“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.” - William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
You see? Even William Shakespeare had something to say about self-doubt and the threat it poses to our creativity. American writer Suzy Kassem goes a step further saying, 'Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.'
Are you getting the message? Don't you want to look in the mirror and see the King of the Jungle looking back at you?
Doubting our ability to write is a real downer and it can plague and hound us relentlessly, making us wonder why in the heck we ever chose to write a single word and spent more than even a millisecond of our precious time bothering.
Doubt is that wicked little critter that hangs out on your shoulder while you're writing, whispering its evil notions into your ear: 'Hmm, are you sure that's good enough?' or 'People are going to think that writing is stink. Why are you bothering? You'll make a fool of yourself.' And before you know it, all of this mindless wittering has undermined your confidence, courage, inspiration and motivation and you slouch away from your writing desk in a blue funk, beaten and demoralised.
Our doubts are generated by many things and I'll deal with three of them here and suggest what you can do to combat them.
1. Lack of confidence: keep writing and don't stop
Even the most experienced writers get the wobbles every now and then. It comes with the territory. As with most things, the more you do it, the greater your confidence will be. Remember when you were learning to ride a bike? You kept falling off and crashing into things but you persevered and voila! One day you took off into the sunrise of a new day on wheels. So keep writing, don't stop. The more you write the greater your confidence.
2. The wicked little self-doubt critter: kick it out the door
That's the one sitting on your shoulder. You can almost see it when you look at yourself in the mirror. Sweep it off like a piece of lint, onto the floor and then kick it out the door. We don't have time or space in our writing lives for the nasty little naysayer. Shut it down. Don't listen.
3. No one will want to read my stuff: yes they will
I say, 'who cares?' Write what you want to write because in the first instance, it's always about you: write what interests you, what attracts you, what piques your curiosity. Explore a topic or your own emotions, research an historical time and place or your own family closet of rattling skeletons. The world is overflowing with beauty, richness, glory, sadness, violence, love, hate, joy ... and I would almost bet money on it that people will want to read what you have to say.
Another great way to dispel those feelings of doubt is to hang out with other writers who have probably experienced the same thing. My Write-Ins provide a relaxed and reassuring space to talk to things through, share and support each other and of course, do some writing.