Confidence Through Creativity

I wouldn't consider myself overly zealous and ambitious, but I do set goals, work towards them, and get them done. I do aim to be better at whatever crafts I take up, and through time and practice, I get to closer to where I want to be. When I was 16, I wanted to write and finish a book, a task that I hadn't done in years (the last story I finished before Stepping Out of Line was called 1-800-Kids-Don't-Spy that I wrote in early middle school. It was about fifty pages long, and I lost the entire document when my flash drive decided to malfunction on me a couple years later).

Once I got it in my head that I would self publish, I stuck with it, and I did it. Plain and simple. I try to stay the course and do what I've set out to do. Because of this, I accomplished much in only 21 years of life--from becoming fluent in Spanish, traveling on my own to South America, learning to song write and becoming more comfortable with performing, and whatever else. There's really no magical skill set that I possess other than the desire to create, the desire to learn, and the will to keep doing both of these things.

One thing I wouldn't consider myself is confident.

I didn't publish a book because I was confident in my abilities. In fact, one of my biggest deterrents from publishing was my lack of confidence in my writing capabilities. One of the reasons why I decided to go with self-publishing was because for one, I knew nothing of submitting manuscripts to publishers--but more so because I was afraid of the rejection I potentially faced. Even to this day, when my boyfriend recently suggested I submit some of my work to a publisher, I was incredibly hesitant, as that fear of rejection still lingers. I worry I've made too many grammar or spelling mistakes. I worry my artworks won't be satisfactory to those who purchase them. I've mentioned time and time again in my social media and in my blog posts that I did not ever feel as though I were pretty or beautiful or anything of the sort. Even if others told me I was, I would still have that worry in the back of my mind because I did not truly believe it myself, no matter how many external influences said otherwise. I worried about this and I still worry about that because even after all this time, my confidence in my creativity is oftentimes shy to show itself.

Within more recent years, I've discovered methods for combating the negative nelly in my head. The technique is very simple: come back to it later. A few of years ago, I decided that it was fun to "model," and now I have gotten into the habit of having regular photo shoots. Even more recently, I've taken to photography myself, and being the one behind the camera rather than in front all the time. For some reason, this made me feel beautiful. This boosted my confidence. Why? I could come back to it later. It was so easy to pick and pluck at my flaws by staring in the mirror right after getting read. This blemish on my face, that blemish on my face, why won't my hair lay right--but for some reason, when I would look at the pictures post-shoot, it was enough time to actually reflect on the images on the camera screen and realize, "huh, those don't look quite so shabby as I thought."

With songwriting, something I attempted and didn't really get into my freshman year of college, I discovered that letting the songs sit for a time made me less judgemental of the lyrics. With writing, I would constantly be asking myself, "is this interesting enough? Is this getting boring?" in the middle of the chapter--but when I'd come back to it a couple of weeks later, it was like I was a reader examining and appreciating text for the first time rather than scrutinizing it as it left my brain.

Today, I still would not describe myself as confident, but I realize that it doesn't necessarily come from whatever the next step ahead of me is: I won't necessarily be more confident if I lose 30 pounds. I won't necessarily be more confident if I write 30 more books, or 30 more pages of a particular book. The confidence will push me to doing these things. Confidence isn't the end result--it's what gets you from point A to point B. And for me, I sometimes have to take a step back to find that confidence.