Why All or Nothing is a Bad Idea
Yet, many of us practice this mentality without even knowing it.
“It’s better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything.”
-Winston Churchill
Are You an “All or Nothing” Person?
If I don’t have an hour, there’s no point in exercising today.
I wish I had more time for my art practice.
It takes me too long to get in the right mindset to start writing.
I rather wait until the weekend since I’ll have more time to work on my project.
Do any of these sound familiar?
Don’t fret, I’ve used every one of these excuses, and sometimes still catch myself doing so.
You see, we have this built-in mentality of limitation. If you can’t do it all, than it’s better to do nothing.
“The journey of a thousands miles begins with a single step.” - Lau Tzu
Many of you reading this article have children or perhaps nieces and/or nephews. How many times have you provided this advice?
“Look Kid! You better do it all or do nothing at all! There’s no in-between! There’s no such thing as practice or baby steps, you’re either first or last! Got it?”
I didn’t think so.
You’re more than likely to provide the following advice.
“Hey Kiddo! It’s okay to take your time, I know you have a lot going on with school and sports and everything. Just look for bits of time here and there to work on your project and your efforts will pay off!”
Doesn’t that sound much better?
If this is the advice we normally give others, especially children, than why do we easily fall into the “All or Nothing” mentality?
I believe it’s because many of us like to start and finish something during the same bout. We need a full hour to workout because we’ll have time to warmup, lift weights, stretch and cooldown. If we have to narrow our time just to the warmup and lift weights, we may feel that we are robbing ourselves from our precious routine.
So what do we do instead?
We do nothing…
Try 10 Minutes
For some reason, I struggled to maintain a daily sketch habit. I treated sketchbooks like a precious canvas only deserving of my best work. Often, I would resort to sketching on my iPad instead.
After finding Adam Ming’s Newsletter, “Ten Minute Artist”, this completely changed my relationship with sketchbooks. In just a smoke break (I don’t smoke by the way), I can open up my sketch book and just start drawing! No pressure!
If you don’t know Adam, he’s an incredible Kidlit Artists and Author of the popular “Ten Minute Artist” Substack Newsletter. Check it out here. Adam’s recent Picturebook, “Down the Hole”, with Author, Scott Slater, is a 2024 Barnes & Noble Children’s Book Award Shortlist! Congratulations, Adam and Scott!
I didn’t need to wait until Adam started winning awards to follow his advice. I decided that I could sketch for 10 minutes a day - No excuses!
If I don’t finish, that’s okay, just put some pencil on the paper, that’s all.
What happened?
I went from filling sketchbooks in about a year or longer, to filling them every 2-3 months! I was hooked! I’m making so much more traditional art and experimenting with new techniques!
Sometimes, I would follow along Adam’s prompts, whereas other times I would just draw whatever came to mind. Either way, I was drawing, consistently.
With 10minutes a day, you can draw for over an hour a week. Or, you can wait until the weekend to find that hour. And if you end up drawing for more than 10minutes a day, that’s okay, too! You might just find yourself drawing for more than 5 hours a week with a daily consistent practice.
Closing Thoughts
Next time you find yourself saying, “All or Nothing”, why not give yourself a little more flexibility and “Just Do Something”, even if only 10minutes at a time?
Invest in yourself, the compound interest will make you rich in creativity!
Have you sabotaged your goals with any “All or Nothing” excuses?
Thank you for reading JUST ONE THING!
Until next time, keep drawing, keep writing, but most importantly - keep dreaming!
I think your king with coin is my new favourite of your illustrations. His expression! He looks like he just can't believe how fortunate he is. 😍