Thief is within.

I heard this quote yesterday and it really stopped me in my tracks, its by Jim Rhone,

“ do not worry about the thief who will rob you of your money,
worry about thief in your mind who will rob you of your promise.”
That really hit home to me as I reflected on this statement,“ the thief who robs you of your promise” and that thief is within.
Then I remembered all the times years ago sitting in my studio late afternoons looking at my paintings and coming up with great ideas of how to market them tomorrow, as the evening went by I made notes on what I would do. Next morning by the time I had taken my daughter to school, I had managed to talk myself out of these ideas.
What if it doesn't work?
You tried that before and you failed.
I am really scared if I try that, it will fail and I will look stupid again.
I would tell myself what a failure I was and how it would never work out.

I am not sure if any of you go through this, maybe it was only me but it was so self defeating and soul destroying and all my promise was stolen, again.
So what changed, because I am not like that now, if I have good ideas now in the evening, I immediately action them in the morning and I do not listen to the thief and consider how stupid I could look, I am not concerned about that any more, I just do it.

This negative voice within, the thief always wanted me to stay in my comfort zone because it was safe there. It might be total failure but it was safe and I made few mistakes and never tried anything to new and if I did the thief would talk me out of it, again.
What bought about this change in this defeated Artist and I was?
You need a reason to change, I became so disgusted in myself, for my failure and of course I blamed everyone around for the failure, because I was the talented Artist, it was everyone’s fault but mine. Now the problem with this type of thinking is that everyone is not aware that it is their fault, they are happily moving along with their lives.
I saw what I had become and my disgust in my self forced me to make some decisions and change my life.
Now when it comes to my art and business and I want to do something new and great, if the thief tells me to be fearful and scared, then it must be the right thing to do, so I do it.
I had told myself for 20 years that my paintings explained themselves and I didn't need to sell.
I was wrong, they don't and I needed to learn to sell, my thief said no, you will look stupid and people will disagree with you, many still do, but I went and learned to sell. How scary was that until I learned how to sell, then it became good fun and thief went quiet.
I decided to write a blog to try and help other Artists not make the same mistakes I made, the thief told me, who would want to listen to you, who do you think you are to write, people will laugh and critize you and because it really scared me I decided to just do it.
Yes I get critized but not that much and I told the thief even if only one person reads it then I am blessed. The thief is very quiet now.
I have now learned many new skills, but the thief told me to be fearful of doing it each time, but I did it and the thief is quiet now.

Artist friends do not let the thief within you, not only steal your promise but also steal all the productive years that are wasted fearing things that most likely will never happen.
The thief stole many years off me I can never get back, please don't let the thief do that to you.
You can defeat the thief very easily as well.
If you have a great idea and your thief tells you its very scary don't do it, do it, most likely it is the right thing to do.