If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

The voice that says you cannot do a thing is not making a prediction. It is describing your inexperience and dressing it up as a verdict, and it gets louder the longer you stay outside the work. Doing the thing badly is what disproves it, because that voice has no answer to evidence. What quiets it is not confidence first, but a few hours of actual attempt.

Spend one short session this week on the thing you have decided you are unable to do. Set a timer, keep it private, and let the result be poor. The hour is the point, not the outcome.