Struggle with Self-Doubt as a Writer? When Will It Go Away?
Self-doubt is a real concern for many writers. Whether you have been published or never shown your writing to anyone, as writers we experience constant battles with self-doubt.
Even as a copywriter that has made $150 an hour, I still experience self-doubt with copywriting.
Thoughts creep up, “What if that was a fluke? What if I mess up the next one? How do I know this is gonna work again?”
The truth is, it might not work. Our writing might flop. But it won’t do anything if we don’t try. It will 100% flop and do nothing if we don’t even attempt to write it and put it out there.
You’re absolutely not alone in self-doubt.
Just about everyone struggles with self-doubt.
Even Shakespeare struggled with self-doubt. “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
Here are some more people who you might recognize that struggle with self-doubt,
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Sylvia Plath
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gogh
“Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.”
William Goldman
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Even the successful know the feeling of self-doubt well. And worry is an everyday battle. Be ready for it.
Even the most successful struggle with self-doubt.
Jude Apatow tells a story about his battles with self-doubt.
One day he was walking around in a mall and ran into Steven Spielberg. Spielberg praised his work.
He said for 10 minutes he was on top of the world, but almost immediately after he got lost in self-loathing again.
Can you imagine living on a planet where one, you could randomly run into steven Spielberg randomly at a mall? And two, wherein what universe this creative giant stops and praise your work?!
You would think after someone like that says your work is good and enjoyable you’d actually believe that your work is good and enjoyable. But even the successful elite struggle with thoughts of self-doubt.
Self-doubt isn’t always a bad thing.
Many successful people have strived to be better only because they doubted themselves being any good in the first place.
They saw their true inadequacies and strived to learn, grow, and be better.
Strive for a balance.
The truth is there is probably a healthy balance you’ll want to strive for.
Too overconfident and you might overlook things or just quit in satisfaction. Too much worry and you just might never start a project that could be very successful.
Don’t do it JUST for success.
I know, I know. It’s very cliche to say things like, “follow your passion.”
But there is a little bit of truth there. It is better if you can find some success in doing what you already like to do.
Do it because you enjoy it, and also strive to be good at it.
Ever heard the expression, “be so good they can’t ignore you.” That expression applies here.
Don’t do it just to be successful but if you become so good that they can’t ignore you, it will be hard not to be successful.
Success in writing or anything doesn’t come from trying to be a big success. It mostly comes from being VERY good at a skill and then multiplying on that skill, art, or trade.
If it does fail at first, that’s no big deal because you are not going to give up just because of a little let down. Now you know where to improve and can get better.
If you do something like writing because you enjoy it and because you want to be really good at it, then you are also more likely to be successful at it one day compared to those that just do it for success.
Flip self-doubt on its head.
Expand on what we talked about a moment ago.
You may feel like you’re not good enough. You may feel like you don’t know enough or don’t have the skills. You may feel like you don’t have “what it takes to be a successful writer.
Use these feelings to become the best. Use the feelings of self-doubt to become better than everyone else you see. If you feel inadequate, just use that feel to learn more, practice more, and get better.
If we feel as though we aren’t good enough, we CAN do something about it. We can learn more. We can practice and edit more. We can get better, in theory.
Self-doubt doesn’t have to be negative.
Think more about what we saw above, if we think ourselves into a paralyzing corner, that is not good, but self-doubt itself doesn’t have to be bad.
It could be good.
Those won’t work for everyone, but some of us might be very motivated by self-doubt and the need to prove ourselves. We might benefit from the desire to be better and get better.
If we didn’t feel self-doubt we might not strive harder and reach the next level of our potential.
Having the mindset that we have room to grow and that we haven’t reached our peak is a great place to be for getting better than those competing around us.
Learn to ignore it.
For some of us, we shouldn’t expect the feeling of self-doubt to go away. Instead, we should learn to ignore it.
We should face every writing season knowing that self-doubt will attack us and that it isn’t going anywhere.
We should just write anyway. Who are we to say that our story is no good? How are we to know if people won’t love it or hate it.
There is truly no way to know until they are reading it and they say so.
Just write crap.
This is one of my favorite lines. “Just write crap.”
It’s really freeing.
Because of self-doubt we get stuck in our own heads and worry so much about whether it’ll work or what people will think, but if we just wrote crap and we ourselves were okay with it not being perfect, that is such a better feeling in writing than worrying about the perfection of every little sentence.
Then after we’ve got the “crap” out we can work with it and edit it and shape and mold it into an amazing piece of work, especially if we have the mindset to always be learning our craft, practicing our craft, and becoming the best at our craft.
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Struggle with Self-Doubt as a Writer? When Will It Go Away?
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That’s all for now.
Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
Other Resources You Might Enjoy:
How to Start a Blog in 11 Simple Easy Steps in 2020
How to Write a Book: 32 Tips | Your MASSIVE Guide How to Write a Book
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Struggle with Self-Doubt as a Writer? When Will It Go Away?
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Struggle with Self-Doubt as a Writer? When Will It Go Away?
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