Art and Self Doubt: How to build your confidence as an Artist

Confidence. It’s something many of us wish we had, but very few of us realise is something that can be achieved as long as we stay consistent and patient with ourselves.

Over the past year or so, my confidence in myself and my skills have grown. Confidence isn’t something you can gain over night, believe me. It’s a process, a journey of growth. And there is of course many areas where you can work on your confidence. It could be your confidence in yourself, in your ability to do things, in your ability to talk to people, to do well in your exams etc etc, the list goes on. But with all the things you can have confidence in, there is one constant similarity. And that is the fact that confidence is always to do with you. You can’t find confidence from any outer source, instead it lies within you – it just needs to be tapped into, and strengthened. Think of your confidence as a seed that is planted in the ground. That seed isn’t going to grow without the proper nutrients, is it? We have to water that plant, give it sunlight – give it all the right nutrients and care it needs to grow and blossom into a beautiful flower. That’s you, you’re the seed. And with the right tools you too can grow your confidence and blossom into that beautiful flower that you’re supposed to be.

Does my lack of confidence stop me from developing my skills?

Yes, the short answer is yes. Often, our lack of confidence in ourselves and our abilities stops us from even trying something in the first place! We all have that little voice inside of us, that self critical voice that tells us we’re not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not talented enough – whatever it may be. There’s always that voice which tries to stop us from reaching our full potential. Why is that? It’s because our brain is trying to protect us. As human’s our natural instinct is survival. We want so survive, and so we want to do everything we can to stay safe and comfortable. That includes not taking risks and not trying new things, for fear of the unknown. How many times have you talked yourself out of doing something? Because your mind told you that you couldn’t do it? I think it’s safe to say we’ve all listened to that voice and let it control us at least once in our lives. But that stops today! No more listening to Julie! No more listening to Joe! Are you wondering who I’m talking about? I’m talking about the little voice in your head. That’s right – give them a name! And whenever they start telling you you’re not good enough, or any other negative nonsense – say “shut up Julie!” (or whatever you decide to name that voice). Take control and always drown out that voice by reminding yourself that you are good enough and can do anything you put your mind to.

The Negative Cycle – killer of creative growth

When we already doubt our abilities in something, we are doomed from the beginning. This cycle can apply to any area of your life, but in terms of art, it can be a complete creativity killer. Want to know what that negative cycle is? Here goes…

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So, lets say you sit down with a blank piece of paper and you say “I’m going to draw a portrait!” Yay! Not yay… Because then suddenly you think “wait.. I don’t know how to. I can’t draw a portrait! It will look terrible! Last time I tried it looked so stupid ugh, why can’t I do anything right!” There goes Julie trying to bring you down.. So lets say you try to ignore those doubts and start drawing anyway, you’re most likely still going to believe that you can’t do it and that it’s going to end up looking bad. You believe it will go wrong, therefore this belief stops you from tapping into your full potential. If you’re not confident you can do it, are you really going to tap into the full capacity of what you’re actually capable of? And if you’re not tapping into your full potential, are you really going to take big action and put all your effort into it? Most likely not. And in the end, the drawing will in fact not be as good as you wanted, and it will confirm your belief that you couldn’t do it and that you are not good enough, “see, it looks terrible. I knew I couldn’t do it! I’m never drawing again.”

That is the negative cycle. We believe something will go bad, which leads to us not trying our best, which ends in the poor outcomes which solidifies out initial negative belief. It’s a nasty cycle.

How do we break it?

In order to break this cycle, we have to change our initial belief from a negative one to a positive one. When we believe something negative, we envision a negative outcome. How many times do you think we’d have to envision a positive outcome, until we start to believe in that positive outcome?

Once we start believing that the outcome will be good, the more of our potential we’ll tap into and the more effort we’ll put into it – which will make our outcome likely to come out better. And even if we aren’t happy with our outcome still, with this positive mindset we’ll have more confidence in knowing that we can improve. Instead of the previous negative conclusion, your new conclusion should be something like this, “I’m not completely happy with this drawing, but I’m still proud of myself for trying! I need to work on my proportions more, I’ll make sure to practice them so that next time when I try again I’ll get them more accurate.” The more you keep trying, the more you’ll improve and the more you’ll believe in yourself and your abilities! So just keep trying.

The art of taking small steps

The best thing you can do is focus on your next step. Instead of envisioning yourself creating a full realistic drawing when you’re only a beginner, for example, focus on the next small step you can take. Maybe your next step is to learn face proportions, maybe your next step is to learn how to draw an eye accurately – whatever that next little step is, do that. Tiny steps build up to bigger things. You can’t jump from level 0 to level 10 in one instance, you have to go through level 2, 3, 4 and so on. Each step gets you closer to your end outcome, so don’t rush it. Believe me, I use to want to get the end results straight away. I allowed myself to get overwhelmed by my own unrealistic expectations on myself, in terms of art and in other areas of my life as well. But now I realise the importance of small steps, and on being easy on yourself. Put less pressure on yourself to be perfect and just remember you’re doing the best you can, and that everything takes time but you will get to where you want to be.

Patience and Persistence is key

The most important thing to remember is to not give up, but to be patient with yourself. You WILL improve in any area of your life if you continue to work on it, and in turn this improvement will give you more confidence in yourself. Even if you don’t believe in yourself at the start, push through that discomfort and do it anyway. Even if you think your drawing will be terrible, do it anyway! The only way to improve and get over our fears is to push through and conquer them anyway. Of course, there will still be times when things go wrong. Even for me, there are of course many times I dislike how a drawing of mine is going. But instead of giving up, I try to look for the solutions and ways to improve it. And even if whatever I try doesn’t work, I just know there’s more improvement there that needs to be done! See every failure as an opportunity for improvement and growth, rather than a reason to quit. Go in with the mindset that you can do it, because even when it doesn’t go right, having that mindset will give you the confidence to keep going and not give up! And that’s what is important. To never give up.