Start before you’re ready
The first step is always the hardest. You can plan and plan, but when it comes to the real deal - the push, it’s suddenly too hard. You find a million reasons to postpone and fill your time with other things.
I started my art journey in 2020, in the midst of the big C. I bought myself an Ipad and an Apple pencil. Solely for creating art and making a business out of it. I can’t remember when was the last time I had been so excited about something. All I wanted to do was draw.
I’ve always liked drawing - especially doodling. I used to doodle on the margins of my notebooks in school. But I didn’t like art classes in school. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough and I was judged on how good I was doing realistic drawings. A way to kill creativity, am I right.. I didn’t start drawing again until in 2015 when I was living in New Zealand. After that I got a spark to start making cards and prints for friends and family.
The idea of making a business out of art felt so unreachable, I didn’t even consider it a possibility for me. And I guess looking back, I would’ve not been ready to make that decision any sooner. I needed to find other things in life in order to get to this point.
It took me another 6 months to make an Instagram account for my art after getting the Ipad. I felt so nervous. I didn’t know anything about marketing, algorithms or how to grow an audience and I felt like I should’ve already known all of that.
But that’s the thing; You don’t. You just need to start. We’re all new at something. After 3 years I know a lot more about algorithms, SEO and marketing and my art has improved considerably. But I still wouldn’t know all of it had I not started. Yet, I’m still not ready. I have so much more to learn. The difference is that I have allowed myself to be bad at something new - well at least most of the time.
So my advice to you is; Start now. Even if you’re not ready. Because you never will be.
