Hey there,

After four weeks of anatomy studies, I opened my idea list to choose the next one to draw, and felt… nothing.

I thought: “This is where discipline kicks in. Push through.” But here’s what I didn’t realize: there’s a huge difference between productive discomfort and spinning your wheels.

One makes you better. The other just makes you tired.

So today, I’m going to share the 3 signs you should switch topics, the 1 sign you should push through instead, and how social media corrupts both decisions by turning everything into a performance test.

Let’s walk through each one.

Sign 1: You’re bored, not stuck

After a month of grinding anatomy, I wasn’t struggling with the difficulty. I just didn’t care anymore.

I’d look at my reference and think “I know what to do here, I just don’t want to do it.” That’s boredom, not challenge.

When you’re stuck, you don’t know how to solve the problem. You’re frustrated but engaged. You want to figure it out.

When you’re bored, you know what to do. You just don’t care.

If you’re bored, switch. I moved to cloth studies and my brain woke up immediately. New problems. New things to figure out.

Two weeks later I got frustrated with cloth, so I did a couple anatomy studies. Felt fresh again. Now I’m back to cloth and I can push through.

The pattern: boredom means you’ve extracted what you need from this topic for now. You’ll come back later with fresh eyes.

Sign 2: Your brain is solving a different problem than your hands

I’d sit down to draw anatomy, but my brain was thinking about cloth folds. Or composition. Or gesture. Anything except what was in front of me.

That’s your brain telling you what it wants to learn next.

I stopped fighting it. If my brain wants to think about cloth, I draw cloth. If it wants gesture, I do gesture studies.

Your brain knows what skill gap is bothering it. Listen to it.

The exception: if your brain just wants to scroll Twitter and check analytics, that’s not a skill gap. That’s avoidance.

Sign 3: You’re in performance mode, not learning mode

This one changed everything for me.

Learning mode means you’re focused on getting better. Mistakes are interesting. You’re asking “what am I discovering here?”

Performance mode means you’re focused on the result. Mistakes are stressful. You’re asking “will people like this?”

When I switched from anatomy to cloth, I was in learning mode. Excited. Curious. Not worried about likes.

When I got frustrated with cloth, I was still in learning mode, just hitting the productive discomfort of “this is hard and I’m figuring it out.”

But I almost ruined everything by giving into the performance mode that social media encourages.

The social media problem

I wasn’t burned out on drawing. I was burned out on the performance anxiety that came with posting.

Every study became a test: Will this go viral? Will people like it? Am I wasting my momentum?

The warning signs were obvious:

  • Checking analytics every 10 minutes
  • 90 minutes of scrolling before even starting to draw
  • Good results (thousands of likes) feeling disappointing because they weren’t 33K
  • Refreshing notifications feeling more exciting than creating

That’s not creative fatigue. That’s the brain getting addicted to external validation.

Here’s what actually helped: I protected my first 2 hours every morning. No phone. No notifications. No Twitter. Just me and the work.

Your best creative energy isn’t unlimited. You get maybe 2-4 hours where everything flows, where you can actually see what you’re trying to make.

Spending those hours scrolling means you show up to draw with an already-tired brain craving quick dopamine hits instead of deep focus.

I also gave myself permission to make things that wouldn’t perform well. Some days I just follow a course and do the exercises. No posting. Just practice.

Those days prevent actual burnout because I’m building skill without performance pressure.

When to push through vs when to switch

Push through when:

  • You’re frustrated but engaged
  • You can see the skill you’re building
  • Switching would be running FROM difficulty
  • After a break, you still want to come back

Switch when:

  • You’re bored, not challenged
  • Your brain is thinking about different problems
  • You’ve been grinding the same thing for a month
  • Switching would be running TOWARD new interest

Ask yourself: “Would returning to this topic in two weeks sound appealing or dreadful?”

If appealing, you just need variety. If dreadful, something deeper is wrong.

The protocol

First, identify what you’re actually avoiding. Write one sentence. Not “I’m unmotivated.” Try: “I check my post performance 50 times a day and it makes drawing feel like a test.”

Second, protect your deep work from social media. Block 4 hours when you feel freshest. Phone out of the room. No checking likes until after you’ve created.

Third, switch topics when you’re bored, not when you’re stuck. Boredom means rotate. Difficulty means push through.

Fourth, do a weekly check-in. Ask yourself: Am I excited about my next project? Am I creating to learn or to perform? What would I draw if no one would see it?

If the answers scare you, something needs to change.

The real question

It’s not “Should I switch topics or push through?”

It’s “Am I running toward something interesting, or running from something hard?”

If you’re rotating between anatomy and cloth because each one teaches you something new, that’s healthy practice.

If you’re switching every day because you’re anxious about results, that’s avoidance.

The artists who make it aren’t the ones who grind one thing forever. They’re the ones who know when to switch and when to push.