I grew up in a house where nothing I did was good enough, so naturally what I create will never be good enough either. Then I see people around me being well beyond my abilities and I cave.

I rationally know better, I'm well beyond that. I know I have potential a lot of the problem is the life i've lived thus far has not allowed me practice nor encouraged me to really go further with my abilities. I have primarily been surrounded by environments that made me feel like shit and not want to be creative.

Now that I have moved beyond it and feel like i am in a position to do something about it to address it I have found making routines for myself is what works best.

Things like, I'm going to draw at least one drawing (usually of something on my desk or I use an artist prompt randomizer to give me something to draw) a night. Quick little sketch and nothing special but it gets me to do it and practice a variety of things and not just one thing over and over.

I wish to code something? Well I will work on at least one small part of it a day if it's a bigger project like a skin. If it's a template I will do it in pieces in between posting replies.

I also work best while multitasking and will give myself more than one or two things to do as I find it helps me focus, likely because most things do not stimulate me enough to keep my attention otherwise.

I find setting the routines and the way to go about things helps me to keep from getting overwhelmed by what I am doing by doing to much at once but also keeps me steadily working at things so that they don't totally slip away, and if I need to I can pull something out of the routine for a bit and then put it back in later when I have the time again.

I'm the same way in the sense that I find it much more difficult to do things if I don't have a duty to some extrinsic entity to do them. What helped was noticing (and I do mean noticing) that I had an ever-present duty to myself.

i have a very similar issue where, and im not sure it's fear necessarily, but unless i have a fire lit under my ass, i have no motivation to work on the things i know i should be working on. well, i'm not sure if i have no motivation, or if it's just that i have more motivation for other, less important things. like... i love art! i love making art! i literally went to college specifically for art! but the second i graduated and lost that "you better do these things that'll help get you a career or else," i just... haven't been working on those things i should be working on, and i've ended up leaving everyone twiddling their thumbs like, "hey so have you done ANYTHING to further your career lately?" no. the answer is no, not really.

i have more time to get my ass into gear now more than ever, so why am i not utilizing it? i literally. have no idea. it's honestly something that tears me up inside thinking about and it makes me feel terrible, yet this very simple solution feels absolutely impossible.

i wanna say that the act of starting is really the hardest part. not to mention keeping at it till you start to make a proper habit of it is another huge obstacle. you stop and think for a second, "i should really get back to working on that project i started a while ago," but your hand hesitates at actually beginning getting back to it, and then you ultimately return to whatever other thing you actually have the motivation to do that mentally isn't nearly as hard to start because you've built up the habit.

i've said this before elsewhere but i legit would not mind making some sorta group with other people that kinda mimics a school/homework system. everyone assigns themselves tasks they want to get done in say, a week or so, then they have to turn that task in to everyone else by the end of the week to prove that they actually DID something. and then some kind of "or else" factor is implemented that they dont have control over to serve as motivation. this would probs have to vary from person to person but for me i'd say something like... withhold posts for a thread im extra excited about until i get important shit done. i think it'd work relatively well. but i can't light the fire under my own seat. i just don't know how anymore.

but anyway tl;dr, giant mood.

I NEED THIS MAKE IT MAKE IT