6 Simple Ways to Build Creative Confidence
Doing creative work requires some semblance of confidence, whether to help get you started, or to keep you going. Without confidence, you can run into problems like writer's block, imposter syndrome, and overall fear and anxiety about your work.
Having confidence in your own writing takes it to a whole new level. When you feel confident in your own work, other people will feel more confident about it, too.
What is Confidence?
In the most basic sense, confidence is the “quality of being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans, or the future.”
Confidence has everything to do with how we feel about the actions we take (or could take) to be successful. When we’re confident, we feel sure we can accomplish what we need to serve others and ourselves, as well as succeed in the future.
In other words, confidence helps you on your road to success. (If you want to read more about confidence, we did a mini-series about it.)
Why Do Some Writers Lack Confidence?
It feels like it should be easy to stay confident in yourself, but it’s often hard to do. You’ve probably wondered whether your writing is “good enough” - and so it is with many writers. We’ve all been there. It’s a human thing to question yourself - and completely normal.
When you tell other people you're a writer, they ask questions, too. Some questions seem harmless, like “What do you write?” Other questions, such as “When are you going to get published?” can create a sneaking doubt in your mind and make you wonder if you’re good enough to get published. And if so, what will people think? Will people want to read it? And what if they do and they don’t like it?
Then there’s the ever-famous bad experience that seems to happen to all writers at one point or another. For those of us who love writing and have been doing it since we were young, we often started out full of confidence - of course our ideas were good! Then, we have a moment or an encounter where someone gives us negative criticism we don’t know what to do with that alters the course of our writing lives. It sometimes takes years for confidence to grow (and for some it never quite comes back in the same gleeful way).
So what do you do about these doubts? And how the heck do you gain confidence in yourself and your writing when it feels impossible?
6 Ways to Build Creative Confidence
These are some of the ways we (and our clients!), here at Capturing Your Confidence that work - writer to writer.
Journaling
Journaling is great because you never have to show it to anyone, so you never have to worry about whether people will enjoy it. Journaling is all for you. It’s a safe space where you can write about anything you want.
It can be a daily routine (like Rachel’s morning pages practice); a place to write out all your story ideas; a place to vent all your fears, successes, or memories you want to remember; or, you can use it for all of the above.
If you need multiple journals, that’s okay! Journaling is meant to help you, whatever that might look like.
Start Small
If you want to write, but it seems too daunting, start small. You can always work your way up to your longer term goal. For instance, say you want to write a book, but you’re not sure if you can (because it is a lot), you can start with a short story or essay.
It doesn’t have to have anything to do with what you want to write your book about. The process of writing that shorter piece will help you figure out things like how quickly or slowly you write, what style and genres you prefer, and whether or not you actually want to write something longer.
If you’re thinking about writing professionally for readers online, you can start small by writing guest posts on someone else’s blog. Doing this helps you test the waters before you make the commitment to building your own blog. You can also publish on sites like Medium, where you don’t have to pay to post, but you can see if what you’re writing about is something people are looking for.
No matter what you want to write, there are ways to work your way up to that end goal.
Read Your Writing & Find Things You Like (On Purpose)
One of the best things you can do for your writing confidence is to read your writing. Be intentional about it - find your favorite parts and best lines. Ignore the pieces that you feel aren’t up to par (let’s be honest, it can’t all be gold), and really feel the pieces you’re proud of.
Whenever you’re feeling self-doubt or just need some inspiration to keep writing, go back and read those pieces you picked out. Remind yourself that you are good enough, no matter what anyone else says. It’s easy to forget your own capabilities when you aren’t looking back at your work.
Writing is a constant growth & learning process and it’s important to look back to see how far you’ve come.
Share Your Writing with One Person
When you’re ready to share your writing with someone, choose one person you trust to start with. Tell them exactly what you want from them, whether it’s honesty, or simply to hype you up. It’s okay to want someone who will point out the good pieces of your writing for your first outside perspective.
Eventually you’ll need them to tell you what needs work, but if you’re not ready for that, don’t feel pressure to ask for that on your first share. The worst feeling is giving someone your work and having them tear it apart when it wasn’t ready for that type of criticism yet. Don’t ask for the brutal honesty until you you’ve edited and worked to make your draft as strong as it can be without an outside eye.
DO NOT CHOOSE SOCIAL MEDIA AS YOUR ONE PERSON.
Let me repeat that: when you select the first person to read your work, DO NOT share it publicly on any type of social media platform. This is a recipe for a shitstorm of criticism, which is not what this first person share is about.
Take a Break from Social Media
First, a note: we’re not anti-social media here. You can make connections with fellow writers, and run effective marketing for your book on social media. It’s a great opportunity to meet people you probably wouldn’t in real life!
But it’s a double-edged sword. If you’re scrolling through Insta or TikTok for hours on end, you have less time for your own creative work. It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others, which saps creativity, sometimes without you even knowing it’s happening. Imposter syndrome anyone?
Much of what you see on social media isn’t real anyway.
Someone may say they write for five hours everyday, or read twenty books every month, but you don’t know that’s actually the case. Even if it is, they’re not you. Everyone is different. Everyone writes and reads at a different pace, and everyone experiences self-doubt sometimes (even the loudest people).
So, make sure to take a break from social media every once in a while. Even if it’s only for a day, take a step back and remind yourself of who you are and why you’re writing. Take a day to explore and inspire yourself, or to rest and relax. Whatever you need to do, allow yourself those moments to rejuvenate yourself.
Keep Practicing, Even When You’re Not Feeling Confident
Even when you’re not feeling confident, write anyway. It doesn’t have to be your best work. In fact, if it’s something that feels like garbage, that’s okay, too. We all do it, words don’t come out perfect, even for the best of us. That’s what editing is for.
You don’t even have to do anything with it. All the time you spend writing is making you a better writer. Practicing even when you’re not confident can sometimes (inadvertently) lead to some of the best work, which is sure to restore at least a little confidence. Remember - all you have to do is write. Everything else is peripheral.