Navigate the Creative Wilderness: Tips to Overcome Doubt

1. Welcome to the Dunes of Doubt: [MUSIC] Do you ever doubt your ability on your creative journey? Do thoughts creep in that tell you your work is not good enough, that you're not experienced enough, or the worst that you're not good enough? Welcome to the dunes of doubt my friend. An all too familiar space on the creative wilderness map that we're visiting in today's class in the creative wilderness tip series. Hey, I'm Liz. I'm an illustrator and creative educator in New Mexico, and I own a creative company called Prints and Plants. I have spent many years navigating the highs, lows and unknowns of the creative wilderness. Now, I am so excited to share my field notes and tips with you in this series so that you can gain more confidence on your creative track and know that you're not alone out there. There have been so many moments on my creative journey when I've doubted my work, my creative style, and myself. But I've learned over time that doubt is just a normal part of the creative process. I've discovered some tips to quiet that doubt so I can confidently move forward on my creative journey. Today, I'm sharing those tips with you to recognize when you've entered into the dunes of doubt, so you can confidently move beyond that doubt into the rest of your creative journey. Are you ready to go? Let's get started. By the way, if you've taken one of the classes in this creative wilderness tip series before and are already well acquainted with how it works and what you need, then you can jump right ahead to lesson number 4. 2. Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about your creative wilderness class project. Your class project for this portion of the creative wilderness tips series, is to print off the creative wilderness field guide PDF and fill out the dunes of doubt section. In this section you'll find the following prompts, minimal viable products, make it fun, turn towards service, list your accomplishments, and release proving. You'll learn about these prompts in this class so that you can fill them out in your field guide. You can find the creative wilderness field guide linked in the Projects and Resources section of this class. You can find that by navigating to the Projects and Resources tab, and going to the right-hand side of the page where you'll see Resources and you'll see the Creative Wilderness Field Guide linked and ready to download. Once you've finished filling out this class portion of the field guide, go ahead and upload it to the Class Project section. You can do this by navigating to the Projects and Resources tab and clicking "Create Project". Once you're here, you'll see a few options to share your project. Go ahead and fill in the project title with the name of this series. In the project description, you can add images from your completed field guide by clicking "Image". This will bring you straight to your files where you can select the images you'd like to upload. You can also type additional observations from your experience in this portion of the creative wilderness into this space. Once you've included all of your images and observations, go ahead and go to the Cover Image section to upload an image for your project. Again, you'll be brought to Your Files, where you can select your image. Click "Open", and then place it just how you want it in the cropped space. Press "Submit". Make sure that when you're finished uploading everything, you hit "Publish", that way it'll go to the Class Project Gallery. In the next lesson, we'll go over the materials you'll need for this class. I'll see you there. 3. Gather Your Materials: In this lesson, we're going over the materials you'll need for this section of the Creative Wilderness journey. For this class, you'll need your Creative Wilderness field guide, a pen, pencil, or writing utensil of choice, and a phone to take a photo of the completed field guide and upload to the class project section, and that's it. In the next lesson we'll go over how to recognize when you've reached the dunes of doubt on your Creative Wilderness Trek so that you can take steps forward confidently on your journey. I'll see you there. 4. Recognize the Dunes of Doubt: In this lesson, we're chatting about how to recognize when you've reached the dunes of doubt on your creative journey so that you can more smoothly navigate this territory. In our last class in this series, we were on process plateau, where we talked about what it feels like to be bored with your creative process and how to keep moving forward when it feels like nothing is happening or working. If you haven't taken that class yet or want to refresher, you can access it by going to my profile page and navigating to the creative wilderness tips section. The stagnancy and boredom of process plateau typically leads you straight into the dunes of doubt, where you'll start to question your creative ability, your creative intuition, your skill level, and your capability as an artist. Rough? But also totally relatable because the dunes of doubt is such a common and frequent stop on the creative wilderness track. The dunes of doubt can show up no matter what your skill level is or how long you've been out here in the creative wilderness. So how can you recognize that you've entered into the dunes of doubt to take steps forward on your journey? Let's go over the five main clues that indicate you've entered the dunes of doubt. Clue number 1, the fog. When you approach the dunes of doubt on your creative wilderness path, it can feel like this cloudy fog is settling in over your creative process. You may sit down to paint or work on a client project or create an online class, and it can feel like your vision, ideas, and process are just totally unclear and blocked like when you're hiking a trail and have complete visibility and then suddenly just like that, a fog settles in and you can hardly see two feet in front of you. This fog can put you into a stagnant energy where you're not taking action because the clouds of doubt are blocking the clarity and visibility for your next steps forward. Clue number 2, you're starting something new. Just like we talked about in the forest of fear, the dunes of doubt also often arrives when you're starting a new creative project. This could be when you're diving into a new piece of art, a new client project, or a new income stream for your business. With any of these new endeavors, the cloud of doubt can start to settle in and totally block your visibility to move forward with a novel idea. This doubt can make you question moving into the new territory and also make you question your creative ability and your path as a whole. Clue number 3, imposter syndrome. Another way that you'll often hear dunes of doubt referred to in the creative industry is imposter syndrome, where basically you feel like or believe that you're not actually as competent as other people think you are. For example, when a client hires you for your style, for your skill level, and for your work, imposter syndrome or the dunes of doubt can start to take over and questions like this can start running through your mind on a skimmingly endless loop. Questions like, is my work good enough? I'm I good enough as an artist? They hired me, do they have the right person? Do I actually know how to do this? I'm I good enough for this job? These questions are biggest indicators that you've arrived at the dunes of doubt and impostor syndrome is totally taking over. These questions can cause a stop-go energy where you're creating your art and it's flowing, but then you get in your head and you loop on this question and it totally stops the flow. It's like a game of green light, red light. You're looping on these doubtful questions and are no longer in your body or with the tangible act of creating your work. Clue number 4, you hide your artwork. You're afraid to share it with other people. You create but you don't want to put it into the world because you're afraid that other people are going to find out that you're an imposter or a fraud which are all lies by the way and just evidence that the dunes of doubt has shown up. You avoid showing your work because you don't think that you're expert enough or good enough to show it. Totally false and we'll cover how to move through this soon in this class. Clue number 5, you quit creating altogether. This one is no good, but so common and I've been there plenty of times too. You may get to a point of doubting your creative abilities so much that you stop making anything at all. You're not quite sure why you've stopped creating and sometimes you might not even recognize that you've quit, you just feel busy, you're distracted or consumed by other life things, but you've stopped making your art and anytime you think about sitting down to create, you stop yourself from doing so. This is a huge indicator that the dunes of doubt have taken over and prevented you from taking action. Those are the five main clues to know that you've reached the dunes of doubt on your journey. One, the fog, two, starting something new, three, imposter syndrome, four, hiding your artwork, and five, quit creating altogether. It's important to know these main clues so that when you start to feel or experience any of them, you can quickly call it out and say, I know this feeling, it means I'm in the dunes of doubt. The sooner you can recognize where you've landed on the creative wilderness map, the sooner you can start to take action to move forward on your journey. Because the thing is, the antithesis to doubt is to create, to take action, to keep taking steps forward. Let's dive into the six tips I have for you today to move out of the dunes of doubt and into the rest of the creative wilderness. In the next lesson, we'll start with the first tip. I'll see you there. 5. Tip 1: Create a MVP: In this lesson, I'm sharing the first tip to move out of the dunes of doubt. The first tip is to make a minimal viable product. When people are starting a business, they are often encouraged to create an MVP or a minimum viable product. Essentially, something that they can efficiently and quickly get into the world that captures their big idea. The quicker they can get that product or offer out there, the quicker they can get feedback on what's working, what's not, and how they can improve it. Rather than sitting with a business idea for a really long time trying to get it totally perfect, they get it out into the world as quickly as possible to get feedback. The same thing goes for your creative process when you find yourself stuck in the dunes and doubt. As soon as you're creating and putting something out into the world, you can learn, up level, gain confidence in your creative ability, and strengthen your skills. But if you let the dunes of doubt take-over, then you'll stay stuck looping on those am I good enough questions and be stagnant on your creative wilderness journey, which just really doesn't feel good and means you're missing out on so many beautiful stops to come as we move forward. But look, I totally get it. When you're deep in the dunes of doubt, the last thing you want to do is create because it's scary, terrifying even because the more of those doubtful questions start to loop in your mind, the more they can feel like the truth. When you're creating your art it's a totally intimate experience. It's very tangible. Your hands are on the paper, the brushes, the camera. You are with this thing, molding it, shaping it, creating it, bringing it to life and that is so vulnerable. It just makes sense that when we're that close to something that vulnerable, creating that intimate with our materials. Of course, we're going to be questioning if it's good enough because we're seeing every little tiny thing, every little imperfection. That intimacy, that vulnerability can feel like the last thing we want to dig into when we're in the dunes of doubt. Here's the thing now. The experiences of creating and viewing artwork are very different. Everyone who sees what you create is not going to pinpoint the tiny mistakes or imperfections. They won't even see those. Even if they do so what? Imperfections are beautiful and show the humanity behind the work. The best thing you can do to combat the questions and lies that are on loop in your mind is to create. Because that's going to move you out of your head and back into your body to dissipate the fog of doubt and shift back into the forward momentum on your journey. Months ago, when I was deep in the dunes of doubt, I wrote the antithesis to doubt is to create. That phrase still sits right in front of me on my studio desk every day as a reminder to keep putting art and ideas into motion, into tangibility and into the world. The more action you can take, the more traction you'll have to move forward, up level your skill, and increase your confidence. What is the minimal viable product, artwork, or service that you can create right now? Is it a small sketch, a photograph on your phone, a collage? Make it. Open up your field guide to the MVP page in the dunes of doubt section and put that minimal viable art into the world. Take five minutes, 10 minutes, not too long, but just create it. Don't make it perfect, Don't make it a [LAUGHTER] masterpiece. Just make it. This type of action leads to information. That information might be a mistake that I learn from or a success or a new discovery of a style that I want to dig into even more. But whether it's a mistake or a success, that action is going to give me enough information to keep going. That's the main thing, to keep going. That's not to say to always be in action and never stop to reflect or take a breath like definitely rest, rejuvenate and take breaks. But make sure that you keep going and keep creating after you've taken that break. Don't get stuck in the dunes of doubt. Your creativity and creative expression deserve way more than that. That's the first step, create a minimal viable product. In the next lesson, I'm sharing the second tip to move out of the dunes of doubt and forward on your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 6. Tip 2: Make it Fun: In this session, I'm sharing the second tip to move forward out of the dunes of doubt and onward into your creative journey. The second tip is to make your creative process fun again. The dunes of doubt can make the creative wilderness journey suddenly feel super serious. There can certainly be so much weight to the process of making art or working on a client project. It's just like this heaviness settles into creativity that lands with a big thud when the dunes of doubt appears. To transform the seriousness that comes with the doubt, ask yourself, how can I make this process fun? What would make this more enjoyable? Maybe you dance around your studio before you sit down to work, or you go for a hike in nature before you start to draw. Maybe you make a delicious cup of coffee in your favorite mug to sip while you work on that new client project. Take a moment to jot down some ideas in your field guide for how you can make your process more fun this week. Whatever you write down and whatever fun looks like for your unique creative practice, implement that this week to dissipate the heavyweight of doubt and add lightness and joy back into your creative journey. In the next session, I'm sharing the third tip to navigate the dunes of doubt and move forward on your creative wilderness trek. I'll see you there. 7. Tip 3: Turn Towards Service: In this lesson, I'm sharing the third tip to move out of the dunes of doubt and forward on your creative wilderness journey. So one of the reasons the dunes of doubt shows up is because suddenly we get so focused on ourselves, our art, our practice, how we will be perceived by the world. We forget who we are reaching with our work. Doubt feeds on this type of self-focused thinking. But when we shift our focus off of ourselves and onto who we are serving with our creativity, be it a client, a person who will see our artwork, or a student who will take our class. When we can focus on that one person, we can get out of our own minds and into how our art, creativity, and practice can be of bigger service to something beyond ourselves. But how powerful is that? Oprah has a quote that says, "Being nervous is selfish." I think the same concept can be applied to doubt. Doubting yourself is selfish. You're getting so consumed with being good enough that you forget about all of the people who are missing out on your beautiful, meaningful, intentional work because you're letting that doubt stop you from sharing it with the world. That is a disservice. How can you turn your focus back to service? How can you best serve that client with the skills that you currently have? How can you best serve this student with your class idea? How can you create a painting that will serve that person at that specific point in their life? When I'm deep in the dunes of doubt, I like to ask myself, how can I make this creative process or product about them? As soon as I make that mental shift, it moves me out of my head and into creative flow. For example, as I wrote the script for this class, so much doubt started to show up to try to stop me from creating it, stop me from sharing it, stop me from writing it. So to move out of this doubtful space and keep writing, I created a sticky note that I put on my laptop that said, why am I writing? The answer that I wrote down was this; so that people keep creating. So that people are empowered in their full authentic expression. So that art continues to add beauty, meaning, and joy to this world. That way I kept the focus off of me and on you and how this can help you in your journey. That is a way bigger picture and fuels me forward to keep creating this content. So how can you turn your doubts about your ability into a focus on service to someone else? Take a moment in your field guide to write down your responses to these questions. Who can my creativity and artwork help? How can I best serve one person with my creativity? How can I make this creative process about them not about me? Focusing on service will help you move forward into action and get you out of that stagnant space of questioning your ability. This way you can move forward with confidence, knowing that you're going to serve this one person in the best way that you know how. Even if you're not creating for a client and you're creating just to create, just for fun, you're still putting something new and beautiful into the world. That is its own kind of service. So focus on who you can serve rather than questions of, am I good enough or is my work good enough? In the next lesson, I'm sharing the fourth tip to move out of the dunes of doubt and forward on your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 8. Tip 4: Look How Far You've Come: In this lesson, I'm sharing the fourth tip to move forward out of the dunes of doubt and onward in your creative journey. The fourth tip is to take a moment to look back at how far you've come. Go look at your old creative work that makes you cringe and the work that you love. When we're so in our heads, it can stop the flow, that physical flow of creating art. That can pull me into a questioning state of mind. Instead of putting a lot of trust and the skill and ability that I've built up over years and years and years of practice, we can forget how long we've been in this process, in this creative journey already and it can feel like we're just starting out sometimes. It can be so easy to forget all of the steps in our journeys that have led us here to this moment. All of the things we've gone through and all of the things we've overcome and all of the celebrations we've had and all of the skills that we've developed. It can be really easy to forget that are totally gloss over it, but I encourage you to remember that you have been practicing. Everything has led you to this point. You've had months, weeks, or years of practice already, and all of that has taught you so much to get you where you are now so don't discount that experience. Take a moment to go look at old work that you created three weeks ago or three years ago. If you're teaching, go back and look at the very first class you created and look at where you are now. Seriously, you can go take a look at the very first-class I created on Skillshare, Beginner's Guide to Fabric Printing and you'll see what I mean. [LAUGHTER] Reflect on how far you've progressed since that early work. This can be such a powerful exercise to remember and remind yourself that so much can change in a short amount of time and over the course of many years. You get better and your creative work gets better. It's an inherent fact of just continuing to show up to your practice and do the work. You might not see the progression while you're in it, but it is happening. When you go back and look at old work, you can remember that you are always up leveling, even if it's small, incremental steps. Because see there's no endpoint on this creative wilderness journey. Look at the map, when you get through it, you just begin again. You're not done and because there's no endpoint, there's never a time where you feel like, oh, I'm there, I'm an expert and I'm never learning and I'm good at everything. Because you can always up level and always get better, the dunes of doubt can take over the confidence you have in your creative ability to say, well, if I can't get better then I'm not good enough right now. But let's transform that to actually accept where you are at this moment, accept your current skill level and everything you've done to get to this point. It's totally exciting and true that you get to keep evolving and improving your skills. But that doesn't discount your creative ability or intuition right now. It's like that Picasso Anecdote when somebody asked him to create a drawing for them at a cafe. He created a quick sketch on a napkin and priced it at $1 million. The person was shocked and asked how this could cause so much, saying it only took you five minutes. Picasso responded, no, actually, it took me 40 years to draw this in five minutes. Putting more trust in your creative ability and where you've already been can start to move you out of the dunes of doubt. Trust your journey and process and know that the answers will reveal themselves through action, creating, and continuing forward on your path. In the next lesson, I'm sharing the fifth tip to navigate the dunes of doubt and move forward on your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 9. Tip 5: Release Imposter Syndrome: In this lesson, I'm sharing the fifth tip to move forward out of the dunes of doubt and onward into your creative journey. As I mentioned earlier, a huge component of being in the dunes of doubt is having a big case of imposter syndrome where you feel like despite your skill and ability, you're a fraud. This can be especially present if you're running a creative business and working with clients. When they hire you for a project, you can get launched straight into the dunes of doubt and totally question your capability. But here's the thing, people hire you for you. They're hiring you because they've seen your work, like your work and trust that you have the creative ability and skill sets to bring their vision to life. What an honor? Now, you just have to believe it too. So how can you do this? Here are a few suggestions. One, admit it. Share your feelings of imposter syndrome with a trusted creative friend. Say that you're feeling like a fraud. Like you can't do the project or like your work isn't good enough. Saying these doubts out loud to a trusted friend can start to dissipate the doubt and likely make you see that these doubts actually aren't true at all. Two, recognize the doubt and counteract it with the facts. First, recognize that you are having the doubtful thoughts about your ability. The sooner you can see and accept that you're experiencing these thoughts, the sooner you can counteract them with the cold hard facts of your creative skills. For example, if you get hired for an illustration project and immediately start to think and feel, I don't have the skills for this. Accept that doubtful thought and then counter it with the facts like I've been illustrating for five years or I've worked with three projects similar to this already, and this is a new clients, but I've succeeded with new clients before. Remember our mindset shift from the forest of fear class in this series, it's not scary, it's just new. Counteract the doubtful thoughts with the facts. Three, jot down your accomplishments. As I mentioned in the previous tip, take a moment to look at how far you've come on your journey. When imposter syndrome shows up, make a handwritten list of your creative accomplishments. These can be awards that you've received, clients you've worked with, artwork you've completed, and the fact that you keep showing up to your creative practice and improving your skill each day. You can jot down your list of accomplishments in your field guide to reference to dissolve imposter syndrome when it shows up. Four, see it for what it is. Typically, if you're experiencing imposter syndrome, you're not an imposter. Studies of this syndrome have shown that it often shows up in folks who are high achieving. Often true imposters or frauds don't experience imposter syndrome or even recognize they are feeling its symptoms. So the very fact that you can see that you're experiencing this, is a good sign that you're not an actual fraud. Five, let go of comparison. Focus on your journey and your accomplishments. This is not the time to go look at other artist's Instagram pages or awards or achievements. This is the time to focus on your journey, your skills, and how far you've come. Imposter syndrome is totally normal. But remember that people hire you for you, for your specific creative ability and skills. They already love your work. This is one of the benefits of showing your work to the world, is that people can fall in love with it and fall in love with you, and then want to work with you specifically. So embody that, own it, and know that you are capable of offering your talent, work, and service to others. In the next lesson, I'll share the sixth and final tip to navigate the dunes of doubt to move forward on your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 10. Tip 6: Release Proving: In this lesson, I'm sharing the sixth and final tip to move forward out of the dunes of doubt and onto the rest of your creative journey. The sixth step is to release proving. You don't have to prove that you're good enough. Proving can easily be an overpowering energy in the creative world. To prove that you and your work, which are separate things, by the way, are good enough or valuable, your creative work can become tangled with your own self-worth. First of all, you don't have to prove yourself as worthy, valuable, or good enough as a human being. Simply being here, being a human, being you is inherently valuable. That value doesn't come from how much artwork you create, or how much you get paid for your art, or how much you achieve on a given day. Just being here as a breathing being is of immense value in this world. That said, you also don't have to prove that your creative work or art is good enough. Let me clarify. There is a difference between proving energy and creative energy. Proving energy comes from a space where you are sharing your artwork and creativity to seek the approval of others. Creative energy comes from sharing your artwork and creativity to serve others. Let's look at social media as an example. Visual culture, marketing, and social media are all amazing tools to share your work and get inspired by the work of other artists. But it can easily turn into a spiral of competition, approval, and comparison. Too much time on these platforms or a time spent unintentionally with these visual marketing tools, can actually lead to a pressure to prove that you're good enough. Notice when you share a post to promote your art or create a business, do you feel like that post is coming from a space to share what you're offering to the world and how your creativity is of service to someone else? Or is that post coming from a space to gather a lot of likes and approval? Neither is right or wrong, good or bad, and there's definitely a space for sharing your work to get that external validation, support, and approval. But sharing your work and creativity only from a space to prove your worth or gain approval can actually lead to doubt in your creative journey because it's all resting on whether other people like it, rather than if you like it and if it's serving them. When you can release proving your work's worth and shift into sharing your creativity from a space of service, then you can begin to release the doubt that stems from questioning whether you or your work is good enough. Another example of when the proving energy shows up is when a client approaches you to work together. When a client approaches you for your creative skills, you may feel like you have to prove that your work process or self is good enough for that client to want to work with you. But here's the thing. The client has already approached you to work together on this project. This likely means that they've already seen your work, like it, and want to work with you specifically for that style. You don't have anything to prove to them. If you do have to prove yourself, then they're not really your dream client. You shouldn't have to prove yourself, your worth or your work to anyone. That energy is draining and unsustainable to create work that is authentic and that best serve your clients. When you drop into proving energy, you drop back into your head, overthinking, doubt and out of the flow of creativity. Proving yourself through your work is a huge symptom of doubt showing up to say the lie that you're not good enough. Take a moment now to free-ride in your field guide about a time that you recently felt like you had to prove yourself or your work. How did it feel in your body? What doubts did it make you believe to be true about your creativity? How can you turn that doubt into service and belief in your work moving forward? When you send yourself getting caught up in the tangle of your work and worth, remind yourself to release proving and step back into the service that your creativity offers the world. You are enough and your work is enough. We'll cover this topic in more depth when we visit Value Valley on the map. In the next lesson, I'm sharing a tangible example of a time that I was in the dunes of doubt and how I implemented these tips to move forward on my own creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 11. Learn from a Personal Example: In this lesson, I'm sharing a personal example of a recent time that I was in the dunes of doubt, and how I implemented these tips to move forward on my path. Earlier this year, I received a client project that I had dreamed of for years, which was to create illustrations for a local cookbook. I was so stoked, jazzed, and excited to start this project when it came in, but then when I sat down to create the preliminary sketches, the tunes of doubt started to take over. Imposter syndrome and questions about my creative skills and abilities started to cloud my creativity. I knew that I had entered into the dunes of doubt, so I needed to implement the tips I've shared with you today. Here's what I did to move out of the dunes of doubt to create this project. One, I created a fun environment to get to work. When I felt nervous and doubtful to start the project, I asked myself, "How can I make this more fun?" For this project specifically, the answer to this question was to put on a fun dance playlist and make a pot of French press coffee. I danced around, got into to a playful state, and then sat down to get to work from a mindset of fun rather than doubt. Two, I created the minimal viable product. Rather than diving into create the final illustrations right away because that's a lot of pressure, I basically asked myself, "What's the minimal viable art that I can put out right now?" Just to get all of the ideas and thoughts and images onto paper. On my iPad, on Adobe Fresco, I created really basic preliminary sketches and outlines of the different cookbook illustrations and subjects, instead of trying to make each one perfect right away. I got into action. These preliminary sketches gave me enough momentum and information to keep going and have the confidence to trust my own creative process and ability. Three, I focused on service. I recognized that my doubt was coming from my being overly focused on me, rather than my client. I turn this around by focusing on how I could best serve the client and meet their needs for the project. When I shifted my focus from my doubt to serving my client, I could take steps out of the dunes of doubt and back into the bigger picture and purpose of the project. Four, I looked at how far I had come. When I sat down to create, I reminded myself that I've been drawing food for years before this project landed on my desk. I knew how to draw food. I'd done it hundreds of times before. I was capable to draw food for this cookbook. That reminder helped me to take another step forward out of the dunes of doubt. Five, I started to release imposter syndrome. Reminding myself how far I'd come, helped me release imposter syndrome, so I could know and embody that I did have the skill set for this project. Six, I released proving by reminding myself that the client chose me for this project because they'd seen my work, loved it, and already wanted to hire me to bring it to life. I didn't have to prove myself or my work to them. All I had to do was create the illustrations that best served them and their vision. Implementing these six tips helped me to step out of the dunes of doubt to create illustrations that the client was super happy with for their final cookbook. I hope this tangible example helps to see how you can implement these tips on your own journey. In the next lesson, we're going over publishing your class project. I'll see you there. 12. Publish Your Class Project: Once you've implemented these tips, take a photo of your completed dunes of doubt section of the creative wilderness Field Guide. Then upload that photo to the class project section of this class. Remember that you can upload your class projects by going to the Projects and Resources tab, and clicking the "Create Project" button. Once you've uploaded your photo, be sure to hit "Publish" and be sure to check out the other class projects from your fellow creatives in the project gallery. We're all out here together, so let's show support for each other's journeys. Also let me know in the discussion section a current doubt that you have on your creative wilderness journey and which tip you're implementing today from this class to move past it. In the next lesson, I'm sharing the next stop that we'll encounter together on our creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 13. Thank You & Next Steps: [MUSIC] Thank you so much for tuning into this class in the Creative Wilderness tip series. I really hope that you're feeling more equipped, confident, and totally stoked to keep trekking into the wilderness together. Remember that the dunes of doubt is a totally normal spot to be on the creative journey and that the antithesis to doubt is to create. Make the bad art, make the stuff you don't like so that you can get to the stuff that you love. Trust that wherever you are right now you're good enough, and your art is good enough. You'll keep getting better but it doesn't discount where you currently are, so don't stop. Your work, your art, and your creativity they matter. In the next class in this series, we're visiting the Cave of Hiding where I'll share my field notes and tips for when you feel like hiding from the world, pressing pause on your creative work and how this can actually be really beneficial for your creative wilderness journey. In the meantime, if you want more support, guidance, and encouragement for your creative journey I've recorded a pep talk just for you to have more forward momentum, energy, and motivation for your creative path. You can download that pep talk for free at printsandplants.com/peptalk and let's keep hanging out. Be sure to follow me here on Skillshare to stay up to date on new classes by hitting that follow button, check out more of my work a@printsandplants.com and camping out with me over on Instagram @prints_and_plants. Stay wild, stay creative, and I'll see you soon. [MUSIC] This type of action leads to information. [NOISE] [MUSIC] That information might be a mistake that I learned from or a success or a new discovery of a style that I want. [NOISE] But whether it's a mistake or a success, stop. Your creativity and creative expression, I'm competing with this bird. [MUSIC]