It's already been a week since I finished my 100 days project on instagram called #100daysofdoodlingthingsilove. It was the first time I did a project like this and I must say it has learned me quite a lot...
- About how making daily drawing time slowly but surely turns into a habit. I actually miss it now, even though I obviously enjoy my extra time too ;-).
- About how drawing often doesn't start with inspiration, but just with making time for it. Even, or maybe especially, when I don't feel like it. Somehow I've produced some of my most favourite sketches when I wasn't in the mood to draw. And also: drawing when I wasn't feeling like it (because of tiredness, lack of focus, a tight schedule or whatever), almost always made me feel better and gave me more energy in the end.
- About how my thoughts about a particular drawing (It's nice. It's crap.) are just thoughts... and other people often respond completely different to it. Which in itself is a lesson for me to be less judgemental about my own work, and just dare to put it out there... dispite of my own uncertainty and the flaws I see.
- About how persistently focussing on something happy-making day in day out, sets positive things into motion. It became easier for me to start drawing in the first place, without staring too long at the white piece of paper in front of me. I've started to feel more confident about my drawings (even the silly sketches). I've connected to many kind, creative people during these 100 days. And somehow I've gained over a 1000 new followers! (Huh? Say what??!) I certainly hadn't expect this to happen, but I'm happy and grateful people apparantly like my work enough that they want to tag along. Thanks to all of them! They are a big motivation for me to keep going.
- The topic I choose was quite personal and at first I thought: "Can I even come up with 100 things I love?". But the strangest thing happened: the further I came into the challenge, the easier it got to think up new drawing topics. I knew it already, but this challenge made it extra clear: you get more of what you focus on. So in this case I began to see "things I love" everywhere. This is why my project was also a daily gratitude practise... :)
- Most importantly I think these things I've learned are true in general for all I (or we) would like to focus on more. This gives confidence that whatever I choose to put my energy in on a regular basis, it will bring new insights and good things my way.
While working on mine, I loved following other 100 days projects on instagram as well. And it makes me curious of their, and other peoples, experiences too... Did you ever do a 100 (or other amount of) days project of any sort? How did it turn out? What did you learn from it? And are there any things we have in common? Or maybe you've experienced it completely different?
All in all I'm happy I've commited to this challenge 100 days ago! And I'll probably do it again in the future. Though maybe first a 30 days challenge to warm up a bit. ;-)
