10 Steps to Build Creative Confidence
The word I chose to guide my 2020 is Confidence. It’s something I don’t have enough of, something I’m trying to build up. Just browsing through Instagram can send me into a bleak black spiral of self-doubt: “Is my art professional enough?” “Why can’t I draw as confidently as they do"?” “Will I ever be as good as they are?”
I think confidence is something that all creatives struggle with. There is no roadmap on this creative journey. We are all forging our own path. It’s easy to feel as if you are the only one who has no idea what the heck you are doing. If this is something you struggle with, here are some strategies I’ve found to build your confidence:
1. Show up regularly.
When drawing or painting or creating is an event, the pressure is high. For example: if you are sitting down to create the only piece you will create all year, then chances are you are going to want that painting to be a gosh darn masterpiece. But, when you sit down to create every single day, the pressure eases off, big time. It’s like the difference between cooking Thanksgiving for your in-laws, and sitting down to a regular Wednesday night with just your husband and your fat cat. I probably wouldn’t serve fried eggs and cucumber slices on Thanksgiving, but they are a perfectly lovely Wednesday night meal. Let your art be commonplace by showing up for it every day, or as often as you can!
2. Keep promises to yourself.
You are so energized to draw, you can feel it in your bones. Tomorrow, you tell yourself, tomorrow I’m going to sit down and draw, I just know it. And you go to bed and wake up the next day and something comes up and gets in the way of your little promise to yourself. It’s ok. Tomorrow you will draw, you tell yourself again. Tomorrow. After enough days like this, your story about yourself will change. You will begin to believe that you can’t draw. You will believe that you aren’t a disciplined person. You will allow days, weeks, months and maybe years to go by without doing the thing you care about.
Or you can have a different story. And it’s as simple as making the things you care about a priority. Non-negotiable. Make your goals small and manageable. Don’t make promises to yourself that you don’t intend to keep. For my first 100-day challenge my goal was just to paint for ten minutes a day. And I did. And when I got to the end of a long day and realized I hadn’t painted, I sat down for ten minutes before I brushed my teeth. On days when I knew I would be busy, I got up early and painted first thing. Not because the sky would fall if I didn’t paint, but because I cared, and my dedication was how I show myself how much I cared. When you keep promises to yourself you can become a different person, a more confident person.
3. Give your inner critic a name, then tell him to shush.
I got this tip from the wonderful book, How to Not Always be Working by Marlee Grace. She recommends that we all give our inner critics a name and don’t hesitate to tell that inner critic to be quiet. I’ve found this strategy to be so helpful. It’s much easier to pinpoint that voice when you know it’s just Roger again and he can’t be trusted. Inner critics can be wonderful. When we are reflecting on the art we’ve made and want to find new directions to focus our efforts and our learning, that inner critic can provide important guidance. But in the midst of creating, our inner critics are often more of a hinderance than a help. They get us all tangled up in whether what we are doing is any good, and distract us from being present and enjoying the process. So when you start to hear that voice saying you don’t know what you are doing, just tell that Roger-voice to go mind his own dang business.
4. Show yourself grace.
We are often pros at showing grace to those we love and then big old jerks when it comes to extending that same grace to ourselves. Grace is the simple act of understanding and excusing our imperfections. Because we aren’t perfect, and we never will be. We’ll make bad art. We’ll skive off some days when we told ourselves we’d paint. We make excuses. We procrastinate. The trick is, when those things happen, we need to treat ourselves with all the kindness of a best friend. Pause. Breathe. Remind yourself that you are a strong, dedicated, thoughtful, awesome person and today doesn’t define you. Forgive yourself and do better tomorrow.
5. Keep your old work.
Progress in any creative discipline doesn’t look like a happy line-graph shooting straight to the top. It’s full of juts and turns and those moments when you feel like you’ve never made a good thing in your whole life. At times like those, it will be helpful to have your old work, to point at and say, “look how much more confident I am with colour now”, “look at that gorgeous texture I created”, “look how expressive your lines have become”. Because every single day when you show up, you are progressing, even if you can’t see it day to day. All of the past work you’ve created will act as a reminder of how far you have come. Keep the mementos of your progress.
6. Play.
When we only make serious art, art becomes a serious business. It's easy to forget our joy in creation. Makes things just for fun. Make a mess. Make things just for you. Make something in a medium you don’t usually work in. Use a tool that you wouldn’t normally use. Use crayons on a paper bag. Collage. Finger paint. Draw with your eyes closed. Draw with your non-dominant hand. Do anything you can to bring the joy and the wonder back into your creative practice. If you don’t know where to start, I highly recommend a class by Marie-Noëlle Wurm Unleash Your Creativity: Draw Without Fear in Five Simple Exercises. This class was the starting point for my own creative re-awakening and helped me stop taking my art so seriously. I likely wouldn’t be an illustrator without it.
7. Give up on perfection.
Repeat this to yourself: Perfection is nonsense and boring to boot. The idea of perfection is stifling. It stops us from ever creating art because we can’t make a perfect thing. Perfection doesn’t exist. If we scrutinize anything closely enough we will begin to see its flaws. Even the most beautiful piece of art you’ve ever seen in you life has so very many tiny imperfections. Stray lines, splotches of paint, slightly wonky colours. Imperfections add character. Imperfections are the basis of a style that is uniquely you. Let go of the nonsense of perfection. You are going to create a ton of terrible art. That's okay. You'll also create a ton of beautiful art, if you just keep creating. Practice does not make perfect, practice makes progress.
8. Embrace being a beginner.
We all start off sucking at everything we do. Have you seen babies? They don’t know how to do anything. They can’t even hold their own big heads up. But over time and with practice they learn things. They learn to stand, to walk, and eventually to run and ride bikes and maybe even do cool things like snowboard or mountain climb. But they didn’t start off knowing those things. They started off as big dumb babies who sucked. At everything.
When you start making art, you are going to suck. And that’s okay. Admit when you don’t know things, ask questions, find people who know more than you and watch what they do, read books, make a ton of art and enjoy this period when you literally cannot get worse. You will get better.
9. Build a community.
There is literally no better cure for self-doubt than a conversation with a friend who is feeling all the same things you are. Doubt is isolating. It will tell you that you are the only one in the world who can’t figure things out. That you are the dumbest, worst, least talented artist in the whole dang world. And it’s wrong. Speaking these fears aloud, or hearing them spoken by someone you love and admire, will show you just how untruthful they are. So reach out, find other people who care about the things you care about, who are excited by the same things that excite you. We live in a wonderfully connected world and there are so many ways to reach out to other creatives so that you aren’t just a lone voice in the dark. Message artists you love on Instagram, take online classes, join an art group. Do whatever you can to find other people who have the same struggles you do, and then share the load. You will both feel better.
10. Don’t give up.
Some days will be hard. Some days you won’t feel like making anything. Somedays bad things will happen that might knock you to your knees. That’s life. Take all the time you need to regroup or recover and then get back to it. Don’t give up. There is magic in knowing that you are on this creative journey for the long haul.
