You want me to do what?! I can’t draw

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UX for the win!

9 min readMar 23, 2020

The drawing boogey man is always under the bed. You can tell him to go away.

Fear is on top of everyone’s mind right now. I want to talk about a much less scary fear to take your mind off of our current situation. I am fascinated by the fear of drawing. In my work, we do a lot of exercises that encourage sketching — stick figures, squiggly lines — nothing crazy — and even with a qualification of “You don’t have to be an artist to do this”, there is an audible groan from most of our audience. This has intrigued me so much that I had to research where it comes from to see if there was anything I could do to alleviate the pain that comes from drawing.

The good news is that there are things to learn and ways to alleviate the pain! Below are some logical reasons why you feel the way you do (if you do … and data says you do) as well as some tips to push past this drawing boogeyman that seems to taunt many.

You are not alone

It is no coincidence that a good number of people can relate to the “showing up to school naked” dream. Whether it was before a big test or a presentation at work, it is a common dream that is often explained as the subconscious struggling with judgement — or the anxiety to perform. Inherently, there is nothing bad about performance anxiety. Without exaggeration or distortion, it is our brain growing. It is the manifestation of ourselves being uncomfortable with something that we are not an expert at — whether it is memorizing chemical compounds, public speaking, dancing or even drawing. Society is becoming increasingly technological and the pressure for productivity and perfection is at an all time high. The stress and pressure for high performance is everywhere. This can be taken to the extreme however, which is painful. It is helpful to note that this is one of the most common anxieties. Everyone has experienced performance anxiety at one point in their life and taking a moment to breathe and reflect on that fact helps take the anxiety down a notch.

This act of acknowledgement has been studied to be beneficial in managing anxiety as well as moving forward when those fears have you paralyzed. An example of this is in the 12 step program for Alcoholics Anonymous, with acknowledgement being the first step. Acknowledging a fear of performance that most people share — even if it is sketching — can help put that act into perspective.

You are seeing the shadow not the actual truth

As mentioned in the performance dream above, the perceived reaction to showing up naked to school is, in reality, different from the actual reaction. Will some people laugh? It’s likely. But that laughter will probably come from their own discomfort rather than a true judgement. More than likely, people will actually think of you as “ballsy as hell” even if that is not what is verbalized.

This points to an interesting dichotomy in both our conscious and unconscious selves. Our brains have evolutionarily been built to protect us at all costs. It does this in some healthy ways. It also does this in some not-so-healthy ways. When reacting to a perceived threat, the brain becomes a cinematic director of a horror film… playing a dramatic soundtrack, switching to grainy black and white film and lighting the set in the most contrasted way possible. Really amping up the drama, so that you will pay attention to this threat. Paying attention is good, amping up the drama is not good (for the long term at least). The best visual I can think of is a Bugs Bunny cartoon, where you see a huge shadow of a monster. This looks terrifying but when Bugs rounds the corner, the monster is actually no bigger than an apple — not as terrifying.

You can be like Bugs and also focus on what’s around the corner as opposed to the size of the shadow when considering your reaction to any performance anxiety. What is the true risk to me if I perform poorly? The odds are twofold… 1) the risk is lower than you think and 2) your performance will more than likely be better than your perception.

If there is no threat of a lion having us for lunch, then why do we do this to ourselves still? One main culprit is our society. Our society is built to make things bigger than they are so that others can gain. It is basic advertising and marketing principles. Think of all the Kodak commercials that ever made you cry (What? Am I the only one?). This message is as old as television (and older) but it bears repeating — what you see and hear will affect what you think.

In my job, I am a designer of experiences and I have an ethical responsibility to take the emotional response to my work seriously. This power of manipulation can be used for good, but it can also very easily be used for bad. As a consumer, going a step beyond having awareness here to having vigilance is the only way to mitigate what you see and hear. Fighting (or at least consciously acknowledging) the messages “you are not worthy”, “you are missing perfection”, “everyone is judging you” and responding with self compassion will help you feel more empowered with performance acts — including drawing — to allow you to have more enjoyment when participating.

Vulnerability is hard

If we have this natural tendency for self preservation, it makes being vulnerable very hard. Building healthy habits is hard. Going against our evolutionary urges is hard. None of these things are impossible, they are just hard. I could go on into a lot of research into the hardwiring of the brain and how we build habits and deal with trauma, but for the sake of this article, I will post those at the bottom and summarize here. Habits are like well worn trenches in our brain, which is why it is hard to change habits and it takes time to change defaults that we have.

Trauma is something else that imprints on our brain. Any trauma, big or small, has impact (to varying degrees of severity) and any normal progress from baby to child to teen includes normal anxiety that the brain can read as trauma. This anxiety and trauma can resurface when we make ourselves vulnerable through an act of self expression, which could be things like drawing, speaking or dancing, where our performance is an extension of who we really are AND judgement is subjective. We feel like we put our true selves on the line. This vulnerability is very hard.

Here’s the thing though, hard things are more valuable. Hard things help us grow; learn; build confidence and ultimately make us better people. Dancing makes us a better person (more flexible and comfortable in our own skin). Doing improv makes us a better person (active listening and building trust). Drawing makes us a better person (connecting our brain with paper to ideate). These activities make us better, truer people; they make us more connected to our thoughts, feelings and desires. Anything that we express is that direct connection to the intricacy behind our own view of the world. That expression may be hard to do but it is priceless.

The War of Art is one of my favorite books and the author, Steven Pressfield, states that you have to take action to move through the fear. Moving through the fear of performance anxiety will give you the momentum to grow and push further. Without challenges to overcome, there’s no way to discover your power and your true self; therefore, life is designed this way.

When someone (maybe me) asks you to draw; pause, acknowledge the fact that you are not alone and thank your brain for trying to protect you with your feelings. Then push through the anxiety and show yourself and your brain that drawing can be a rewarding exercise.

Here are some practical tips that I find helpful to combat the drawing boogeyman

Your drawing boogey man is tiny in reality.

1) Start small

With visuals, the brain can do a lot with a little. If you ever played Pictionary, you know that sometimes even one line can give away the answer. That’s because when you draw an idea, the brain makes a lot of connections to concepts even without a lot of detail. When you give the brain all the detail through written word, it confines the thinking to just what it reads. This limits what is shared and ultimately what is understood.

Just focus on shapes, lines and basic concepts to get your point across. You can do a lot with a circle, a line, a square, a triangle and a squiggly line. Start with combining these through practice. (If you want to learn more about visual language check out this great book.)

Basic drawing elements: a dot, a line, a triangle, a square, a circle and a squiggly line

2) It takes practice

Drawing is like any other physical activity. It takes practice to build up muscle memory to do most things — including drawing. This repetitive task is even the first principle taught in most art programs. There are people that are more naturally inclined in artistic expression but even those people have put in hours (and hours and hours) into honing their craft. The concept of a savant is so rare, that it is more of a myth. Doing anything, even as simple as drawing takes practice.

You can help start to build this muscle by doodling. If you doodle while listening to someone speak or in a meeting, it can also help improve focus and retention of the ideas. When I see people doodling in meetings, it shows me that they are listening, not the other way around.

3) Remind yourself of your strengths

Do you really want to be a Rembrandt and get paid for your art? If so, see note above about practice. If not… and more likely not, it is ok (and socially and professionally acceptable) to do the best you can with what you have. I have seen interesting ideas “drawn” with PowerPoint. Play to your strengths and use things that make you comfortable. Of course, I also suggest the same practice advice as above.

I am a more well rounded generalist and I love myself!

Drawing (or singing, or dancing or public speaking) can help you be a more well rounded generalist. As discussed previously, being vulnerable is hard but worth it. Doing things that force you to be uncomfortable (see more extreme ideas here), will not only help you feel more comfortable being a generalist, it will also help minimize the fear of doing new things.

Be kind to yourself. You are an amazing human being. We all are. We also tend to forget that fact on a regular basis, especially when we are stressed. If you need extra reassurance, put your hands on your heart and say something like “I give myself compassion” or “I accept myself as I am” or “I can be patient learning this new thing.”

We can all draw. We can all be creative. We all have fears that even include the two previous statements.The drawing boogeyman is smaller than we think. The next time you are asked to or want to draw, tell that guy to take the day off… he can go scare someone else.

Here are some references if you want to read more about any concepts I highlighted above: