“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
Sylvia Plath
Most, if not all, creative people struggle with self-doubt and insecurity. Yes, you are in good company. As you probably know, left unchecked, self-doubt about your creative work can hold you back from taking risks and pursuing new ideas and opportunities. It might stop you from working towards your creative goals and leave you feeling unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and stuck. Over time, chronic self-doubt and insecurity can also erode your mental health and seep into other areas of your life.
One of the tricky things about creative self-doubt is that it creates a vicious cycle. When we feel doubt, we tend to avoid doing the thing we feel doubt about, or we don’t do it as well as we could because we’re so distracted by worrying about whether we’re good enough. This avoidance or distraction reinforces the self-doubt (“See! I knew I couldn’t do it.”) and the whole cycle deepens and begins again. At the other extreme, advice to just stop doubting ourselves doesn’t help either. For many of us, self-doubt isn’t just an internal switch we can flick on and off at will. Trying, and failing, to follow this kind of advice can leave us feeling like there’s something wrong with us and—oops—more self-doubting.
In this post, I want to provide a different perspective on self-doubt. I’m going to talk about what it means to experience self-doubt in relation to our creative work (the silver lining, if you will), and then share some practical strategies you can use to deal with your self-doubt. These won’t necessarily help you get rid of your self-doubt altogether, but will hopefully strengthen other parts of your internal dialogue that have greater self-belief and self-trust in your ability to grow, learn, and evolve.
What creative self-doubt really means
First, as I just mentioned, self-doubt is a very normal part of the creative process. It isn’t evidence that you are no good, that you shouldn’t be doing this, or that you aren’t cut out to meet your creative goals. As Ishita Gupta explained in The Entrepreneur’s Inner World, “New level, new devil.” Our flavour of self-doubt might change as our creative work evolves and we reach different levels of competency and success, but it doesn’t disappear completely (sorry). Experiencing creative self-doubt is OK, it’s expected, it’s even good. It’s how you respond to the self-doubt that matters, as you’ll discover below.
Second, experiencing creative self-doubt can be a positive sign. While self-doubt can show up when we are doing something that isn’t wise or doesn’t fit with our values, we can also experience self-doubt because we care and because we are doing something that’s important to us. If you didn’t care about your creative work and if it wasn’t meaningful to you, chances are you wouldn’t experience these intense feelings about it. It would be much easier to shrug off any concerns.
Still, it’s no secret that self-doubt is super effective at putting the breaks on meaningful progress. So, with that in mind, here are some strategies to help you deal with creative self-doubt so you can keep going and keep creating. These are all things I’ve found helpful, and I hope they are helpful for you too.
How to deal with self-doubt about your creative work
1. Normalise it
I’ll say it again: almost everyone experiences creative self-doubt. It’s a natural part of the creative process. It is not evidence you can’t do this or don’t have a right to do this. Normalising self-doubt related to your creative work can make it feel less heavy. Rather than infusing it with meaning, we can accept it as par for the course and as just another feeling that pops up when we’re working on something new.
2. Counteract negativity bias with positive habits
We have a hard-wired negativity bias, which means we are far more likely to remember and be affected by negative feedback and events than we are with positive feedback and events. This happens even if the number of positive incidents vastly outweighs the negative; if you showcase your work to 10 people in a room and nine are passionately enthusiastic about it, it’ll be the 10th person who was neutral or negative that you’ll be lying awake thinking about at 2am.
Even though we can’t change the negativity bias (it’s been a necessary part of humans’ survival up to this point), we can take steps to mitigate it and incorporate a more balanced perspective. Specific examples include starting a folder in your email specifically for positive feedback and comments, writing down three wins at the end of each day, keeping a have done list, and taking time to celebrate successes and milestones (they might not seem like much compared to bigger goals you have, but they are evidence you are making progress). Keeping track of the positive, and making a habit to review it when you’re experiencing self-doubt, can help you reconnect with your confidence and remind you that you can create successful work.
3. Practice self-reflection
Self-doubt is uncomfortable, so most of us have a knee-jerk internal response. Either we believe it (see above) or we tell ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling this way and get frustrated with the fact we don’t seem to be able to just turn the feeling off and get on with life. But the solution to self-criticism isn’t more self-criticism. Instead, it’s time for compassionate self-reflection.
First, explore your doubt. What specifically is provoking your self-doubt about your creative work? Where is it coming from? When did you first notice this feeling? What were you doing or thinking about immediately beforehand? Is this self-doubt pointing to a genuine issue with your work, or is it a generalised fear that’s being channeled into this particular situation? Is this something that is specific to your creative work, or does it show up in other areas of your life too? If so, do you notice any patterns around when and how it shows up? Asking these questions might provoke some internal judgments, so try to use this as an opportunity to practice self-compassion. If compassion feels like too much of a stretch, aim for self-neutrality—pretend you’re a scientist, making observations without yet drawing conclusions.
Sometimes self-doubt can highlight an actual issue. If you think this is the case for you, take time to think about the areas in which you could improve or skills you know you could work on. Again, this might provoke some internal criticism, so be mindful not to dwell on the doubt. Instead, turn this insight into action.
4. Limit social media time
This is tricky for a lot of creatives. On the one hand, social media can be a source of support and inspiration, as well as an opportunity to connect with your audience and reach new people. On the other hand, I think we all know what the drawbacks are… comparison, harsh criticism, getting stuck on metrics that don’t matter, feeling like we’re not good enough, and so on. You might not be able, or want, to ditch social media entirely, but if you’re struggling with self-doubt about your creative work, you can still limit the downsides. You are allowed to unfollow or hide anyone who provokes “less than” feelings. Yes, even if they are popular and you feel you should follow them. You can also limit the time you spend consuming other people’s content, instead focusing on sharing your own and interacting with your community.
5. Set realistic goals
One thing social media is superb at is hyping “success.” Advice to think big and stop playing small comes from a well-meaning place, but the reality is that for 99% of us, progress is incremental, unglamorous, and doesn’t match the “crushing it” facade broadcasted online. For 99% of us, it will take months, if not years, of quiet, consistent, diligent work to reach our biggest goals, whether related to output, money, reach, professional recognition, or something else.
While big goals with short timelines can motivate some, they can also set us up to feel like failures if we don’t meet them. We are working to live, not living to work. Stress hinders creativity, so if you think your self-doubt is related to unrealistic goals, scale back to focus on slow and sustainable progress rather than trying to pull off a moonshot every few months. You don’t need to keep up with anyone else’s timeline; the only one that matters is your own.
6. Learn from past failures
Failure is a natural and necessary part of the creative process. It’s not fun, it’s not easy, but it is inevitable. Failures—real or perceived—can provoke self-doubt. In the immediate aftermath, we might doubt our abilities, our judgement, our decision-making process, our worth, or all of these. But, just like self-doubt, how we respond to failure is more important than whether we experience it.
The best way to move forward from failure is to learn from it. A good place to start is getting clear about which factors were within your control and which weren’t. Several years ago, I experienced what, at the time, felt like a huge creative failure when a project I had worked on for months in partnership with a larger platform fizzled out. When I examined what happened and what I could learn from it, I could see that part of what happened (the creative partner shuttering their business without warning right before the project launched), wasn’t within my control. At the same time, I was responsible for the fact that I had prioritised this project over others and individual client work, which left me in a more precarious position than I otherwise would have been. I also learned useful lessons about partnerships that have come in handy since then. With past events that have felt like failures, think about what, with the gift of hindsight, you could have done differently. It helps to write this down, especially if you tend towards self-blame or, at the other end of the spectrum, holding a grudge. This way, you can refer back to these lessons and apply them to similar situations in the future.
Finally, reflect on what you got out of the situation, even if it didn’t turn out the way you hoped. With the project above, I got to connect with a group of people I really admire, I made new online friends, and was able to repurpose the work I’d done to take advantage of new and meaningful opportunities. While there were definitely things I would have done differently, I’m still glad I did it.
7. Seek out supportive communities of other creatives who can offer encouragement and advice
The creative journey can be lonely and, in isolation, self-doubt feel overwhelming. Seeking—or creating—a supportive community of other creatives with whom you can share and offer mutual advice and encouragement can make all the difference. As I mentioned above, everyone experiences self-doubt, and sometimes it can help simply to hear someone else say: “Me too! You’re not alone.”
There are plenty of paid groups and mentorships out there, but it doesn’t have to be one of these. Your creative community might be a couple of local friends; it might be people you don’t know IRL but have connected with online; it might be role models or mentors you listen to/read/follow and admire from afar. And if you can’t see anything obvious out there that fits what you’re looking for, why not create a group yourself? Chances are there will be at least one other person looking for a similar support system.
It’s also worth saying that if you feel your self-doubt is preventing you from doing things you love, dulling enjoyment of your daily life, interfering with your sleep, or impacting your overall mental health, please consider talking to a coach or therapist who specialises in this area.
8. Keep going!
Self-doubt about your creative work is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it defines you and your work. Self-doubt can be a passenger on your creative journey, but don’t let it take the wheel. The more we let our self-doubt steer, the less we will take action, and the stronger that doubt will get. But when we recognise that self-doubt is part of the process, we explore it with compassion, and we create habits and networks that support our creative work, we reinforce the parts of us that believe we are capable, and we are more than our doubts and insecurities. By taking action and continuing to move forward, you won’t get rid of the doubt altogether, but you will learn how to live with it and keep going, whatever the weather.
Ready to deal with self-doubt and become a more confident creative? Try the free Creative Confidence Challenge! This free email course offers daily inspiration and practical advice for overcoming obstacles to creative work and making creativity a habit. Register here.
