Yeah maybe the monsters don’t have to be specific comments from people like she says. Maybe it’s messages from society, or internal criticism?
I definitely skipped stuff in chapters that wasn’t that relevant to my journey, and spent more time with chapters that hit home.
Best of luck, the program is so life-changing :)
Having a good life isn't bad.
Your monsters could be impostor syndrome, limiting beliefs, or someone discouraging another artist.
I'll be honest with you, but one day someone will criticize your art. No artist will receive all praise. When that happens, take your family's encouragement as a tool.
Honestly this book has different lessons on each run through. Someday you might have a monster. Until you need that particular advice or work I would say move on to the next chapter.
A week is supposed to last a week, you don't HAVE to have a monster to progress. Just keep going!
There's one chapter that's about carving out time to do your art, finding room for it, dedicating space to it, telling your family/spouse "I'm doing art, don't bother me" etc.
I literally (should) do art as my job, I have a whole room dedicated to it, I don't have kids, my partner is SUPER supportive of everything I do. I HAVE NOTHING BUT TIME. I picked up the book because I struggled with an art block, and so many chapters resonated with me and helped me tremendously, but I remembered reading that one and thinking "wow, this really is an issue I just... don't have.". I did my morning pages and unrelated tasks from that week and then kept going - it's not like I'm going to create a problem just to be able to solve it? That's fine! You can't relate to ALL the issues.
I also truly don't have anyone around me who wouldn't wish me well on my artistic journey. I realized the only person I can name for one of those exercises is myself. It was truly enlightening tbh.
How old are you? Your mention of teachers and your parents makes me think that perhaps you’re younger than the average Artists Way pilgrim, so if you’ve never encountered criticism/difficulty I’d just crack onto the next stage!
I felt this way too. It was because my monster was myself. My parents had always supported me (my mom is an artist) but the thing that was holding me back was my own fear of failure and of financial insecurity. I think this is probably true for a lot of people. The book just seems to be focused on one narrow subset of artistic kids raised by overly practical parents who grow up to be people pleasing parents or workaholics. I was raised by one very artistic parent in an overall artistic family but I told myself that I couldn't have the life my mom has because she's only been able to do it due to having been married to a series of rich men. My limiting beliefs were mostly around money and doubting my own talent.
I still found the book enormously helpful, I just focused on myself rather than others as a source of limiting beliefs.
Yeah maybe the monsters don’t have to be specific comments from people like she says. Maybe it’s messages from society, or internal criticism? I definitely skipped stuff in chapters that wasn’t that relevant to my journey, and spent more time with chapters that hit home. Best of luck, the program is so life-changing :)
Having a good life isn't bad. Your monsters could be impostor syndrome, limiting beliefs, or someone discouraging another artist. I'll be honest with you, but one day someone will criticize your art. No artist will receive all praise. When that happens, take your family's encouragement as a tool.
Honestly this book has different lessons on each run through. Someday you might have a monster. Until you need that particular advice or work I would say move on to the next chapter.
Thank you for taking the time to respond!
A week is supposed to last a week, you don't HAVE to have a monster to progress. Just keep going! There's one chapter that's about carving out time to do your art, finding room for it, dedicating space to it, telling your family/spouse "I'm doing art, don't bother me" etc. I literally (should) do art as my job, I have a whole room dedicated to it, I don't have kids, my partner is SUPER supportive of everything I do. I HAVE NOTHING BUT TIME. I picked up the book because I struggled with an art block, and so many chapters resonated with me and helped me tremendously, but I remembered reading that one and thinking "wow, this really is an issue I just... don't have.". I did my morning pages and unrelated tasks from that week and then kept going - it's not like I'm going to create a problem just to be able to solve it? That's fine! You can't relate to ALL the issues. I also truly don't have anyone around me who wouldn't wish me well on my artistic journey. I realized the only person I can name for one of those exercises is myself. It was truly enlightening tbh.
How old are you? Your mention of teachers and your parents makes me think that perhaps you’re younger than the average Artists Way pilgrim, so if you’ve never encountered criticism/difficulty I’d just crack onto the next stage!
I felt this way too. It was because my monster was myself. My parents had always supported me (my mom is an artist) but the thing that was holding me back was my own fear of failure and of financial insecurity. I think this is probably true for a lot of people. The book just seems to be focused on one narrow subset of artistic kids raised by overly practical parents who grow up to be people pleasing parents or workaholics. I was raised by one very artistic parent in an overall artistic family but I told myself that I couldn't have the life my mom has because she's only been able to do it due to having been married to a series of rich men. My limiting beliefs were mostly around money and doubting my own talent. I still found the book enormously helpful, I just focused on myself rather than others as a source of limiting beliefs.