Psyching out

“I can’t draw at all - I cant even draw stick men!” This is something I hear a lot. It’s always adults who say it - never children. Children haven’t yet learned to prejudge their drawing skills and so allow themselves to just give it a try.

This is from Sketching People. But it could easily have been in any of the drawing books I’ve read recently.

Our own minds are such a barrier to learning that every book is compelled to justify their very existence. To insist that drawing skills, like almost anything, aren’t an inherent trait. That they can be mastered with time, practice and study.

Of course some people are gifted. They pick up things quicker and achieve heights the rest of us seem incapable. But just because I may never eclipse Ray Allen’s free throw percentage (89%) doesn’t mean I can’t become insanely good. And even he had to earn the first 80, (85?) percent the same as the rest of us.

When do people learn to make perfection a barrier to even trying? And how do we unlearn that?

My emphasis