Confidence…

Confidence is a funny thing. I can walk into a meeting, make decisions, solve problems and handle situations that would have terrified me years ago. Put a blank canvas in front of me, though, and suddenly I can question everything I know. Is that mountain too big? Is the horizon straight? Did I ruin the water? Why does that tree look like it survived a hurricane?

When I started painting, I needed reassurance constantly. I compared my painting to the reference and immediately noticed everything that was different. I saw mistakes before I saw progress. Somewhere along the way, though, that began to change. I started noticing the things I did well. A mountain had the right shape. A tree had depth. A wave finally looked like it was moving instead of sitting on top of the ocean. Those small successes accumulated, canvas by canvas.

The interesting thing is that confidence in painting has started to spill into other parts of my life. Painting gave me something that was mine. Not a job title. Not a role in someone else’s life. Not something I was responsible for managing. It gave me a way to look at something I created and say, “I did that.” There is tremendous power in those three words.

I still have paintings that humble me. I still scrape paint off, redo sections and occasionally stare at a canvas wondering what on earth happened. But I don’t interpret those moments the way I once did. A difficult painting doesn’t mean I cannot paint. It means I am still learning.

Maybe confidence isn’t believing you will always get it right. Maybe it is knowing you will be okay when you don’t. I like that definition much better.