What Creative Confidence Really Looks Like
spoiler alert: it ain't sexy
My favorite photo of me. Early in a 12-mile race outside Bryce Canyon. Started the race feeling so scared, thinking what have I gotten myself into? Then I reassured a scared runner and climbed a giant hill in loose sand. Look at that grin. This is how creative confidence works - worry, start anyway, help someone, do some more, and most of all? Keep going.
Creative confidence — that elusive feeling we imagine everyone else has a swimming pool full of, a swimming pool they dive into every morning for a refreshing confidence plunge. Then they wrap themselves in a turquoise cashmere robe and drink some mushroom-infused beverage that makes their neurons fire faster while contemplating the ease of their perfect day unfolding...
Needle scratch. Let’s stop that ramble down the road of projection and comparison, shall we? Because if there’s one thing we all know, confidence doesn’t grow on comparison. Also, nobody has a swimming pool of confidence. NOBODY.
We are ALL afraid when we’re doing what matters to us.
It’s why we tell ourselves it’s too late. If we only had more confidence then we would launch the biz, post the dating profile, write the book, publish the social media post talking about the book we are almost done writing (looking at you my beloved clients!), sign up for the dance class…
If only.
Get ready for the secret to having that brimming never-ending creative confidence.
Ready?
THERE IS NO SECRET.
No Shangrila is waiting for you (if there was that swimming pool of confidence would be smack dab center) where you never doubt yourself again.
You aren’t missing some secret memo everybody but you got.
BUT if there was a secret, it would be this:
Begin. Do something. Confidence comes from action.
Keep going. Confidence grows with experience. Experience is magic.
Be curious and a little defiant. Less focus on getting it right, more of what you want to express. 1
Permission to change your mind. Nothing is forever.2
Make close creative friends who can reflect your confidence back to you in the moments you can’t muster it for yourself.3 (My retreats are a great place to make those friends.)
I am not a creatively confident person but I become one because I do stuff.
Or as my friend Natalie Serber said during our recent writing class (she’s a guest at my upcoming writing retreat hint hint), “We don’t write because we love writing, we love writing because we write.”
Because writing is doing. Taking action. Not planning to take action.
Or as the wonderful Sharon Salzberg writes in her book Faith, “Abiding faith does not depend on borrowed concepts. Rather, it is the magnetic force of a bone-deep, lived understanding, one that draws us to realize our ideals, walk our talk, and act in accord with what we know to be true.”
I work hard not to believe my mind nattering, “You can’t do it, you suck” about 70,000 times a day. (That number might be on the low side.) It’s hard for me to comment on Courtney Maum’s newsletter and ask for help. It’s hard for me to mention to you I am writing a novel. It’s very hard for me to write fan letters to writers I want to get to know. Still, I do.
I also give myself lots of healthy comforts to bolster my courage. Toast! Popcorn! Dog cuddles! TV at night! Novels! Naps! This sweater.
You might be saying, “But Jen I don’t know what I want.” That’s okay. Take action and then see if you like what you’re doing. Adjust as needed. Action makes a path for what you want to show up.
Off you go now, get to work.
Love,
Jen
Have an idea to share or questions? Ask away!
This is exactly what I needed today as I struggle with writing a memoir. It would be so easy to say "fuck it, I'm 66, it's too late" when I hit a snag, or "holy hell, I'm never going to finish", when I once again realize I need to pivot. But I have found, every time, that doing breeds confidence so I keep going. I think working on the creative friends thing is next. Thanks for all of your inspiration (been reading you for years and years).
“Abiding faith does not depend on borrowed concepts. Rather, it is the magnetic force of a bone-deep, lived understanding, one that draws us to realize our ideals, walk our talk, and act in accord with what we know to be true.”
I love this quote about faith. As a 100% lapsed Catholic, I have an interesting relationship with faith. (I write about it often.) I like the idea that what drives me as a writer is faith in the craft as a way to live a life.