 Welcome back to F&A and today is kind of an unofficial part 2 of how much effort put into your animation. I did the previous clip about that. You can check it out. But it's more about how passion can get you to the work, how you can start it, but without discipline, you're going to have a really hard time continuing through the more difficult part and aspects of animation. So today is all about passion versus discipline and animation. Now when it comes to work ethic, everybody has their own approach. Everybody has kind of their own slogan or motivational quote that they have. You can find a bunch of stuff online where people talk about that. Just recently I saw one here, it says people romanticize their plans, but dread the execution. The magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding. Kind of like that actually a lot. Or there's a Mike Tyson quote floating around, discipline is doing what you hate to do, but do it like you love it. Also not wrong. Sometimes you got to go through that long part of whatever workflow, whatever work that you have to finish and it's super boring, but you got to go through it and you hate that, but you still got to approach it in a way where you really love it so that your work doesn't suffer and your end result is good enough for whoever needs to see it. And Chris had a tweet here where it said, Adam tip, one thing that doesn't get much light is passion versus discipline. When the initial excitement wears off and you're lacking inspiration, you need discipline to execute and help you pull through to reach that initial goal. Absolutely true. And however you want to phrase again your motivation, the tips, the things that people say, you're going to a one point. I'm going to say it almost everybody, if not every artist, is going to face a moment where it's kind of like a writer's block. It's more like an animation block or a period where you've started to work and you were really excited about it. Everything was really cool. But now you are in the section where you just got to go through the steps, through the checklist of things or whatever you have. You might be done with your fun blocking, but now it's all about fixing things and arcs and looking at other technical aspects and going through polish and all that can be less exciting than initial blocking and creative idea finding, but you got to go through that anyway because you're not going to have fun all the time as awesome as animation is, it's still work and there will be parts that you're not going to have as much fun with then compared to like other parts at the beginning. And this is why I always say you got to love the process and I do love the process and that has helped me a lot in terms of getting through those harder moments in a more difficult and maybe less exciting moments in animation. But generally you need to be aware that inspiration, you can't wait for inspiration. Inspiration just not going to appear out of nowhere. I mean, sometimes it doesn't get depending on your other influences or observations, whatever you have, but when you have something to do, you can't just sit and wait at your desk and not animate and go, well, I'm going to wait for inspiration and then I'm going to work. You still got a deadline unless you're self-employed and you know, this is your own thing and you're not beholden to a deadline. It's just all about working for yourself. If you can do that and you can pay your bills like that, that's awesome. I love it. A lot of other people, they do work for someone or even they do work for themselves, but they do still have a deadline. They still want to deliver or have to deliver for someone. And at the end, you always kind of work for someone, even if that someone is yourself. So a deadline is always going to come into play. So even if you are not super inspired or super motivated, you still got to go through the process and deliver. So you can't wait for inspiration. Inspiration will come while you do the work. Might not be immediately, but sometimes you go through the process and you're just working and suddenly, oh, I just did this. That reminds me of this. Oh, wouldn't it be cool and bam, now you got inspiration, your new ideas and you can continue and improve on what you've been doing before. But of course, this is all really easy to say. And how do you develop discipline? I mean, this is going to be very subjective. I can't tell you how to develop discipline. I can only give you my list of things that I have gone through that I'm doing that helped me in the process. But this is all very subjective and very individual to your situation. So try out what I'm about to talk about. And maybe none of them will work for you. Maybe some of them, maybe all of them. I don't know. And maybe probably you're going to have your own ways. And please comment, let me know how you'd go about those things. What is your process of finding discipline? How did you get there? Are you struggling right now? And do you need extra help? I'm probably not going to cover everything that you need to know. So if there's something that I'm missing, let me know in the comments and you can chat about it. I'm very curious what you think. But for now, I'm going to give you my list. And everything starts for me with I need to want to do it. I know that sounds very simple and almost silly. But if I don't really want to do something, I'm not going to do it. And I might find all kinds of excuses and reasons that are not really why I'm not doing something. It really comes down to I just don't want to do it. And this is for me across all aspects of life. This could be for work, this could be health, this could be eating, this could be cleaning up my office, whatever, whatever's going on. If I don't do it, it really comes down to I just don't want to. So I really want to do it. I will find the time I will make the time when I will get to it. So for me, there is no magic tutorial. There's no list, even though I'm about to give you a list here. None of that matters to me or none of that is going to help me. If I don't really want to do it. Now, just because you say, OK, I want to do it, doesn't mean that you're going to get this going to be all super easy. But it is to me that initial spark or that initial decision where, all right, let's do this. And now, now that you want to do it and you're actually serious and honest with yourself that I'm going to do this, now you got to find a way to make it work within the limitations, your environment and just the opportunities that you have. Because again, just because you want to do something or just because you have a plan doesn't mean you're going to get there. Everything will always have to be tailored towards your surroundings and kind of how you find your way through, you know, whatever hurdles you're facing to get to that end goal. So once I want to do it, how do I go about it? So what is my list? So for me, I prepare my surroundings for success. That's kind of like a cheesy quote or something I can I can put in here as a tip. That means everything that I need to do, be it with my office or let's say if I go exercise or anything is ready and prepared to make that happen. So let's say YouTube, right? I have everything set up, my mics and the lights. I don't want to set up like a lighting set up or my notes or anything in the background like I like a certain look to all this. As you can tell, it's always kind of I found my look and for the longest time, my YouTube clips look the same. But the thing is I get there, I have my lights here and you can see that this is all like a different color of lights, different temperature of light. So I turn everything on here. And once all that is ready, you got the light up here on the fan. But that's also kind of a warmer light. What I do then on my phone, I have an action that says lectures. Now it turns all my lights into a bluer color. So it has a different contrasting background versus by the warm front of my face. Unless I'm super pale, which I use the amp and that is kind of I just have to push a button. Everything's ready. That to me is when I do my YouTube clips. I don't want to go through a long set up where things kind of break down. And then if I'm somewhat lazy, I don't really want to do it. I feel like this is too much work. I'm just not going to do this. So I'm going to minimize those hurdles. Like I'd say if I go exercise, let's say I want exercise in the morning, I'm going to prepare my clothes and everything that I need to have heart rate monitor, whatever it is and put it where it's ready and easy to grab. See, on my couch, usually back there on my couch, I have a bunch of clothes on there. So when I get up in the morning or when I need to do something, I can just go here, everything is ready. Let's go and exercise. Was it kind of a pain to exercise? I'm also very lazy. So if I have to go through extra hurdles of, OK, where's Danny this? Oh, this equipment is not there. This is not ready. Oh, batteries are not charged for whatever things that I need. That's always an extra hurdle that will tempt me not to do it. And for me, this is really helpful because at the very beginning, when I haven't done something for a while and I decide, let's go, let's do this again. I'm very tempted and it's just because you're so used to your old ways of not doing something. And now you're deciding, all right, I'm going to do this. Every time something comes up as a little hurdle, it's a distraction. It's just another temptation. You're like, I'm just not going to do it. So I'm more likely to quit. So I want to set up my surroundings, like I said, but prepare for success in a way. And then after a while, once you get into the habit of the discipline, you can bypass those hurdles just because something is not set up. You go like, you know what, I've been doing this for so long, it doesn't matter. Let me just do this and find something else that works. You will get over those temptations and the little smaller hurdles. But at the very beginning, at least for me, they're always very tempting to stop. So I try to set up everything around myself in terms of work. And anything else that I do that minimizes those hurdles. And then because of that, it gets to my second point is consistency. Because everything is set up, everything is ready. And I just go through the motion. It forms a habit. It's like when people ask me what my schedule is and I get up really early in the morning, quarter to five, face is exposed. How can you get up so early? It's a massive pain when you are used to going to bed at midnight or one and suddenly get to get up at five or four or six or whatever. That's a big change. So you start slowly, right? You just go and go crazy from one in the morning to suddenly five because I do want my sleep. I need my six or eight hours of sleep. So I adjust and go slowly backwards in terms of I'm going to go to bed earlier and earlier so I can get up earlier, earlier in the morning. And for me, I get up early in the morning because there are no distractions. You know, messages are not showing up. It's quiet. I can record without, you know, stuff going on in the neighborhood. And I have found that from my rhythm, I need to get up early because the moment I'm done with work at the end of the day, again, temptation, I get tired. I just want to relax, spend time with my family, watch a movie, do something else. And then I'm really less likely to do something. So I have fun for myself. I'm much better off if I do my work in the morning. So again, consistency, a routine. The more you do something, the more you get used to things. The easier it is to continue and to follow through with that. That being said, you have to reevaluate and improve on your methods. Just because you have decided to do something and you set up your surroundings to be, you know, hopefully successful, doesn't mean you are going to be. You're going to fail. You're going to have some missteps. Stuff is not going to work. But again, you should try to not be discouraged and then to stop, but reevaluate. You go through the process and realize that's actually not working. I prefer to do this. And then as you go through your routine and your consistent, you know, habits, you will take what works and then discard what doesn't work. And all that will get streamlined. It's a really nice routine that's going to hopefully work for yourself. So be okay with it not working for the first time. You're going to fail, but it's okay. Allow that for yourself, reevaluate, reassess what's working, what's not working, and then improve on that and then continue. Now, if you have a bigger project, even, you know, a good habit of discipline, a bigger project is still going to challenge that because you might get overwhelmed. There's just too much to do. The deadline is so far off and you realize there's just all this, this, there's so much to do until I get there. So what helps me is to break up a bigger task into smaller tasks. So you can finish one up to the next one. Finish number two. And every time you finish a task, at least for myself, I feel reassurance. I feel confidence. I feel like, oh, that worked. Okay, I can do this again. And then after a while, as you get better, you don't have to break up a bigger task into 10 smaller ones. Maybe it's just five, but at the end, only three. And when it's something really important, you got to power through it, maybe you're going to take on that massive task as one big thing, but you are equipped with the routine, the consistency, the habit, all of that into discipline to actually go through one big task. And for animation, if you have a bigger piece you want to do, maybe creating a good blocking pass, that's your smaller task. And then you build on top of that. So each successful task is going to build on top of the previous one. And you're going to power through a bigger piece of animation, could it be lip-sync or body mechanics or whatever it is. So find ways to divide the bigger project or task, whatever you want to call it, into smaller pieces. And I can guarantee you that's going to help. You will feel better. You have accomplishments. You just have more confidence because you know you've got this done. Now you can attack something else. Now what helps for me as another extra tip, again, subjectively, is I listen to music and movies and TV shows. But sometimes you go through something and it was cool. It was creative and you are excited and you got the passion behind it and everything. And now you're going through a period where you go, yeah, this is going to be boring, but I got to do it. This could be for evening. Maybe you're super bored in terms of checking arcs and pops and spacing. You're done with your animation, but now it's kind of that checklist of, I got to make it look clean and polished and I hate that process. I mean, I don't, I love it, but maybe you do. But there's always going to be something that's less exciting than something else. I listen to things. So I might go, today I have my playlist open for Star Trek, The Next Generation. I'm going to listen to those episodes because they're very comforting. I love the sounds. I love the music. I love the voices. I like the stories. And it's more about, oh, cool. I'm excited to sit down and listen to all this while I do this. That's really boring. And it's usually stuff that I know already. I'm not going to put on a movie or a TV show that I don't know. It was maybe distracted, right? This goes back into don't set up environment for distractions. So if I work and I go, oh, that's a cool movie. I haven't seen this before. Then I end up watching it and I haven't anything, you know, there's nothing done in terms of work. So it is stuff that I know, music, movies, anything. It's nothing that's distracting. It's just something that's comforting. It kind of gets me through today. That being said, if that doesn't work, take breaks again. You, you're not a machine. You can set up all those things. You can do all those things that I said. But even for myself, I need to take breaks. So there comes a point where even all of your discipline is going to wear off because your body, your mind is going to tell you to, I need a break. And then listen to that. Get up, do something, walk around, do something else, go exercise, go for a walk, have a lunch. I don't know, whatever your surroundings, whatever you're going to do, but taking breaks is really important. I'm a massive, massive proponent of work-life balance. So whatever you're going to do, listen to yourself, your body, your mind, whatever mental wellness you need, take a break, stop, recharge, and then keep going. That to me is all part of discipline because I am disciplined enough to stop and then recharge and then continue. Because all of that is when you recharge, then you might recharge too much and then you're going to be distracted and not continue. That's again where routine consistency and at the end, discipline kicks in where you can say, all right, I'm done with this. This was a nice break. Let's continue. And as you go through all of that, another tip will be listen to accomplishments. Be proud of yourself. It's okay to humble brag to yourselves and you want, I did this and it was cool. I made it work. Why not? You got to make sure that you don't beat yourself down. Like, I can't do this and yes, maybe I'm disciplined, but this wasn't that good. Nothing's ever going to be great. But you need to make sure to really look at what is great. Either that's something you have observed or positive feedback you get from other people. Listen to that. Take that, examine it and go, I did this. Actually, this was really cool. Again, all of this is going to help you with powering through moments of self-doubt or harsher critiques or feedback from someone that some of you didn't expect. But you know that at the end, I power through something similar and I got good feedback. I know I can do this. Maybe this right now is not the best thing I've done, but I have enough tools around myself or help from other people. I know that I can do this. I know I can finish this. So just don't get hung up on negative feedback and make extra sure that you do listen to positive feedback. You can be part of yourself. Take those accomplishments. It will build confidence and it will help you go through, as I said before, more difficult aspects of your work. And overall, try to find a way to love the process. I think it's if you always know that I like the beginning, but I don't like this and then I like this again, you're always going to dread that one moment. So if there's any way of loving each aspect of the process, that's also going to help you. But it's also really easy for me to say, love everything because it's you won't, but maybe you will find ways to just like it a bit more than you like it now. Me personally, at this point, I just like it all. And I know that there will be challenges. It's not like I'm super excited when I have to do a shot 50 times over. But now at this point, to me, it's like, okay, I'm going to do 50 versions of this. But that means that I'm going to be really good at what I'm doing right now. Because if I do something only once, it might be okay. To do it twice, it'll be better. Do it 50 times. Yeah, I'm going to be good at this. And that's going to help me do it again better and faster. So to me, I tried to find ways of, if you think this is negative, this is probably something positive in that moment. You might not see it now, and you might only recognize that later. But there's a good chance that whatever hardship you're going through right now is actually going to prepare you for something else. It's actually going to be something positive, but you can't see it right now. And that's my list. And that doesn't mean that it's your list. It's just something that I do. And maybe you can pick and choose. Maybe you have already thought about all of that and you have found other ways out of that to make it even better. I would love to read your comments. I would love to know how you went about it and what works for you. Because again, this is all very subjective, very individual to your surroundings, your needs, your opportunities, and your workflow and your age. And so many ways that this list will be totally different for you. And I'm actually really curious what your list is and how you go and how you power through, you know, like moments where you just, I need discipline because I don't like this, but I got to power through that. That being said, if that was actually helpful, and you know where I'm ahead of with this, if that was helpful and you want me to kind of use that list, then my workflow to help with your workflow and you want to join my workshop, I can help you, I can critique your shots, I can help you with, you know, bunch of questions that you might have with workflow questions or just tutoring in whatever way. I have workshops, you know the pitch, link in the description with all the information you can sign up at any time. And speaking of time, if you're still listening to all of this or if you're still watching all of this, thank you so much, I appreciate your time. And if you don't want to miss future uploads, feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button so you won't miss any of those fantastic uploads or not, I don't know. But maybe you'll like it, like and subscribe, you know this pitch, it's the YouTube pitch at the end. But that's it, I want to stop rambling. Thank you for watching and I will see you in my next upload.