Struggling with self-doubt? This mindset will change your life

Do you struggle with self-doubt about your creative work? Everyone does.

Do you feel like you should wait with hitting “publish” until you’re better at some point in the future? Then you are wrong.

Just because you’re doubting yourself doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put yourself out there.

Every creative who came before you struggled with these things, and after you learn the basics of your craft, the best thing you can do is “to practice in public”.

Practicing in public means expressing your ideas and feelings to the best of your abilities, publishing it somewhere, promoting it and moving on.

Do not wait to “get better”.

The day never comes where you feel like you’re completely ready - and it certainly doesn’t come before you show your work to the world.

This is, in a sense, you trusting the universe and bringing luck to you.

By practicing in public, you’ll get feedback from people that actually consume your art - and not what you have convinced yourself should work.

And yes, it’s tough to hear someone say the stuff you pour your heart and soul into sucks.

BUT you’ll be surprised by how many people love it - and you’ll realize that often the stuff you hate in your pieces is stuff that people don’t even think about or notice.

Sometimes it’s even those things people love most.

… But how?

So now we’ve talked about that you’re probably thinking “That’s great, but I still feel like my work is not good enough”.

Has it ever happened to you that you spend hours tweaking small details, just to go back and redo it the way it was originally?

That certainly happens to me from time to time and I used to struggle with this a lot.

A way to think about putting out work that really helps me, is the following:

“It’s not my job to make good art. It’s my job to express whatever it is I want to express to the best of my abilities, and when it’s done I promote it”.

That’s it. Read that again. This is the secret to being happy with your creations.

There’s always another level you can attain. You’re never done getting better. This is a lifelong journey.

Notice that nowhere do we judge the value of our art, other than whether or not we are expressing something to the best of our abilities.

It’s the audience’s job to analyze and judge it. Not ours as the artist.

When you think about your creations like this, it takes all the pressure off and just lets you enjoy the process.

If you did the best you could at that moment, you did your job. Release it and start the next project immediately.

If you’re an aspiring artist the best thing you can do, is to finish as much work as you can and move on and try to get a little bit better every time.

There is a really good experiment that illustrates this.

There was a professor in college photography class that wanted to run a little experiment, so he divided the class into two groups.

The first group would be graded on the single best picture they took for that month. The other group would be graded simply on the quantity of photos they took.

By a huge margin the quantity group took better photos by the end of that month than the quality group.

By just taking a lot of photos they improved automatically.

So the point is this: If you’re an aspiring artist, make art, finish it, move on. You’ll get a lot better, a lot faster that way.

You have a lifetime to be great. It takes a lifetime to be great.

Supercharged creativity fueled by objective feedback

Being aware of what your job is and what it isn’t is both freeing and exciting and it ultimately leads to you being a better artist.

We already talked about that it takes the pressure off of you making something amazing - since you’re not competing with anyone or for anything.

If your objective is to express something that you’re feeling or an idea you’re having - only you can do that!

And how can you then not succeed? If your only goal is to express art in your unique voice and then let the chips fall where they may, you have succeeded.

This is way better for your mental health in stead of worrying about making something you think other people will like.

But the main benefit is that you are now free to express your art in your unique voice and develop as an artist in a way that’s unique to you.

This mindset allows you to view criticism objectively and not be annoyed when someone leaves a bad comment or if it doesn’t get much attention at all.

If they don’t get it, well maybe there is a way to improve the way you’re expressing it.

But you did the best you could at the moment with the knowledge and tools available at the time.

The piece you just released that didn’t do so well is just a small pocket of your creative expression at the time.

Create to the best of your abilities in this given moment, release it, detach from it, iterate.

This allows you to be more productive since you’re not wasting your time worrying about what other people will like.

It helps you find your unique voice, and tap into that special sauce that makes you, you.

You’re just creating something and then collecting data on whether or not it resonates with the audience.

Just express and create to the best of your abilities

Next time you’re creating, whether that’s a video, a story, a piece of music, or 17th century history interpreted through dance, have the courage to think about it this way:

“Am I expressing the feeling or idea to the best of my abilities?”

If yes, awesome, you succeeded in what you were trying to do.

Publish, promote, move on.

If not, figure out what is missing or superfluous and give it another go.

Thoughts like “this sucks”, “people are not going to like this”, etc. are not constructive and should not be used as sign posts for decision making and to judge whether it’s done or not.

Just make it and move on.

Try not to care what other people think about it, other than for data points telling you what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t.

That’s it for this week.

Hit reply and let me know what you’re working on these days.

We got this.

Dan