Self-confidence is the most essential trait you need to possess to excel as a writer. Without confidence in your abilities, your values, and your worth, everything you are striving to achieve will crumble to dust.
As a writer, you build self-confidence by trusting yourself, for, without trust, your conviction in your creative endeavors holds no water.
What is Self-confidence?
Self-confidence is accepting who you are without prejudice. Being self-confident is understanding your capabilities and upholding your values without external dictations.
Building self-confidence positively affects every aspect of your life, not just your creative pursuits, yet you’ll discover you’re sometimes struggling to stay confident.
You can’t buy confidence. To own it, you have to believe in and trust yourself, which is tough to accomplish as a burgeoning writer finding your feet.
Your struggles with confidence are often psychological because you’ve developed a mindset that believes you aren’t good enough to accomplish your writing goals.
When you breed such negative thoughts in your mind, doubts, fear, anxiety, and frustration creep into your headspace and mess with your confidence.
To understand how you can overcome your struggles with self-confidence mentally, you have to first acknowledge the harmful habits hurting your self-confidence.
6 Habits Hurting Your Self-confidence
- Assuming the worst about your craft
- Needing to prove your worth
- Underestimating your creative abilities
- Allowing everyone else to dictate your creative preferences
- Not figuring out how you want to grow as a writer
- Having a fixed mindset toward your creative growth
#1. Assuming The Worst About Your Craft
It’s one thing to have a critical opinion about your work and another to be embarrassed by them before anyone even points out a fault.
Allowing yourself to assume the worst of people’s opinions about your craft shows how little you believe in the piece you’ve created.
If you have so little faith in yourself and your art (even when you’re not qualified enough), no amount of skills, success, or growth will give you that confidence.
How To Deal With Unhealthy Assumptions
- Own what you have created despite your fears.
- Give room only for necessary constructive criticism.
- When engaged in a conversation about your work, let the initiator lead.
- Don’t be in a hurry to tear down your work.
- Do what you need to clean up your work to your heart’s content.
- Learn more if your lack of knowledge makes you nervous around like minds.
#2. Needing To Prove Your Worth
You, just like the old me and one million other young creatives, feel the need to impress someone before you can take credit for your creation.
Acknowledgments don’t define your worth. You define what you are worth.
The world shouldn’t measure your worth on a scale for you to believe you have greatness in you. If you believe you can achieve greatness, the sky is only your starting point.
If you need to prove your worth to someone other than yourself, you are slowly poisoning your mind and chipping away at your confidence.
How To Deal With Feeling Unworthy
- Always remind yourself why you write.
- Acknowledge your work first before anyone else.
- Remember that your work isn’t for everyone and only those it caters to will truly appreciate your work.
- Replace the feelings of unworthiness with self-assurance.
- Adopt a positive, affirmative attitude and fill up your space with affirmative words of self-confidence and repeat them daily.
#3. Underestimating Your Creative Abilities
Being self-confident is believing you can dominate and achieve your creative goals, even when you have no clue how.
Underestimating yourself, your skills, and your capabilities before you even try is a mindset that hurts your self-confidence.
When your self-esteem takes a hit, doubts creep in. Underestimating yourself is what gives birth to unhealthy assumptions and feelings of unworthiness.
How To Stop Underestimating Your Creative Abilities
- Dedicate time to learn the skills needed to dominate your creative goals.
- Practice and experiment in every area of your creative interest. This increases your confidence in your skills.
- Seek tutelage from experts or creatives in your circle whom you truly admire their work.
- Ask questions and seek ways to improve yourself always.
#4. Allowing Everyone Else Dictate Your Creative Preferences
You alone know what you want. No one else should dictate what your interest are.
When you create because it’s what’s in vogue, instead of following your path of interest, you’ll lose touch with yourself.
You’ll stop believing in your art and you’ll doubt your every move because you tethered it to the moves of others.
Nothing about your creative art will seem like it belongs to you, hence your lack of conviction and confidence in yourself and your creation.
How To Not Lose Touch With Your Creative Art
- Love your reason for writing and embrace your passion.
- Write out your creative values and purpose behind your writing brand.
- Embrace new trends, but only if it aligns with your long-term writing goals.
- Make adjustments where necessary, but not at the expense of your values as a writer.
- Write the stories, articles, and posts you’ll truly want to read and you’re proud of.
#5. Not Figuring Out How You Want To Grow
Nothing gives you a kick in the gut and takes a knife to your self-confidence, like doing everything they say works.
I not talking about Mentorship, having a Role model, or Learning.
I mean jumping the gun and chasing everything without figuring out how you want to grow as a writer.
Your confidence level hits below 20% when you’re stuck doing something and everything that does not correlate with your true interests as a writer.
How To Align Your Interest And Growth
- Figure out how you want to grow as a writer.
(I want to become an author, a freelancer, a coach, a better writer, a blogger, e.t.c) Knowing this helps you align your interest to match your growth.
- Identify areas within your interest that resonate more with you and build skills in those areas.
(Doing this feels way better and builds your confidence in your art than chasing after everything)
- Focus your energy on chasing only things that correlate with your visions of growth.
- Take a genuine interest in yourself and explore the things you’re truly passionate about.
#6. Having A Fixed Mindset Toward Your Creative Growth
Nothing dampens your creative spirit and weakens your confidence like stagnation.
Having a rigid mindset toward your creative growth is the surest way to remain stuck in a spot until you give up.
The beauty of writing and developing your creative craft is the never-ending shape it can take and the endless possibilities out there waiting for you.
Believing that if a system doesn’t work, then nothing else will, isn’t the type of mindset that sets you up for success. It’s the type that kills your creative dreams and buries your self-confidence with it.
How To Develop A Positive, Flexible Attitude That Improves Your Confidence
- Believe that your creative opportunities are vast, and failure is a testing arena.
- Search inward for things that spark your curiosity and give them room to thrive.
- Continue improving yourself and your skills. The more you expand your knowledge, the wider your scope of opportunities as a creator.
- Cultivate a love for experimentation.
- Never rely on one system for your success. Ensure you diversify your portfolio and give more energy to the groups of systems that work.
Endnotes
Your self-confidence as a writer is your greatest superpower. Don’t lose it to pressure.
Appreciating your capabilities and trusting yourself helps you protect your self-confidence from harm. Believe in your dreams and creative goals, pursue them relentlessly, and don’t let the world tell you otherwise.