Reddit mentions of The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

>I am 20 year old and I can't even draw a proper face.

I want to be clear about this: the first thing that you need to understand is that drawing is a skill. Specifically a learnable skill. Most people think that being able to draw is something that you are either talented at or you're not, and that is 100% not true.

Second, how do you approach learning how to draw? From a high-level perspective, there are 3 parts:

1. Learning each drawing tool step-by-step...shading, coloring, perspective, shapes, sizes, etc.
   
2. Picking things to draw
   
3. Sticking with both of those & making consistent progress on them, without quitting
   
   As a skill, some people like to draw from a young age, and so they spend a lot of time learning all of the rules by feel & drawing random stuff, and so they get really good at it because they stick with it & do it over & over & over again to master the basic techniques & generate artwork. People aren't just magically "good" at drawing; they're good at it because they've put in the time doing it. Thus, we need to develop a good Approach Theory:
   
   

• Drawing is a skill, not a talent people magically have
  
• It takes time to get good at it, so don't expect instant, overnight results
  
• How good you get & how fast you get good is directly a result of (1) working on the right things (2) consistently, like on a daily basis
  
  This shifts the story from a fixed mindset of "oh, some people are just good artists, and I guess I'm not..." to being able to create a plan to achieve what you want with a growth mindset of "art is the result of skill, which is based on learning & practicing the techniques & actually creating artwork on a regular basis". Realizing that the path to success involves repetition & starts with being bad at stuff is key, because the real route to getting good at stuff involves slowly failing again & again without giving up. Adventure Time nailed it:
  
  https://i.imgur.com/bA2Z3aY.gif
  
  There are tons of videos on Youtube of people's progress in art; here's an example video:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0aRhEePYK8
  
  There are a couple good books, which are available as audiobooks, that'd I recommend if you want to learn more about how talent is developed & how success is achieved:
  
  
• The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle
  
• Grit, by Angela Duckworth (watch this 6-minute video first)
  
  Third, you simply need to do design up a simple program & work on it every day. I highly recommend using the X-effect approach, because it's easy & it works great:
  
  https://www.reddit.com/r/theXeffect/wiki/index
  
  Before we talk more about that, I also want to dig into motivation for a second: when doing anything, it's a bit like a movie - you have the plot (the step-by-step procedure for doing something) and you have the story (the reasons why, the motivation, the excitement, the desire). Your job is design a good plot (a plan) & to define your story (why you're doing it). This may sound a bit technical, but I've found that this is the fastest & most efficient way to make effective progress on anything you want to get better at.
  
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