Vincent van Gogh - "If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

Welcome to the Daily Quote – I'm Andrew McGivern.

Today's quote comes from Vincent van Gogh, one of the most influential painters in history, who said:
"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

By all means paint. And that voice will be silenced.
Van Gogh isn't saying ignore the voice. He's not saying think positive thoughts until it goes away.

He's saying do the exact thing the voice says you can't do. And the doing itself will silence it.

Here's why this works: that voice isn't giving you information. It's giving you fear disguised as truth.

"You cannot paint" sounds like a fact. Like the voice knows something about your abilities.
But it doesn't. It's just trying to keep you safe. Keep you from failing. Keep you from being embarrassed.

And the only way to prove it wrong is to do the thing anyway.
When you paint – when you actually put brush to canvas despite the voice – one of two things happens.
Either you discover you CAN paint, and the voice was lying. Or you paint badly, survive it, and realize the voice was wrong about that being a catastrophe.

Either way, the voice loses power. Because it's been tested against reality and found wanting.
The voice only has power when you listen to it. When you let it stop you without checking if it's telling the truth.

Van Gogh heard that voice constantly. He struggled with doubt, with mental illness, with criticism. The voice told him he couldn't paint, that his work was worthless, that he should give up.

He painted anyway. Thousands of paintings. And now, long after his death, his work is celebrated worldwide.
The voice was wrong. And painting proved it.
Van Gogh was right. The doing silences the voice. Not the other way around.

So here's the question: What voice is telling you that you can't do something? And what would happen if you did it anyway?
Because that voice isn't giving you facts. It's giving you fear. And the only way to silence it is to test it against reality.

By all means, do the thing. And watch the voice disappear.
That's it for today. I'm Andrew McGivern – I'll see you in the next one with another Daily Quote.