How to Improve Self-Confidence as a Creative
Why creatives tend towards low self-confidence
It used to confuse me. Why are creative people almost always so low in self confidence? Can’t they see how amazing their creations are? Depression hits musicians and artists really hard. Don’t they see how cool we all think they are?
Confidence is an interesting thing. People caricature it into being a bold, decisive, no nonsense sort of person. This is shooting past the balanced middle of what confidence is. I think confidence is just simply a choice to believe in the value of ourselves while being aware of how small we are in comparison to the big wide world.
Of course artistic endeavours and value have a funny sort of relationship.
There is art inside galleries that shocks people when they read the price. Museums of historic art are holding literally billions of dollars of this particular medium. It’s valuable alright.
The art and the artist are two separate things however.
Artists who have produced insanely beautiful works that were even, for some, highly successful while they were still living, still battled with extremely low self confidence.
Tchaikovsky, Hemingway, Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain all struggled with heavy depression throughout their lives.
Characteristics of Creative People
It has been a long observed correlation that highly creative people experience higher rates of low self confidence / depression. There are, however, other factors associated with trait creativity that tip towards the positive end of the scale:
—A high rate of ideas.
—A tendency to recognise patterns.
—A thirst to explore curiosity.
—A highly developed, vibrant imagination.
But all of this comes at a price. Being the type of person — or having the type of awareness — that is open to receiving great ideas, also opens them up to see themselves as insignificant, untrained, insufficiently prepared in comparison to that divinely inspired idea.
Through hemisphere theory, Dr. Iain McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary lays out the research as to why and how this happens.
A Summary of the Hemispheres
A very brief summary of McGilchrists’ research shows that the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere process the world in two distinct ways that influence how and what we see.
The left hemisphere prioritises the local, known, short-term, lifeless and static. It allows us to grasp and utilise a thing or concept. It has a tendency towards denial in favour of what it thinks it knows.
The right hemisphere hosts the experience of life as it continuously flows, forever in flux. It has a broad and vigilant attention to the unknown and the bigger picture. It allows us to relate and empathise. It has a tendency to undervalue its contributions.
The Creative Process in the Hemispheres
Although both hemispheres are involved in creativity, you could say that the summary of the creative process is paying broad (right) attention to the world and then bringing what you notice, hear, see or feel (right), into tangible focus (left).
Example
Each word I write down on a page for a poem begins as a deep listening (broad, vigilant attention) that involves my whole being (right hemisphere embodiment) and then when I find a word that fits, I grab it and commit it to the page (left).
The Right Hemisphere and Realistic Self-Awareness
Now, in McGilchrist’s words, ‘the right hemisphere is more realistic about how it stands in relation to the world at large, less grandiose, more self aware, than the left hemisphere.’
Citing studies on patients with left or right hemisphere damage, the conclusions he is drawing are pointing towards a view that depression – ‘a condition favouring the right hemisphere’ – is a recognition, a realistic awareness of where one stands in relation to a very large whole.
When a creative person is engaging in the process and bringing their work to the market — to Instagram, galleries, recording studios — they are placing themselves within the context of the absolute highest potential. Of course they would feel insignificant in comparison. Which is an accurate, realistic view to take.
A person who see things through a left hemispheric view would assume they are much better than they perhaps are. Someone who sees things through right hemisphere processes is going to recognise that in the grand scheme of things — they aren’t where they could be.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable as they are currently.
Inherent Value
In my humble view, value isn’t something a human being works to achieve and eventually passes some invisible marker for. A child – although not contributing to the economy at all – has intrinsic value, no one denies that. Those cute little bugs just run around exuding value.
Although the nihilists were onto it with the idea of no objective meaning for all existence, that we create our own meaning and value – what I believe they were missing is that just by existing, we have inherent value and then we continue to create more of that value through our actions and creative endeavours.
Right Hemisphere vs Left Hemisphere Confidence
So when I began earlier saying that when we think of confidence, we go to the caricature of it — someone who can walk into the room completely naked and not bat an eyelid. A person who can shut off from outside influences or from any other opinions and blaze on through without caring. That is a left hemispheric, narrow-minded, unrealistic, grandiose version of confidence.
Bringing balance to the idea of confidence would be like someone walking into a room full of other creatives and having humility instead of grandiosity.
They have a broad, realistic awareness of themselves and their work in relation to the other individuals. This gives them a view that might tend towards pessimism on occasion but regardless of where they might rank in terms of whatever metric – quality, quantity, experience – they choose (and have chosen consistently) to recognise their inherent value as a human being.
Choosing Confidence
Does it seem strange to say that confidence is a choice?
Does it seem weird to say even that you are responsible for your own self worth?
Maybe that’s because we are not used to the idea – or taught – that we have complete autonomy over our experience in life.
Our experience of life comes down to the choice we make in how we see things. The type of attention we pay to things alters what our definition of that thing is: good, bad or neutral.
When we bring these matters like confidence, self worth, self doubt and insecurities into the realm of choice — then it means that we can do something about them. It’s not on anyone else, nor any kind of condition, what attitude I take towards my own being. That is all on me to choose.
Now, that completely annihilates victim mentality, which is a crutch for a lot of people. We want to blame our terrible conditions on something. Our Mothers, childhood traumas, financial circumstances, relationship status, genetics, politics, even what the number on the scales says.
Our self confidence will never improve if we are waiting around for those external conditions to change – which they won’t.
But you can make the choice that you prefer – now.
Affirmations for Self Confidence
“I am inherently valuable and I choose to recognise that, despite external factors.”
“The work I do has value, even if others don’t recognise it.”
“My art is valuable, even if it isn’t a Mona Lisa.”
“The time I put into my creative process is valuable.”
“The rest I need in order to allow for my creative energy to flow is worthy.”
“My worth is constant, even when my confidence fluctuates.”
“I do not need permission to share my gifts; they exist to be shared.”
“I choose to value myself through highs and lows.”
“To be alive is to make mistakes, failures don’t alter my value.”
”I accept where I am and who I am in my journey.”