Creative Confidence
Even though I have been designing all my life, I have always struggled with creative confidence. You end up always second-guessing yourself, redoing work again and again even though anyone who sees it is interested and seems to like it.
You can end up self-sabotaging- making small (or large) decisions that mean that we are unable to achieve our goals- spending hours honing our skills, even though what you are producing is good enough, by any metric. As you will learn if you keep on reading this blog, is that I am a life-long learner. There is nothing I enjoy doing more than learning new skills. However, it is sometimes difficult to stop learning and just do it.
You will hear lots from me about one of my favourite creative people, Emma Gannon, who is a podcaster, writer and blogger. She calls herself a ‘Multi-Hyphenate’- someone who dips her toes into many different fields. In fact, she has written a book called the Multi-Hyphen Method, which describes how you can create more and stop self-sabotaging yourself. Her premise is that creative people are actually deeply afraid of being successful. She posits that fear is a natural part of creativity and is behind every success that you may have. It’s important to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Her Skillshare class is also fascinating. She identifies types of self-sabotage, including procrastination, perfectionism, silencing our inner critic and inability to self-promote.
The key is to identify your patterns of behaviour when it comes to your creative life. I know I have elements of all of them.
So where to start: work out a good time to work on your creativity. I like to get up early(ish) and do some exercise. I just got myself (and my family) a Peloton bike and I have to say, the number of classes makes it very easy - you just roll out of bed and pick something. But a larger review on the Peloton later…. (watch this space).
Choose a good time to start your most creative activities- every day is a new start. Pick a day that you can monitor your day and work out what works for you. Emma recommends that you map your highs and lows. Block out times that you can amplify your highs and mute all the things that make you feel less than yourself. Less of the negative, more of the positive. Unfollow people that you compare yourself to, they are not serving you well.
Comparison is the thief of joy..
Theodore Roosevelt
2. Perfectionism - it is a never-ending competition with yourself. The cliched writer with writer’s block is a perfect example of this. So what can you do? Lowering your expectations, trying something out that is maybe isn’t perfect but it’s done! Patting yourself on the back for finishing something, even if it isn’t great. Look at it as a start. Realising that we only get better at things when we do things multiple times. Trying and failing but learning lessons and getting better. Practice and repetition. Show your work even though it is not quite finished. Put your stuff out there.
A drawing I did this year
Here is something I drew early this year. It’s based on some photos that I took when I went to Berlin quite some time ago, some old vintage postcards that I found and a photo of a woman I found online. Obviously, drawing people is not my strong suit. I feel like I missed something in all the art classes that I have done. But over time I have improved and it’s enjoyable doing it even though I know that I am not going to be the world’s best watercolourist.
3. Procrastination- this is probably my smallest obstacle as I always appear to be busy but tasks that are more difficult or are a bit out of my comfort zone. This particularly applies to things that have to do with business activities …awful! The best thing to do is to break it up into bite-size pieces and get going with it. It is also important to tell people that you are working on something as these people will remind you that this is something you are working on. Face your fears and acknowledge that you are a bit afraid, pretend it is easy and then you can start layering things on top.
4. My inner-critic- A way we protect ourselves from failure ( real or self-perceived). Firstly, Emma recommends writing a script for yourself giving yourself advice and support. Save all your positive feedback and make sure that you look at them regularly. Imagine yourself as a younger version of you and how you would talk to yourself. WRITE IT DOWN AND THEN RIP IT UP.
5. Self-promotion- This is the one that I struggle with the most. It’s not part of my makeup. It sounds a lot like bragging and I guess I hate to stand out. Look at people you admire and see how they do it. Talk to people like you are confiding with your best friend. It’s still intimidating for me and I haven’t been able to get the courage up to put myself on insta just yet, but, like everyone, I am a work in progress. You have to remember that you are promoting your business.
