“Usha, your drawing is hopeless.”
I was in grade two when my teacher said that to me. I don’t think she gave it a second thought. But I did. That one sentence stayed with me, quietly, for most of my life.
For years I believed it without ever really questioning it. I found my creativity in so many other places, in my work, in my writing, in my cooking, and in the baking I only took up in my thirties and somehow completely fell in love with. I tried all sorts of things, and they worked out. But art was the one door I kept firmly shut. Not because I’d tried and failed at it as an adult, but because that little voice inside me kept repeating the same old line. You can’t do this. You were told so.
It’s funny, and a little sad, how long we let one careless comment run the show.
Then last year, life handed me its biggest surprise, an illness that changed me. And more than anything, it changed the way I approach living. I let go of a lot of my inhibitions. I stopped automatically believing everything my mind told me. And I started saying yes to new things, one at a time, without all the old hesitation.
So I began gently. I started with paint by numbers, of all things. And you know what… it was fun. Just fun. No pressure, no performance, only colour and me.
This Mother’s Day, my son gifted me a painting workshop. My friend and I went together and painted our canvases side by side. I chose a pre-sketched canvas, because honestly, my inner critic was still perched on my shoulder and I wasn’t quite ready to face a blank one. But when I look back at that painting now, I’m genuinely impressed. I made that.
That gave me just enough courage to go a step further. This month, I enrolled myself in a Pablo Picasso cubism portrait workshop. And I’ll be honest, at first the whole idea scared me. Paint like Picasso? He’s such a big name. Who was I to even try. But instead of letting that resistance win, I set it aside and asked a friend to come along as my partner in crime. She said yes, and we booked ourselves in for a Friday evening.
The evening itself was lovely. We were in a café, at a big table by the window looking out over Aspire Park, and the organizer began by walking us through Picasso’s life. Then she explained cubism, how art isn’t about faces that look correct and real, but about the artist’s own way of seeing. A face could become cubes and shapes. Big eyes, small ears, a wide mouth, whatever the artist felt in the moment.
I was still a little skeptical, until she said something that quietly gave me permission to begin. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. And an artist’s expression is theirs alone, completely individual. She reminded us that so many artists went unrecognized in their own lifetime, only to be celebrated long after they were gone.
And that’s when it landed for me. The reason I’d never let myself paint wasn’t a lack of talent. It was my inner critic, and underneath it, this quiet need for other people to approve of what I made. I’d been creating for their eyes, not my own. But if I could just make something to be in the moment, to express myself, then whatever came out of me would be my masterpiece. Beautiful in my eyes. And I could hang it proudly in my own home.
With that single thought, the next hour became the most satisfying I’d had in a long time. We’d each been given a piece of cardboard to work from, and as I started cutting out my shapes, something loosened in me. I realised there was no correct way to do this, no defined way to make a face. So I used everything. Nothing went in the bin. One offcut became the nose. The little shavings I’d trimmed from near the ears became the brows. And I gave my face a full, pouted set of lips. Then I painted it all in, in as many abstract colours as I wanted, no reference, no rules, just whatever felt right. Bit by bit, from all these odd leftover pieces, a face came together that was entirely mine.
I was the first one at the table to finish, and I felt happy and content in a way that’s hard to put into words. And then the organizer came round, looked at what I’d made, and told me it reminded her of Van Gogh. Van Gogh. The girl who was once told her drawing was hopeless. I can’t quite describe what that did to me.
And here’s the honest part. Even after that, the moment I stepped back, the inner critic piped up again, comparing my face to everyone else’s around the table, whispering that theirs were the good ones and mine was just… done. But this time I caught it. I reminded myself that the only person I’m ever really competing with is me. That today was a baby step, and that every other piece on that table wasn’t a threat, it was an inspiration. Next time, I’ll do a little better.
And that is the thing I keep coming back to. How much noise we carry around in our own heads for no real reason, all these little dialogues, all this second-guessing, when the simple truth is that the moment I stop listening to the chatter and just allow myself to be, I am completely capable of creating. It was a Friday very well spent, and it taught me something that reaches far beyond painting. The minute I let my mind go quiet and simply took action, life got better.
So if there’s a voice in your head telling you you can’t do something, it’s worth asking where it actually came from. It might just be a grade two teacher who’s been living rent-free in your head for decades, and you are allowed to stop listening any time you choose. Your masterpiece might be waiting on the other side of one small, scary yes.
Usha Nagrani, an HR Leader turned ICF Executive Coach, empowers senior management professionals and business leaders to achieve breakthroughs as expats, build cross-cultural teams, and navigate the exciting journey of career acceleration.
