In Pursuit of Self-Belief

Often when I’m reading, I’ll think about the actual moment the words I’m looking at were born into this world. The moment that the quill scratched at the parchment, the pen touched the paper and the fingers pressed the keys. I wonder about the ease and tension behind those words. Did Shakespeare spend hours coming up with ‘to be or not to be’? Did Hilary Mantel think about chucking it all in half way through Wolf Hall? It’s immensely comforting to know that every writer has had to deal with self-doubt in some form. It’s a given that self-doubt must accompany us on our creative journey, that’s why we need to make sure self belief comes along for the ride too.

Self-belief is the one thing every writer has in common. Without even a tiny morsel of it, novels, poems and plays have no chance of getting written. Along with passion and excitement, it’s the thing that drives every project along. If we are what we believe we are, then, to believe we can do it is the key!

Engaging in anything outside of our comfort zone immediately puts our ego into a frenzy. Our ego, bless it, wants to protect us any way it can. When you sit down to write, our ego thinks ‘this isn’t going to end well.’ It fears rejection, not being good enough, being laughed at, self-indulgence and everything negative in between. Like a risk assessor it will tell us all the things that could go wrong and we have to listen to it for every word we write. Being a writer is like mothering twins – self-belief and self-doubt – it’s important not to play favourites. If you feel you’re spending too much time with doubt, up your bonding time with self-belief. Here are three ways to reignite your self-belief right now:

1. Remind yourself that you’re not a beginner. Remember that we all have something under our belt, a precedent we can be proud of. When I sit down to write and feel the fear, I remind myself that I wrote yesterday and the day before that and that I can write again today. I remember that there have been days where I wrote nothing but still managed to write again. This even applies for achievements that are unrelated. Being a parent might give you some authority to ‘birth’ a novel.

2. Recognise its part of the process. Every writer has had to deal with self-doubt. My best writing days are the ones when I hear the self-doubt but write anyway. You could try saying ‘thank you for your opinion but I’m going to do this’ to your self -doubt like you would a meddling, opinionated person.

3. Change the story. Write out the story you’ve told yourself. I never finish anything. I’m not good enough. I’ll let everyone down. Cross out the story and re-write a new one that encompasses the things you’re great at.

How do you deal with self-doubt? What are your top tips for self-belief? Leave a comment below!