Is artistic ability a gift?

That’s a question we all ponder.

Conventional thinking leans on the easy answer: Yes, it must be.

Mozart was gifted with music. Picasso was gifting with art and painting. Michael Jordan was gifting with basketball. They were all born geniuses.

Science, however, points in a direct direction.

Psychologist and author Carol Dweck, who has dedicated her life to busting the many myths of mindset, has discovered otherwise. In her book, Mindset, I learned about the story of Betty Edwards.

Betty is an artist. She runs five-day drawing workshops for anyone who has an inkling for art; and her promise is this: In five days, you can become an artist.

She argues that “most people view drawing as a magical ability that only a select few posses, and that only a select few will ever posses. But this is because people don’t understand the components—the learnable components—of drawing.” These skills are not drawing skills, they are seeing skills: learning how to perceive edges, spaces, relationships, lights, and shadows.

Through her five-day course, she transforms people’s artistic ability. Take a look at these before and after self-portraits draw by her students:

Look at their portraits on the right. The depth and definition. The incorporation of light and shadows. That’s one hell of a stride in improvement if you ask me. And it was achieved in 5 days!

As you can see from those “after” portraits, anyone can learn how to draw. Anyone can improve. Anyone can build the skills and hone them to become a great artist.

So if a person with average skills can do it, why can’t you?

I’ll tell you why you think you can’t.

It’s because you don’t have the right mindset.

What You Need is a ‘Growth Mindset’

In her book, Mindset, Carol Dweck writes:

“My research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.

There are two main ideas at play here.

First, what you believe will go on to define your life.

If you believe you cannot become a great writer, then guess what? You’ll never become one. Why? Because you don’t believe it and so you won’t even try. If you don’t believe that you can successfully launch and manage your own business, or become fit, or lead a team, this belief will go on to shape the view you adopt for yourself, which then translates into the way you lead your life.

In other words, you can only achieve what you deem possible because you’ll always be held back by your limiting beliefs. If you don’t think you have artistic, creative, or leadership abilities, you won’t explore and indulge yourself in the field of art, creativity, or leadership. It’s as simple as that.

The second idea is this: Skills are learned, developed, and improved through deliberate practice and continued effort.

In Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards writes that “one of the most encouraging new discoveries that the human brain has made about itself is that it can physically change itself by changing its accustomed ways of thinking, by deliberately exposing itself to new ideas and routines, and by learning new skills.” This is what is neuroscientists refer to as neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change the synapses between its neurons, and thus, its structure (through the learning, experiencing, and repetition of a skill).

And I can attest to that.

Five years ago I was a broke post-graduate student waiting on my work permit and visa to relocate to Ireland and begin my post at Google. With the sudden abundance of free time and a little under three months to my start date, I walked into a music store and picked out an acoustic guitar. I decided to teach myself how to play the guitar.

Five years ago I knew nothing about guitar chords. Today, I can strum them. Five years ago I didn’t know how to switch between chords. Today, I play through different songs effortlessly. Five years ago I said: “I don’t know how to play the guitar.”

Today, I can say ‘I do,’ thanks to self-belief, continuous effort, and help from a plethora of free lessons and tutorials that can be found on Youtube.

You can learn anything you want—but you can only do so with deliberate practice and continued effort. As explained by Dweck: “With the right mindset and the right teaching, people are capable of a lot more than we think.”

You Are More Capable Than You Think

Sure, Pablo Picasso was talented.

People forget, however, that he first raised a brush at the age of nine and that in his 78-year career, he produced about 147,800 pieces of paintings, sculptors, and illustrators. Yes, he was an art genius! But look at the sheer amount of “deliberate practice and continued effort” he exerted into his craft. The quality of his output is a measure of how much he improved in the process.

Sure, Michael Jordan was talented.

People forget, however, that he was cut from the varsity basketball team because he wasn’t ‘good enough.’ It was his inconceivable work ethic and unparalleled self-belief that allowed him to flourish and rise to the top.

Here’s one piece of advice from Dweck that you should remind yourself of every day:

“Think about your hero. Do you think of this person as someone with extraordinary abilities who achieved with little effort? Now go find out the truth. Find out the tremendous effort that went into their accomplishment—and admire them more.”

Remember: You are more capable than you think, you just need to cultivate a growth mindset. You can achieve what you wish to achieve. You can learn a new language. You can grow into the influential leader you wish to become. You can build a successful business for yourself. You can—but you must be willing to believe in yourself and work hard for it. That’s the essence of a growth mindset.

In five days, you can become an artist.

So imagine what you can do in five days with focused attention toward your skill of choice.

With that said, I leave you with these last words:

“Think of times other people outdid you and you just assumed they were smarted or more talented. Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that, too, if you want to.”— Carol Dweck, Mindset