Ever felt like the daunting task of writing strips you of your confidence? As if the fear of judgment is so overwhelming, it paralyzes you from putting your thoughts into words? I understand this struggle all too well. This episode is an intimate discussion about my own journey in overcoming self-doubt, bearing my soul to the world, and the crucial realization that the well of true confidence resides not outside but within us.
In the throes of my personal experiences, I've discovered two strategies that have been pivotal in breaking free from the shackles of self-doubt. The first involves becoming the president of your own fan club, embracing the audacity to celebrate and advocate for your work. The second explores the concept of viewing your work as separate from yourself, offering a fresh perspective to appreciate it objectively. These strategies are transformative, designed not just to inspire you but also to help you redefine your approach to writing. So, let's shake off the fear and self-doubt, and embark on a journey to create with courage and confidence!
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you. Hello to all my writers out there. Welcome to this week's episode of Mom writes first. I'm Jen, and I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:
Today's episode is pretty short and sweet and it's about a topic that has been, if I have to admit it, a little bit tricky for me Confidence. Confidence has always felt to me like something that I had to earn, not something that was just inherent with me. It seems like there are some people out there in this world who just wake up confident. Do you know who I'm talking about? It seems like they wake up every morning knowing that they have the world figured out, that whatever they're going to do is awesome, and that that awesomeness is obvious to them and to everybody around them. For a long time, I felt like I had to earn the right to feel confident and that the way to get there was through hard work, perseverance, diligence, being willing to do whatever it took, and that all of those things would ultimately lead me to success. And when I had that success, I could then finally be confident, and that's always kind of been my MO. I've been a really hard worker my whole life. I have a great, strong work ethic. I'm willing to keep plugging along and pushing myself, and that's not all bad. I have had a lot of success by doing that, but it hasn't necessarily translated into confidence and it has not worked very well for developing confidence around my writing. Maybe it's because every time you put something that you've written out there into the world, you have to be willing to be a little bit vulnerable. I feel like sharing my writing and putting it out into the world just like with doing this podcast actually feels a little bit like bearing a tiny bit of my soul, and it's not easy to do that, and I couldn't do it if I wasn't willing to generate some confidence for myself. I've realized over the last couple years that I was the one who needed to create that confidence within me, that it wasn't going to come from the external world. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much I achieved, no matter how many positive reviews I had, no matter how happy my supervisor was with my work, no matter how happy my clients were with my work, that confidence, that feeling that I was looking for, was never going to come from outside of myself, and so developing my own self-confidence has been a critical part of my journey as a writer.
Speaker 1:
When I first started writing, one of the thoughts that held me back was what would other people think? Would they like my writing? Would they think I was wasting my time? Maybe they'd think it was dumb. Would they judge me? Would they tell me don't quit your day job? Would they chastise me for spending any time at all writing when I should be either working at my job, taking care of my home or playing with my kids After all, they grow up so fast.
Speaker 1:
These fears, this self-doubt, it plagued me and it prevented me, at the end of the day, from making any time to write. I had these thoughts even though I didn't necessarily even plan to show my writing to others. And I had these thoughts even though I was writing just for the sake and joy of writing, not as a way to make money. It doesn't mean that there was something wrong with me that I had these thoughts, but these thoughts stopped me. Those humans were conditioned socially and were primed from an evolutionary perspective to really seek acceptance, and so, of course, of course, my brain had these thoughts and cautioned me that doing something outside of the norm could really be dangerous for me, even if, rationally, that thought or that worry did not make any sense. Writing was never going to put me in any danger, not any real danger. Even if no one liked my writing or appreciated it, I was going to be fine. All my basic needs are met and they continue to be met, but nonetheless, I had these thoughts that made me worried and feel unsafe about what other people might think. Even now, as I work to cultivate a daily writing habit, these worries what are other people going to think they still bubble up from time to time, and I don't think I'm alone with that, and so I want to share with you two things that I am doing that are currently helping me to address and overcome some of these challenges. The first is that I have learned that I need to be the president of my own fan club.
Speaker 1:
You've probably heard someone say that to succeed, you have to become your own biggest fan, and while I don't necessarily disagree with that, I think you actually have to be more than just a fan. I think you have to be the president of your own fan club, the one out there being willing to tell other people about how great you are, trying to sign others up, trying to get them to buy your book and you have to be almost like, so delusional about how awesome you are that you, of course, devote the time and energy to starting, running and leading that fan club, because no one else is going to do this for you. Even if you already have fans, even if you already have an audience, even if you have friends and families who are supportive and are ready to buy your book and willing to read your blog, even if you already have 10,000 followers on Instagram, no one is going to take the time and devote the energy to be the president of your fan club right now. You need to do that, and to do that effectively, you have to be very focused and willing to state how awesome you are. You have to be basically delusional with the thinking around just how great you are, because that's what a president of a fan club does.
Speaker 1:
Here's how things have changed for me. When I started to become the president of my own fan club, it used to be that when someone would ask me what I was working on whether it was a podcast or my writing that I would be humble and poo poo-ed and I'd be like oh, it's just a hobby, it's a side project, it's something I do for fun, something I do to release steam, something I do for self-care it's just how I'm creative. Or if they complimented my work, I would wave it off quickly and eventually I realized I could just say thank you. That was an option for me and so I started doing that. But now, as the president of my fan club, I act like it. I respond with oh yes, wasn't that episode so great? Wasn't that blog post just what you needed? I love this book, or I love this character that I'm working on developing. I launch into an explanation of how excited I am about one of my characters.
Speaker 1:
Now, if, by chance, someone doesn't like the work that I'm talking about like, maybe they don't like the podcast episode, maybe the blog post just didn't resonate with them. Or maybe I tell them about a character and they think it is contrived or shallow and underdeveloped, if I'm the president of my fan club, I don't let that break my heart. I don't let that derail me. Instead, I think, well, obviously they just don't get it, because a president of a fan club would absolutely be undeterred in their devotion to how much they love and want to celebrate their person's work. And that's what you need to be for yourself. Thinking like a fan club president has been a game changer for me, for somebody who was taught not to toot my own horn, taught not to get too big for my britches. So if you've ever struggled with confidence, try becoming the president of your own fan club and see how that changes everything.
Speaker 1:
The second thing that I'm doing to develop my confidence around my writing is that I have started to think about the work that I'm writing as something that is not so much a part of me but actually separate and apart and distinct from me, as if each idea that I'm working on, each book that I'm writing, each blog post that I write, each podcast episode I develop, has its own idea or spirit behind it. I first came across this idea as a creative idea being something separate and apart from ourselves when I was in college in one of my Greek philosophy courses, and I found it amusing at the time, but I actually read about it more recently in the book Big Magic by Liz Gilbert, where she writes about basically this idea that our creative works have a spirit or a life all of their own and it's our job or responsibility to help bring them to life in this physical world. So for me, as somebody who sometimes lacks the confidence to really be willing to put myself out there, thinking about this idea of a book that I have, for example, as something that is separate and outside of myself, and how it's my responsibility, since the idea has come to me, to try to give it a voice and try to give it a life, if I can. When I think of it like that, it takes the focus off of me and puts it on this idea or this book that I have, and it helps me to have the confidence to keep pushing forward. It's been really helpful for me as I try to establish a daily writing habit, that reminding myself that one of my roles is to give life to the characters and ideas floating around in my brain, that it helps me to prioritize then and make time and space for writing. It also helps me to approach my writing with more appreciation, gratitude, curiosity and selflessness, because it's not about me if it's about the idea or spirit of that book. It's not about what I'm writing. It's about the idea itself. It's about the characters. It's about, again, that spirit that is within that book and if people don't like it, it's not a reflection on me. It just means that that book, that idea, that character was just not for them. Thinking of my writing in this way helps me to be less paralyzed by self-doubt, by fear and by judgment, either from an internal or an external source, and it helps me to be a lot less risk-adverse. I even think it's making me bolder. If my job is simply to give voice to these characters, to help bring them to life in this physical world, then writing down their stories isn't a waste of time either. My work is measured by the fact that I'm doing it, not by whether somebody else likes it, not by whether anyone else reads it, not even by whether I get paid for doing it.
Speaker 1:
If you're struggling with self-doubt, insecurity, lack of confidence or fear of judgment from yourself or others when it comes to your writing, I encourage you to give both of these tools a try. Try acting the way that the president of your fan club would act. Imagine how they would respond to things. Try to put yourself in their shoes. What would they say? What would they do? And then also try thinking of your creative ideas as something that is separate and apart from you. It's your job to give them life. It's your job to give them a voice. Let me know how this works out for you. Find me over at momwritesfirst on Instagram. I can't wait to hear from you, you.