Gut Instincts: Your Creative Intuition On Track

 

Introduction

When we’re immersed in our arting, when we’re really in the thick of it, it’s easy to veer off track and into the weeds. It happens to the best of us! It’s normal and natural, just a part of arting, especially when we’re beginners or learning a new skillset or media. But since it so easily happens, how do we know when it’s happened? And then after that, how do we get back on track? Heck, how do we know we even have everything right in the first place? 

These are very good questions that have some pretty big answers, but boil it all down and it comes down to our artistic gut instincts. What are those? Well, they’re our visceral creative inclinations and urges, our creative intuition that underlays everything we do. They’re literally what tells us when we have it right or wrong, when something looks off or spot on, and even guides our troubleshooting and explorations. So we may think we’re creating with our heads and knowledge base know-how, with our clinical Eye and savvy skills, but nope — it’s always our artistic instincts that operate as the overriding subroutine. Everything else we ever do creatively is built on them and fueled by them. So quite literally, those artists more in tune with their gut instincts tend to create better work for two main reasons. First, their arting is kept in better check because that creative intuition is usually always on the mark. Then second, they're driven down avenues of discovery that ring more true to their Voice because those gut instincts are directly connected to it. So in a nutshell, if we plug into our artistic intuition, too, we'll automatically set ourselves up for more assured success and authentic work. 

So if it’s our gut instincts that really shape our clay or smear around our pigments, how do we connect with them more effectively? Can we game this system in our favor? And the answer to that is — yes! So let’s explore all this in the spirit of helping you refine yours to kick your work up a notch or two with a lot more natural ease!

Our Guts

Creativity resides within everyone — it’s our genetic heritage. No? Well, think about every one of our ancestors from the distant past to the present and it’s beautifully clear that our bloodline is defined by creativity. As Elizabeth Gilbert puts it…

…all of your ancestors were creative — all of them. You and I and everybody we know were descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. The entire world, for better or for worse, has been altered by the human hand, by human beings doing this weird and irrational thing that only we do, amongst all our peers in the animal world, which is to waste our time making things that nobody needs, making things a little more beautiful than they have to be, altering things, changing things, building things, composing things, shaping things. This is what we do. We’re the making ape. And no one is left out of the inheritance of that — that’s our shared human inheritance.

But too many people don’t know how to tap into their latent, instinctive creativity, or as Brené Brown observes…

There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.

As such, we may seek external influences for inspiration, and often with failure not far behind. This is because we’re overlooking the very powerful internal inspiration-generator that won’t only spark creativity, but elevate it to surprising heights — our artistic intuition. This deep-seated knowing comes from within us, reliably guiding us to effective problem-solving and innovative artistic directions.

So what exactly is this gut instinct feeling? Some would call it style and aesthetic, our Eye and perception, our themes and narrative, our Voice, our creative drive and desire to create, but really, our artistic guts instincts are much deeper than that. Truly, they aren’t some nebulous feeling or touchy-feely faux experience — they’re a very real response to a very real situation. They are actual and inexplicably tangible, you can even feel them…in your guts. Indeed, our gut has as complex a neural network, the enteric nervous system, and in fact, it’s believed that our “gut brain” was the first one in evolution. Science has even found powerful connection between mood and our gut brain, among other critical connections. Indeed, the gut is the producer and storage area of about 90-95% of our serotonin! We also have a lifetime of experiences stored in our noggin as well as a subconscious radar that picks up on cues and clues from the situation unconsciously. Pair all of that with our pattern recognition response, and we have something that science claims is our gut instincts. Perhaps that’s true, but I would argue that it goes even deeper than that, into something more unexplainable and mysterious.

Regardless, all together then, our creative intuition is our ability to comprehend or deeply know something instinctively without needing conscious and clinical reasoning or analysis, or even other people’s opinion. It’s that ineffable inner sense that guides our most effective decisions and troubleshooting. Being so, it can appear as sudden revelations, hunches, nagging inclinations, or an abiding sense of just knowing and, as such, has a tremendous, even overriding influence on the creative process. Indeed, our gut instincts can instantly take our piece, even our work, in entirely new directions! This is because our best creativity relies on finding fresh solutions to conundrums as well as making keen connections between seemingly unrelated aspects, or finding new esoteric patterns to improve the technicality or artistry of our work. For that then, our gut instincts cultivate the flow of all this, inspiring our mind to make novel associations that challenge convention and dogma. That’s to say, many people think that inspiration strikes out of the blue, and can even be so ethereal, it can vanish just as fast. And yes, this is true to a point. But we can game the system with this key idea: Tap into our artistic gut instincts and inspiration will often flow out like a river! Indeed, it’s in our creative intuition where inspiration actually derives, it’s the wellspring, so if we can access that at will, we’ll never be at a loss for that creative drive.

Truly, for artists, our artistic guts can be the momentum driving their work, providing a strong sense of purpose, clarity, and direction. It can also help them access their unconscious mind to pull out innovations, fresh ideas, and novel perspectives that spice up their portfolio. It’s also our creative intuition that busts past convention, especially our own, as well as fueling our leaps off plateaus or even helps to cure burn out. What’s more, our creative guts prepare us for any artistic challenge by allowing us to access that part of our being that naturally conjures up effective troubleshooting and new directions plus the courage to tackle them. Honestly, by trusting more in our creative instincts and releasing our grip on our overthinking analytical mind, we can often bust through a roadblock, whether it’s a lingering problem with a piece or our own artist block.

Regardless of what our guts instincts are though, we should know what they aren’t. They aren’t our thinking, our mind, our intellect, our analytical interpretation of what we create, in this case, equine realism. They aren’t even our mind’s eye. They exist beyond rational thinking and clinical knowledge bases, yet drive them forwards into new pathways of discovery even so. Yet the mind is easily swayed by error, bias, knowledge gaps, prejudices, and a flawed perception filter. So if we trust too much in our mind, we’re going to run into trouble often in the form of habitual, stale, and formulaic work, entrenched conventions, and artistic plateaus.

Likewise, our guts aren’t our heart and soul, either. They exist beyond our emotions in that way, that’s more in the realm of our creative joy-circuit. Nevertheless, our gut instincts inform our emotions, sometimes profoundly so, though they exist even deeper than that. In that light then, if we lean too much into our heart’s desires we risk a lot. For instance, we can end up validating things contrary to our convictions if we get too caught up in such feelings. Or we can veer into anthropomorphism or touches that are stylistically unrealistic as we’re swept up too much in the feels as we create.

Our artistic guts aren’t an impulse either. Impulses are an immediate response to a stimulus driven by strong emotions which can lead to impulsive directions that aren’t so well thought out. Our guts, on the other hand, are much more sophisticated, thoughtful, and informed, much more of a knowing than an impulse. In short then, an impulse is a reaction whereas our intuition is an understanding deep in our guts.

Our creative intuition isn’t the voices in our head either, being more of a deep feeling rather than the overthinking mental chatter in our noggin. We feel our creative guts deep down. Like some folks will actually feel an actual resistance or tension if their inner self is saying, “no.” Then when it’s a “yes,” they’ll feel an inherent lightness and elation with the direction they’re going. It’s simply a knowing, a deep down knowing that’s a bit mysterious.

Most of all, our creative intuition has little to do with our fear. Indeed, our fears can be noisy and pushy, but our intuition is calm, clear, and persistent. So we need to recognize the distinction between self-doubt and a real gut feeling.

So while our mind can lead us astray with biases, our heart with unrealistic excursions, our impulses down problematic paths, and our fears right into a block — our gut instincts? Curiously, they rarely — if ever — are wrong. Always follow your creative guts! On the flip side though, sometimes our guts can conflict with our mind, our heart, our impulses, and our fear, which can be confusing. However, lean into that intuition more! It’s typically always the one with the right answer, the one with all the correct clues for the direction we need to go.

So if it’s either an illuminating a-ha moment or a nagging sense that’s something wrong, the key is to stay closely attached to our artistic guts to guide our work along the routes it's supposed to evolve.

On Track

When our intuition is on track, it acts as a guiding inner compass to help creatives bypass blocks, fears, and overthinking to breakthroughs and fresh, innovative ideas. Know it or not then, this inner knowing is the very nexus of our creativity, the sum of everything we do and the generator of it all at the same time. In fact, there are clear indicators of an intuition that’s humming along, such as:

• Avoiding block and burnout: Want to bust through block or burnout? Dive into that artistic gut instinct to bust out new perspectives and directions. Indeed, any effective strategy designed to knock us out of that speaks directly to our creative intuition since that’s where inspiration derives, where our artistic drives are spawned and fueled, and where our intuitive decisions take us in our work. 
• Mental library: If we’re practicing our observational skills properly, our mind stores all sorts of data we can access later as we work. So when a gut feeling pops up, it can draw on that mental library to better guide us.
• Busting convention: Even our equine realism art form needs a good shake down from time to time in order to come closer to that brass ring. Being so, it’s our gut instincts that push us to chase after hunches and a-ha moments rather than always falling back onto stale habits and safe conventions.
• In the groove: When we learn to trust our creative intuition, all that inner noise, negative self-talk, and fear quiets which helps to generate that “in the groove” focus where our best, even our most innovative work emerges from. That zone comes much more naturally, too, where our creativity becomes effortless and second-nature, allowing our intuition to become that much more effectively potent.
• Greater economy: Our creative guts inspire us to circumvent overthinking and overworking to make stronger and more economical decisions and strokes. We simply are able to do more doing less and more confidently without second-guessing ourselves so much.
• Originality wellspring: When we follow our creative intuition, original work is a natural by-product. This is because our artistic intuition derives from our subconscious which can inspire unexpected breakthroughs, novel inspirations, new ideas and directions, and surprise innovations with so many spontaneous associations.
• Our Voice: Best of all, when we derive our work from our artistic guts, our Voiceful authenticity purifies and intensifies, leading not only to novel work but also more artistic authority and potency. Indeed, our Voice is to be found in our creative intuition, so once that flows, a stronger Voice naturally comes.

Clearly then, attending to and tapping into our creative guts is monumentally important! So how do we do that in practical, effective ways? Well, consider these many tactics…

• Quiet the mind: If we aren’t hearing our artistic instincts, our mind may be too busy. So apply quiet time, meditation, or listen to music to dampen that. Also put down those devices, that’s a big first step. Consider, too, nature walks, playing with pets, or doing something completely different for a time. Truly, in our noisy, fast-paced world today, distraction abounds making it challenging to listen to our artistic intuition’s voice. So to cultivate and amplify those gut feelings, create some space every day for some inner quietude and solitude, some mental silence to allow those intuitive thoughts to seep through.
• Art without judgment: Do some free-form, no-expectation sketching or doodling for about twenty minutes each day as this relaxes the mind and allows it to make novel associations. Even journaling, art or written, can do wonders for this effect.
• Record ideas: Start a notebook full of any creative idea that pops up in our head, no matter how fantastic or unlikely. Also record any hunches, a-ha moments, inspirations, or intuitive insights…just get it down so it’s not lost. This allows us to not only find patterns and inclinations better over time, which helps us to better decipher the language of our gut instincts more, but it also lets us step back and analyze them through our mental lens. For instance, what about a specific inspiration excites us? Scares us? Draws us into it? Or causes us to hesitate? These are all clues that can help us amplify our gut feelings and so our creativity.
• Be present: Fully practice the philosophy of wabi-sabi, of being truly present in the process, in the creative moment, without a care for the outcome. Often in doing this, our intuition will take over and lead us into a creative groove and through to a much more successful and joyful result.
• Celebrate mistakes: Similarly, we should embrace imperfections in our work. Dump perfectionism. You see, intuitive work usually involves trail and error, experimentation and exploration. So quit with the negative self-talk and appreciate the joy of the learning experience and that newb energy. Above all, trust that our creative guts will guide us into our next form with growth and metamorphosis.
• Let it lead: Once we tap into our creative guts, let it lead the start of a new project and drive it forward. Then apply rationality and logic later to shape, refine, and correct the work because trusting our creative instincts doesn’t replace our need for craft. Indeed, the initial stages of blocking in often have a special magic to them for precisely this reason.
• Engage intuition: Studies have found a relationship between the brain’s alpha waves and creativity. These alpha waves happen when we’re awake and relaxed, with a soft focus and a wandering mind. So if we find ourselves in those soft mental moments, why not simply ask our gut instincts what to do? Really, the more we learn to listen to it, the stronger it becomes.
• Study reactions: When we’re trying our new ideas, what are our emotional reactions to it all? Study the emotional cues. Was it enthusiasm? Joy? Anxiety? Hesitation? Whatever our emotion response is could be our gut instinct speaking to us. Just remember this — it’s normal and natural to feel a snidge of anxiety trying something new, but if it’s an overriding level, that’s different. Regardless, embrace those emotions that stir a strong positive or negative response since they’re often derived from our deep self, our creative guts, and so have the potential to really shift our paradigm.
• Trusting ourselves: We need to not be afraid of being wrong! We’ve got to embrace error and imperfection if we ever hope to hear our intuition in it’s pure and most powerful form. So we need to trust ourselves and leave fears behind because second-guessing ourselves and overthinking inhibits the flow of our creative intuition. Instead then, consider going with first impressions, feelings, thoughts, and strokes to get into the groove, then let that intuition take over. Honestly, trusting our artistic instincts is critical for amplifying our creativity. Truly, we should believe that it’s a valuable and reliable inner voice, and have faith that our intuition will lead us down the right path.
• Build confidence: Recognize and celebrate any success, small or large, that resulted from using that creative gut! Absolutely, the more confidence we build with this, the more likely we’ll lean into it and use it.
• Embrace the unknown: Our artistic intuition will push us towards unknown, unproven, and maybe a little wild creative territory, maybe even down rabbit holes. In short, it will drive us to bust through convention and break from what’s safe and familiar…welcome it. Follow where it leads, like Alice chased the White Rabbit. This is the pathway to innovation and new directions in our creativity, and we should let our guts be our compass in this uncharted new journey.
• Trust little steps: If we need, we can start small when learning to trust our artistic guts. So perhaps choosing a straightforward narrative or tricky color is a doable first step, then follow where our intuition leads and voilá…we’ve learned to lean into confidence building more.
• Stay sensitive: We should try to stay in tune with our creative guts, remaining sensitive to its urges and voice. Do this often enough, and we’ll become more confident tapping into it as well as our aptitude to use it will improve.
• Recognize patterns: Studying our journey with a particular piece after it’s done is a nifty way to tease out the edges of our creative guts. When did we listen to our instincts? When did we not? How did that all turn out? What lead to breakthroughs and revelations and what led to the formulaic, stale choices? What else propelled or inhibited our progress on the piece, and how did that tie into our artistic drives? By considering all this, we not only gain an insight that leads to more trust and confidence, but also perhaps modes to open up our intuition even more to put it to work with new efficacy.
• Vet feedback: We can seek respected peers to get some positive-minded feedback to confirm if our instincts were on the money or not. This helps to build self-trust and confidence and to see that — yes — they were on the money.
• Lead with intuition: To really get those creative juices juicing, starting with our intuition first to follow with intellectual processes second allows us to best use both in balance. It also allows us to determine if our instincts are aligned with our skillset and goals so we can tweak whatever needs calibration. This is because our art form needs instinct to foster fresh ideas but also structure to make our work accurate, so find that balance and we’re well on our way. In short, follow our guts first, always, then follow up with reason.
• Conducive habitat: Playing music while we work can be a powerful inducer of our intuition by moving our emotions, inspiring visions, and triggering primordial subroutines in the brain keyed to music. Also, creating a studio environment that’s more of a sanctuary than a workspace with happy reminders of what makes us happy can also relax our mind and allow our intuition to emerge. Just as importantly, we should surround ourselves with positive like-minded peers with whom we can share our experiences, challenges, insights, and instincts for affirmation, inspiration, and camaraderie.
• Stay current: Stay in pace with the trends, techniques, innovations, evolving ideals and standards, and other developments in our art form given they align with our Voice and goals. Indeed, the more informed we are, the better our skillset and ideas, allowing us to refine our gut instincts and therefore our creativity to stay on that crest of innovation.
• Remain reasonable: We should stop overthinking our work so much all the time, and that includes a mania for perfectionism. All that noise and anxiety quells our artistic intuition when it’s exactly that which we need to guide us through our problems. We need to get “into the groove” with our gut instincts and overthinking simply prevents that.
• Validate as needed: If an intuition seems way out of left field — which can happen — step back and do some research or get feedback to validate it. Even a quick reality check can be helpful. Not only does this help us trust our intuition, in whatever direction it goes, but it often does well with some judgment in the mix from time to time.
• Adhere to boundaries: Following our artistic intuition doesn’t mean we can jettison deadlines, practicalities, or what not. Rather, use those precious instincts to amplify creativity but within the constraints of the schedule or the needs of the piece.
• Actively play: Experimentation, exploration, and creative play are vital components to coaxing out our creative instincts while also teaching us to trust them. Above all, practice this without judgment or rigid expectations, leaning instead into curiosity and a sense of discovery. This will help to work around our dogmatic filters to inspire more intuitive thinking and associations.

Off Track

So now that we now so much about being on track with our intuition, what’s it like when we’re off track? It’s a bit tricky, admittedly, since our intuition is such a primordial, unnameable quality, isn’t it? “I just know it in my guts,” right? It’s ineffable and indescribable. But the good news is, attend to it, and that’ll have a positive ripple effect in everything else we do. Indeed, if we know when we’re off-kilter with it, we can troubleshoot it. So what are these symptoms? What can inhibit our intuition?…

• Overthinking: Overthinking and overworking our work, the noise of our rational mind, drowns out the instinctive voice of our creative guts. Practice exercises and relaxation techniques to quiet that mind to allow that instinct to come through.
• Negative self-talk: When we don’t trust ourselves or our skills, we just won’t trust our guts to carry us through. We may not even hear our guts at that point. And it’s not a matter of having a ton of confidence either, it’s more of a willingness to make mistakes and to trust that we can learn and correct them on the fly.
• Anxiety or fatigue: A lot of stress or simply being exhausted will inhibit our emotional, intuitive, and rational clarity, making it far harder to tap into our creative guts. Find a way to chill out and get some rest. Never forget that our intuition needs sleep and a calm mind to come through. "I need to sleep on it" can be a literal requirement.
• Conventions and biases: Unchallenged prejudices and rigid expectations can inhibit or disrupt what our intuition is tell us, leading to decisions that are skewed, too stylized, even incorrect or heavily biased.
• Social media: Put down the devices! All that external noise and voices in our heads, with all those opinions, pressures, expectations, advice, blather, or vitriol won’t only drown out our intuition, but even make it difficult to distinguish it from these outside influences.
• Dampened emotions: If we’re prone to squishing down our emotions for whatever reason, we may also squish down our gut instincts as well or at least mute them into something that feels more unreliable. Artists need to be highly attuned to their emotions not only to convey strong narratives and artistic perspectives, but even more, to be closely connected to their creative guts.
• Unclear values: If we’re not sure of our creative ethics, values, and convictions, particularly with an animal at the mercy of human impositions, we won’t hear our artistic instincts calling out to us about the narratives and visuals we choose. Only what’s good for the equine is good for our art, but we’re one more step away from that if we don’t listen to our artistic intuition.

Conclusion

Creativity blooms with practice and devotion, yes, but also with the ability to conjure up novel inspirations and perspectives. So while our skills are honed with consistency and hard work, our creative intuition is our underlying ally that frees us from the hardline of logic and opens up vast new possibilities and observations. As such then, our creative guts will allow us to access more profound and authentic work as well as boosting our art joy by inducing us “into the groove” more often and naturally.

So adopt that wabi-sabi philosophy, seek quietude, and don’t fear the unfamiliar, and sooner that we think, our intuition will emerge to inspire our imagination to guide our hands in fresh, innovative ways. Being so, we’re going to discover more risk-taking moxie and that usually translates into one thing: Exciting new artistic metamorphosis. Because — yes — believe it or not, but even our highly technical art form benefits immeasurably from this transformation, taking our work to heightened degrees of realism and believability.

Ultimately though, embracing our creative instincts is a personal journey of self-discovery and evolution. We each have an innate artistic wisdom within us, waiting to be tapped, so do that and we’ll find that we won’t only stay on track with our artistic instincts, but also with our art joy. Spending more time “in the groove” isn’t only good for our work, it’s good for us, too, by improving our sense of well-being and balance, and with a renewed satisfaction in an art form we love so much. So deep dive into those creative guts for an intensified creative experience that won’t only improve our work, but our satisfaction with it, and I can’t think of better instincts than that!

"For me, intuition is the DNA of an artwork — its nature. Intellect then molds the work — its nurture.”

— Sheryl Humphrey

Gut Instincts: Your Creative Intuition On Track

Creativity and Doubt: Unleashing Your Artistic Potential

Introduction

All creatives wrestle with doubt. It’s simply part of the creative process, of being a creative in the first place. Yes — even those who are wildly successful and established live with a constant flurry of doubt. It’s inevitable and inescapable. 

And make no mistake — doubt isn't to be trifled with! Honestly, it can be absolutely devastating to our creative drive, rendering us unable to create at all, even for a long long long period of time if left unchecked. Artistic block? Anxiety? Lack of confidence? Welp, that’s all a function of uncontrolled doubt running rampant in our studio. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Because while doubt can be an absolute downer, it can actually be something worth harnessing! Yes, really! Why? Well, in its benign form, it can actually lead to better work and bigger ideas. This is because doubt introduces ambiguity into our process and therein lies limitless potential! 

So how do we coexist with our doubts, even put them to work for us in a way that propels us forward rather than holding us back? Happily for us we have several strategies on our side to help befriend our doubting natures, so let’s explore them to help us make fast friends with our doubts!

Inducers of Doubt

Let’s first consider those aspects of the creative process that can generate doubt, as follows:

• Evolving skills: Maybe we’re fighting our methods or media because we're still learning them or we’ve actually evolved past them. It’s time to go back to the drawing board or try new stuff!
• Grail chasing: Perhaps our outcome isn’t as consistent to our Vision as we wish. This can be very confusing and frustrating, so maybe it's time to either go back to the drawing board or accept what the Universe has gifted us as it is.
• Raw wounds: Maybe our past artistic struggles are still fresh in our mind and our anxieties. Maybe someone was thoughtless and unkind. Unfortunately, our memory is long and nagging. Any struggle bad enough sticks with us which can cause undue stress and hesitation as we dive into a new piece.
• Chasing windmills: Are we too fixated on perfectionism? This is the surest way to invite doubt into our process, particularly the worst kind of doubt that will cripple us.
• Big investment: Could it be that the expensive body or body we picked is giving us pause? This can really be so intimidating because we don’t want to ruin it.
• Take the leap: Maybe we're on the cusp of a breakthrough which is why things are so uneven and odd. Truly, when things seem most wonky, it usually means that we’ve evolved so quickly, our hands just couldn’t keep up.
• Uneven development: Maybe our hands are out of whack with our perception, pointing to a problem with our translation phase. Here's the kicker, our Eye evolves faster than our hands or our skillset, creating a maddening gap in what we want to achieve and what we can at that moment, leading to feelings of doubt-ridden inadequacy.
• Worried over the outcome: Perhaps we're afraid of failure and judgment, two things that can just stop us dead in our tracks with serious doubts with our abilities and Vision, and even our worth. Or maybe we’re afraid of what’s worse — people simply ignoring our work. All this can cause us to second-guess everything! But creativity is inherently an act of vulnerability, and we need to learn to embrace and make peace with that at some point.
• Wrong priorities: Are we chasing external validation? This is exactly the wrong way to go about creating art because it opens the door some misguided priorities that can introduce needless doubt into our creative drive.
• Feel lost: Do we need more structure and guidance in our process? It’s easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the process as there’s so much to account for in equine realism. Do we need to build in more organized steps, maybe even a schedule? Do we need to find a mentor or maybe create within a classroom setting? Truly, unlike the hard sciences, art has no right answer but an infinite number of right answers. This can make arting rather full of uncertainties because without a solid measure of success, how do we even know if what we're doing is good? 
• Fixation on perceived mistakes: Here’s the big fact of things — only we see and fixate on the perceived flaws in our piece. Everyone else just sees a beautiful piece of equine art! So maybe it’s time to adopt a more wabi-sabi perspective to ease up on that self-flagellation. We should work to congratulate ourselves more than indulging negative self-talk.

And that’s just the start because there are always custom-made causes unique to each of us, too. But boil it all down and doubt is simply an outcropping of insecurities (our fear) which lead to hesitations that can rock us to our core. So learn to make friends with your fear, and you automatically take one big step towards reconciling with your doubts, especially the troubling form of doubt. So on that note…

Five Flavors Of Doubt

We need to understand the five basic forms of doubt if we ever hope to tease out aspects we can put to work. Because knowing these five forms — and how they’re all normal and natural — can really give us a hefty leg up on that horse!

First, there’s friendly doubt. This is the high form of doubt, the one you want to befriend. Why? Because it’s a potent motivator towards helpful problem-solving and better art. Specifically, friendly doubt entails the specific piece at hand. There we are, humming along on our piece when we eventually — because it always happens — run up against the question, “Is this working well aligned to my Vision?" Every artist stops and asks this question periodically throughout the process: Is this piece turning out as I intend? It’s natural and normal, and a  healthy question to ask, being an intrinsic part of the creative process. You see, we have this gleaming, inspiring Vision in our head, our governing concept for how we want it to turn out, the target we shoot for. So it's only natural that we’d pause and take stock every so often, right? Of course!

But maybe it’s not on target, maybe it’s veering off into left field a bit, maybe a lot…maybe it’s turning out nothing like we envisioned. Or maybe things just aren’t clicking and we’re left wondering if this piece will ever work. First determine if this all is just a function of an ugly stage — because that’s normal. Every piece has one, two, or multiple ugly stages, always “trash before the lash.” If it’s not though, now it’s time to problem solve so we apply our tactics and — bam — we have our answer and off we go. And if our Muse runs those subroutines well enough, we usually get our answer as well. But here’s the pickle: This problem-solving and correction would’t have happened had doubt had not been introduced! In other words, that piece is better because of the doubt. In this way, friendly doubt is a marker of a thoughtful and careful artist. It means we’re questioning, searching, and exploring. In fact, if we aren’t engaging our friendly doubt, like if we have no doubt at all, it could mean we aren’t doing things right.

Second, there’s hostile doubt. This is the bad one, the low form of doubt, the destructive one we want to dampen and avoid, even ignore. While friendly doubt deals with just the specific piece, hostile doubt deals with our creative life en total. Being so, it presses the questions:

• Is my creativity all just pointless?
• Why am I trying to be artistic at all?
• Do I even have any aptitude or talent?
• Why am I even doing any of this?
• Will I ever be good enough? 
• Why can't I be as good as so-and-so?
• Even if I was great, would it even still matter?
• Am I just a fraud, an imposter in all this? 
• Are all my achievements just a fluke?

And on and on. So while friendly doubt can get us thinking we might need to rethink or even scrap that piece to start again, hostile doubt compels us to wonder if we need to stop arting all together! Yikes! As such, this is the doubt that sets up artistic blocks which can last for years, even a lifetime. The thing to know about hostile doubt though is that it’s an irrational feeling based on hyperbole and so it cannot be tackled rationally. Unfortunately, we all know how it feels — nothing can perk us up when in its throes! This is because hostile doubt is actually a reflection of how much we love arting. Yes — yes it is. Really, we wouldn’t have such a strong opposite reaction if we didn’t love our creativity so much, right? So it hurts to think that what we love is pointless, worthless, and useless. It also painful to house so much resentment towards our inspirations, our efforts, even those artists we feel outpace us.

Third, there’s comparative doubt. This is the middle form of doubt, the one that can push us to new heights or dash us on the rocks of despair, all depending on how we manage it. We abut this brand of doubt when we compare our work to others or doomscroll studios on social media, or we compare our achievements and awards with that of others we regard as successful. Can you see how this can go either way? Yeah, that. Now it’s good to be inspired by other artists so don't worry about practicing that spin if we wish. Just don’t slide let it into the dark side of comparison because that’ll lead right to hostile doubt, in spades. Avoid that at all costs! Just know that it’s often unavoidable to compare our work to others. We’re human after all. But science has shown that the best way to practice this is to compare ourselves to another a rung or two up, not someone who’s at the top of the game. The former can lead to better work while the latter typically leads to hostile doubt. But even better, rather than comparing our work to others, think instead about comparing our current work to our previous work, looking for all the progress we’ve made. That’s a far more healthy form of comparison, so really lean into that instead.

Fourth, there’s Visionary doubt. This is the taskmaster form of doubt, the one that both guides our efforts or beats us up if we “fail.” Look, our inspiring Vision is potently perfect in our head, isn't it? Of course it is! It has to be powerful enough to get us off our duff to create it. But the thing is, the only place it’ll ever be perfect is there — in our mind's eye. It can never — never ever — be as perfect in real life as it is in our inspiration, and that’s something every artist must reconcile simply to function. So don’t fall into the trap of hostile doubt when that piece falls short of its Vision. That’s to be expected!

Fifth, there’s personal doubt. This form of doubt is seated in our self, deep in our own personal psyche and rooted in who we are as an individual with all our nature versus nurture qualities. Maybe we’re shy, timid, and introverted by nature which can inject doubts into our process a lot more than typical. Or maybe we’re bold, boisterous, and extroverted and so don’t have doubts at all, which is just as problematic. Or maybe someone was cruel to us with our work which has poisoned our well. Maybe we did a huge public faceplant with our work and that public humiliation and shame squished our confidence and moxie. Or any number of reasons that influence our arting today in relation to doubt. The point is, we need to face these nature versus nurture relics and somehow make peace with them if we ever hope to manage this form of doubt well enough to not only stay creative, but to also evolve and grow.

The Upside Of Doubt

Believe it or not, doubt does have its positives! As long as we latch onto those positives and actively smoosh the negatives, our work will actually improve and our enjoyment making it will bloom because a lot of those anxieties we may have will have a healthier context.

So while hostile doubt will deter us, friendly doubts generate a questioning mindset that asks us to consider alternate creative options, preventing us from opting for the formulaic, easy, or predictable answers. So a certain amount of doubt keeps our thinking flexible and adaptive that cannot come any other way. This is a bit counter-intuitive since so often it’s confidence that’s often presented as the key to success. But nope! The more we understand the creative process, the more we realize that the opposite is true: It’s doubt that leads to the questions that improve the work, even initiate creative evolution. Doubt simply generates innovation and originality in both concept and design, making doubt not a weakness but an artistic superpower, one necessary for finding new solutions or directions. As Milton Glaser phrased it, “Doubt is not a weakness; it is a way to avoid dogmatism. When you are confident in something, you tend to seek only confirmation of your beliefs, while doubt forces you to explore alternative paths.” In short then, it’s in doubt where we find creative freedom, not in confidence.

In fact, confidence can become a creative trap that shoehorns creative thinking and discourages the exploration of other options. Indeed, when we believe we have the correct answer, don’t we stop searching for others? Don't we reinforce what's familiar, safe and proven, what’s habitual and formulaic, and then doesn't our drive to explore new perspectives get thrown out the window? As such, too much confidence will lead to artistic plateaus, artistic rigidity, and stagnation whereas doubt keeps our perspective lively, evolving, adaptive, and limitless. While confidence corrals, doubt liberates. It turns our process into an explorative journey with many different options and though not all of them will pan out, still, that exploration invites invaluable insights. Put another way, doubt simply keeps us questioning our assumptions and conventions, a powerful way to invite evolution and experimentation to explore new avenues potentially more fruitful.

Indeed, that’s a big difference with a seasoned artist — they don’t fixate on what’s already been explored nor do they always quest after what’s conventional, safe, and “correct.” Rather they design an environment of exploration, experimentation, and discovery that encourages ideas to collide, evolve, and spontaneously pop into existence. They understand that creativity isn’t about following "correct" dogma but more about ongoing exploration and discovery. This makes every new piece a wonderful opportunity to challenge convention and to reject obvious answers, opting instead for what’s fresh, new, and innovative. In other words, every piece that’s truly fresh was first founded on a series of doubts that kicked what was expected to the curb. It’s doubt that cultivates this attitude by busting through boundaries, dampening complacency, and confronting assumptions. Indeed, if confidence was the trick to success, we’d all be creating by a set of rigid, predictable formulas, right? Yet creativity does best when built on the explorative journey and it’s doubt, not confidence, that fuels that forward.

In fact, it’s doubt that gets us to sidestep pedestrian solutions and can even inspire us to ask some uncomfortable questions about what we’re doing and why. This is actually a healthy practice, albeit not always pleasant, because doubt helps to make our work more complex and compelling. Indeed, sometimes great work requires ambiguity, and doubt cultivates that.

So if we step back and big picture it then, we find that those who are convinced they already know everything they need to know are the least able and likely to learn anything new. In contrast, those willing to question their assumptions and revise their processes tend to rocket ahead rather quickly. This is the power of doubt. Always asking ourselves pointed questions about the whys and what-ifs will strip away the encrustation of our conventions to make room for new understandings. In essence, the seasoned artist understands that creating within uncertainty, to create comfortably with ambiguities without quickly rushing to judgment, is often the better course. Instant thinking, knee-jerk reactions, overconfidence, and conventional thinking can actually erase critical data. In this way, doubt doesn’t narrow the options, it broadens them, it doesn’t weaken our vision, it cultivates it.

Strategies For Coexistence

So now that we know that doubt isn't all bad but is in fact an integral benefit to our process, how do we grasp onto the friendly doubt and kick the hostile doubt out the door? Well, to start, there are different strategies to handle friendly doubt, such as:

• Do proactive study, field study, and research.
• Study the work of admired peers for guidance to see how they tackled similar challenges.
• Query a mentor or respected peer.
• Remember the piece’s original inspiration or spark, and return to it.
• Do some collaborative work.
• Work on something else for a while.
• Do some doodling and sketches without any expectations.
• Engage some artistic exercises.
• Reevaluate feedback — solicit more or jettison it?
• Revisit and study previous work.

In fact, do anything necessary to jog that friendly doubt into working for you rather than against you. Now when it comes to hostile doubt, there’s no managing it. It will eat you alive. So don’t even try engage it, run from it — seriously. So some ways to tell to get stuffed are such:

• Take a break from our brand of creativity for a while. Try something wildly different like ceramics, print making, beading, glass-blowing, or visit a paint n’ sip, or take some art classes.
• Spend time with family, friends, and pets.
• Try new techniques, media, and processes. 
• Do some experiments.
• Participate in a challenge, even one quite different than what you regularly do.
• Go for nature walks and hiking, or horseback riding.
• Lower those expectations! Yes — crank those down. This doesn’t mean you don’t care about your work, but it does mean that perhaps your expectations are unreasonably too high and need to be brought back into balance.
• Never ever judge, redo, trash, or even look at the work in question while in the grip of hostile doubt. It lies to you —  nothing it tells you is truth — and so it will tell you that the piece is junk when it’s actually quite nice and salvageable. So walk away from the piece to save it, coming back to it much later when you can better see the truth of things.
• Show yourself grace, all the time! And revisit those first feelings of invigorating inspiration when you first started the piece, even when you first started to create art. Always remember to “go home,” as Elizabeth Gilbert would put it.

There are also many other tactics to help us coexist with doubt in a beneficial way, tactics that should become part of our skillset, too, such as:

• Do not ever — never ever — attach or tangle up the self-appraisal of your work with sticky stuff like self-worth, self-esteem, and external validation. You are important and valuable regardless of your art! Rather, focus on creating and improving your work on one thing — personal satisfaction. Keep plugging away on it in the faith that you are worthy of it and in the spirit of curiosity, and you will improve as a natural by-product.
• Continue to show up to do the work — that's the real trick. Just keep making more art because that’s how we get better, no matter how fast or slow that goes. So learn to enthusiastically say, “screw it” and just create more art. Who cares what anyone thinks of it! “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free,” said Georgia O’Keefe, and that’s the headspace we need. Also consider this bit of wisdom from Andy Warhol, "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” Bingo!
• Engage curiosity at every turn. When this becomes a primary motivator, catastrophic doubt just doesn't stand a chance of taking root!
• If that imposter syndrome raises its head again, understand that most of our self-criticisms come from our insecurities, not from fact. Your achievements are valid and well-deserved!
• Remember that we’re our own worst critic! What you see as terrible flaws just won’t be seen by others.
• Don’t creatively pretend to be something you aren’t — honor your Voice at all times! So what if your work doesn't look like so-and-so’s? It's your art alone and it’s just as special and magical as anyone else’s! The point of your art is to use your Voice purely and boldly, whatever form it takes, not to create like someone else.
• Dump perfectionism and adopt the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, the embrace of impermanence and imperfection. Talk about freeing your creativity!
• Understand this strange dynamic — what you love most in your work will often meet with crickets and what you dislike most will often be met with the most kudos. No kidding! It’s bizarre! So the point is you’re doing better than you think so stay open-minded and keep forging ahead.
• Remember that your Eye advances ahead of your hands, which creates gaps between what you expect of yourself and what you’re actually able to produce. So regularly do artistic exercises to keep that gap as small as possible as you evolve and progress. It’s empowering and practical.
• Employ philosophies that turn fear into curiosity, insecurity into excitement, and doubt into actionable solutions.
• Always remember that doubt is normal. Even those with the most achievements and success are loaded with their own doubts, too. We’re human, remember.
• Embrace this concept: The only way around it is through it. You have to push through your doubts in order to get past them. Be courageous, be bold, be thoughtful, and absolutely, be self-forgiving.
• Never forget that every piece goes through several ugly stages, so if it looks awful, power through it and trust that process! Whatever you do, don’t trash it out of hand. Take a step back, problem-solve, vet critique if need be, and have faith in your process and abilities.
• Interpret each new piece as a stepping stone to the next. Or as Ed Gonzales puts it, “Each horse is practice for the next.” No truer words about arting have been spoken! 

The Power Of Creative Faith

It’s not always easy, and sometimes you’ll flounder, but maintaining a sense of artistic faith in yourself can be a powerful antidote for doubt, particularly hostile doubt. Trusting in your ability to problem-solve on the fly, to bounce back from a blunder, of releasing your grasp on perfection, and even to cultivate your ability to create within the sphere of ambiguity all work together to keep doubts in a better context to put them to good work. Indeed, the unwavering belief that whatever you create, regardless of the outcome, has an intrinsic worth and unquestionable value helps along your struggles in creativity. You also come to understand that all the doubts and internal challenges you face while creating aren’t signs of weakness or unworthiness, but hallmarks of the love, diligence, and seriousness of your ambitions. Because ultimately, what is doubt but a reflection of the great care you put into your work?

To bolster your creative faith then, practice patience with yourself and seek positive reinforcement from peers, mentors, family, and friends. And always trust that you’ll get to your goal, even if you just chip away at it little by little at a time.

Conclusion

Perhaps it’s clear now that doubt isn’t your enemy — quitting is, not starting is, negative self-talk is. You see, doubt gifts us with the freedom to rethink and revisit, to actually make our work stronger, more Voiceful, better. Where certainty ends, that's where our potential begins! Now sure we need a measure of certainty in our technical art form because it give us the biological rules we need to create within. Even so, certainty is quick to stop asking questions and will double-down on what has already been established, making risk-taking that much harder, risk-taking that's necessary to take our work to the next level. In turn, doubt swoops in to restore the uncertainty needed to become flexible and adaptive again, compelling us to question our assumptions and habits, to test convention and pose new possibilities. This is exactly how new innovations, ideas, methods, and aesthetics emerge, aspects we need to explore from time to time in our work to keep it fresh and evolving.

It’s pretty clear then — when everything about our work seems crystal clear and set in stone, that’s exactly the time to start doubting. This isn’t to destroy what we’ve done, but to confirm that it’s the correct way forward. We need doubt to confirm our choices and directions. So wrap it all up, and it’s simply part of our journey to always struggle with doubt. Yet too much doubt can implode our efforts but too little can lead to stale, formulaic work. We have to find that middle ground, that greased tightrope to balance between these two extremes to march steadily forward in an artistically authentic way.

So whatever doubts you’re trying to tackle now, know that you aren’t alone. We all have our own poking us with sharp sticks. But employ the discussed strategies, remember why you love creating equine realism, practice creative faith then lather, rinse, repeat, and you’ll be well on your way with allowing doubt to catapult your work to untold new heights! In doing so, you’ll have learned one powerful way to unleash your true artistic potential, and there’s no doubt about that!

“You are a child of the universe, 

no less than the trees and the stars; 

you have a right to be here. 

And whether or not it is clear to you, 

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” 

― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

Creativity and Doubt: Unleashing Your Artistic Potential