The key to confidence 🗝️

Many well-intentioned parents think that if we can just be encouraging enough, that our kids will be more confident.

That if we say enough positive things, then our child will suddenly be more motivated than before.

That if we tell them “Great job!” enough, that they’ll want to work on their skills without frustration and they’ll be proud to share their art.

But it doesn’t work that way.

The key to our child’s confidence is hardly ever what we adults say.

So what does work?

Well, kids are smart.

They need to see the results of their work.

They need to see the improvement in their skills.

They need to see their art get better.

That’s what leads to confidence.

Entrepreneur and author Alex Hormozi had this to say about confidence-building in general:

To become confident, you do something enough times that you lose your excitement… so many times, you get bored of it.

Then, you start predicting what will happen because it’s the same thing that happened the last 100x you’ve done it.

People call you confident, but all you do is state the facts.

Confidence doesn’t create proof.

Proof creates confidence.

In other words, confidence comes from working on your skills so much through continuous repetition that you know exactly what results your efforts will produce.

You become so good, you can predict exactly what will happen.

When I draw lines here, I get this shape.

When I use my markers this way, it creates this 3d shading effect.

When I angle the lines that way, I got that eye-popping perspective.

Proof = confidence.

And when you can make such predictions, it actually becomes boring.

And that’s a good thing…

When Skill A becomes boring and easy, you gain new confidence in Skill A, and now you can work on Skill B (new skill = exciting chance for improvement).

Before you know it, you’ve acquired an entire tool belt of new artist techniques.

That’s how my student Arjan went from basic shapes to shading and then to light, shadow, color, perspective, and more.

Where is your child?

Are they still learning to draw lightly? See and use basic shapes? Get their ideas onto paper?

Or have they advanced to 3D shapes already? Light and shadow? Perspective and foreshortening?

Wherever they are, my lessons will help them. There are a variety of skills I teach and reinforce in every lesson (so for some students, they’ll get the necessary reinforcement that leads to true confidence….for others, it’ll be their first time trying said skill)

And it’s exactly why I offer so much in the Draw Now Library inside my membership. From Mario to Pokemon to scary monsters, there’s plenty to keep kids excited, while putting in the work to improve their skills—from basic shapes to advanced shading and contour lines.

The membership is closed now, but soon it’ll open for just a couple of days.

A membership would make the perfect Christmas gift for the creative kids who want to grow their art skills.

Stay tuned for the details

Stay creative,

Daniel

PS. Don’t want to wait for the membership to open? Want to boost your creative child’s confidence now? Enroll now in my brand new Cartooning with Confidence Course.

It’s only $7 for 7 days of on-demand cartooning fun.

Plus you get lifetime access so it makes the perfect “stocking stuffer” for creative kids who love to draw cartoons.