. I used to get very agitated if something went off course in the beginning days of my 30-day canvas painting project. A sliver of canvas I painted with the wrong color, an overflow of one paint into another paint’s territory. Small things like that brought my morale down quickly. I wanted to give up the project every second day due to a small mistake. Why? Because I was stuck with the very infamously famous perfectionist attitude. I wanted everything to be flawless. I was hard on me. I wanted to be perfect on a task I was doing for the first time in my life! But as I continually painted for several days, I realized that those small mistakes mean nothing in the bigger canvas picture. Even if a piece of art was not perfectly painted, it fits perfectly in the bigger picture. I couldn't see the flaws, I was so hard on myself. And I understood that as in this painting, so is in life that eventually…..it all phases out.

And so the takeaway I had from this experience of mine was, that mistakes aren't a bad thing. And mistakes don’t matter in the bigger picture of what we are trying to achieve.

And so is life. You may fail today in something, but you will do better in something else tomorrow. The only thing is “you keep at it”, and don’t fall into the trap of being a perfectionist!

AKA persistence over perfection, always.

Life is not a fairy tale! But it ain’t also something to regret. Commit a mistake, improve from it, and move on ……

Hard work is necessary but not a sufficient condition. One definitely needs to have passion for the task at hand. One should have a strong inclination to keep going back to completing the work, or enjoying the process of what you were doing until it's done! However, you just don’t need to complete a task, but actually “learn” to do something — that you want to be doing.

You can’t simply drag yourself into something for forever. If you do manage to do it. You feel definitely —

1. Feel drained and depressed

2. “Work” you completed — would be of substandard/ mediocre quality.

One can’t go forever on just the notion of earning money or passing time as much as possible — if he doesn’t have the much-required passion to do it. One has to feel “passionate” about doing a job. There are no two ways around it.

And a life lesson that the 30 days of intense painting session taught me about myself was, how much I loved drawing between the lines and making sure I fill all the colors in the required sections highlighted on the canvas. I learned about myself that I truly love the idea of peaceful work and that I enjoy something immensely if it has a well-determined path, and a goal at the end to achieve. It’s the peace process that I enjoy the most and not a lot of “ambiguities” in the process that I may have to maneuver around.

I loved the idea of being “creative” while following the process of “discipline”!

I was not a girl — who would love starting things from scratch. Being motivated about the unknown parts of life. Or being motivated by the idea of “uncertainty”.

I was a woman who enjoyed being creative, while being disciplined, and being “predictable”. I loved “predictability”. But at the same time — I loved the hard work a task at hand seeks, and the task to fill colors between lines was just the right task for me.

And that “passion” was the one that dragged me to complete the artwork — that required 30 days of 30 minutes each day of an amateur’s time, who had no experience in art.

And so if you feel, you don’t have a passion to do something- sure, you will be able to do it. But will you be “happy”, and “contented” and produce work of “exceptional” quality. I doubt it!! And so, think twice before you commit to doing something for life.

You are trading in half your life for the “craft” you commit your career too!! If your career is what you don’t really like!

Positive attitude above all. It’s easy to lose hope and stop believing that you can complete a high-tasking and hard work demanding job. Especially midway through your job, when you create a few mistakes — you blame yourself, for the mediocre performance. That's the time when it's critical, to believe in yourself, and not lose HOPE at the most important junction. AKA has a positive attitude to cut through the demotivation, you are feeling at the moment!

Believe that road bumps are a part of life. And that's what those moments of hopelessness while canvas painting taught me. The days where I thought — “Oh I am not a painter anyways, how does it matter, the painting is going to turn out ugly !”, or “It's taking so much hard work to paint something that's meant to be for 12+ age. I definitely am a failure at this.” were the days I used to remind myself that the project is not to just complete the painting but to enjoy the process. I capitalized on the feeling of joy and peace I used to get while painting, which was my actual aim !!

“I reminded myself…….These pleasurable times in my life were the actual goal I was after, but not the finished canvas painting result !”

And a positive attitude is what trumps all!

I am proud to show my (not that professional, but a product full of labor of love !!) painting. A project that taught me these 5 aforementioned values of life, and most importantly gave me the peaceful and happy moments for 30 days !!