{ Book extract from Tonics For Your Creative Spirit } 

Part of the journey of cultivating Creative Faith is developing a deeper sense of trust in our own abilities.

Aka: Confidence.

I believe that confidence is highly cultivatable – ie there’s much we can do to increase our confidence set-point.

Taking steps and implementing habits that cultivate and increase our innate confidence is a creative and empowered approach to developing more faith.

Creative faith in action.

This extract from my book Tonics For Your Creative Spirit will offer you a selection of ways to cultivate your self-belief – one of the cornerstones of faith.

Enjoy!

Cultivating Creative Confidence

The poet and novelist Sylvia Plath famously said that the worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Popular blogger and inspirational speaker Danielle LaPorte believes that doubt is actually a part of the creative process.

And even a brief study of the creative greats will reveal that they have all had their insecurities and moments of doubts.

It seems that doubt is an integral part of living a creative life.

Luckily though, the creative urge is strong and resilient. It can and often does inspire creatives to do their work, despite their doubts. Some even use their doubts as fuel.

So it is possible to feel the doubt and create anyway.

But in the interest of enjoying the creative journey, is it possible to reduce the doubts we feel?

Are there ways to minimise the inevitable insecurities that are simply part of being human?

I believe so, and after testing out my theory in my own life and with my clients, I’ve found that some tactics work particularly well in reducing episodes of doubt.

The trick is to work at cultivating a stronger inner confidence and a surer sense of self – so that the fears become less of an issue.

And here are four of my favourite habits and strategies for increasing creative confidence…

4 Tips for Creative Confidence

1. A meditation practice

My all-time favourite recommendation for boosting confidence, inner calm and intuition is some type of meditation practice.

I believe that, over time, meditation naturally melts away our insecurities and doubts, so there’s less need to battle them or power through them.

Meditative practices retrain our minds to focus less on the worries and negative ‘what ifs’, so that we feel an increasing confidence in ourselves, in our ability and our power.

We also become more open to the idea that life is on our side and that things will turn out well. This kind of optimism and faith is a valuable asset on any creative path.

 • • • 

2. Reframe failure

Creativity is all about trying new (unpredictable) things and one way to make that easier is to practice in small ways, when the stakes aren’t so high.

This helps us get used to trying things that aren’t guaranteed to succeed – and learning that we survive, even if things don’t go as planned.

When we fail in small ways, it teaches us that we can try, fail and still be okay. We get used to learning from the feedback; we stop taking failure so seriously.

Having an attitude of playful experimentation helps us to try unpredictable things more confidently. Sara Blakely, the billionaire owner of Spanx, has this to say about failure:

“My dad encouraged us to fail, growing up.
He would ask us what we failed at that week.
If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed.
It changed my mindset at an early age
that failure is not the outcome – failure is not trying.
Don’t be afraid to fail.”

 • • • 

3. Celebrate your wins

Training your brain to notice more of your successes helps to cultivate a confident and optimistic sense of self. One of my favourite techniques for doing this is to keep a Success Diary.

Recording all the mini-wins that we all experience daily – the ones that we barely notice or quickly forget – will help to build a stronger self-esteem that’s less susceptible to doubt.

A Success Diary also serves as a powerful reminder of just how creative and successful you are, long after the wins have faded. You can also review your triumphs if you ever need a confidence boost or a reminder of your skills and abilities.

And if you include some enthusiastic celebrations for your small wins, you’ll also be training your brain to notice even more wins in future. (In my house, we always have a bottle of fizz chilling in the fridge, awaiting the next special win to celebrate – there’s always something!)

 • • • 

4. Trust yourself

Self-doubt can often be triggered by comparing ourselves to others, worrying about what others will think, or taking on other people’s opinions instead of our own.

To guard against these types of worries, we can build a stronger connection to our inner self, our innate wisdom, judgement, and strength. We can learn to hear our own powerful inner voice – and to trust it. 

This is a relationship that develops like any other – over time, with attention and care.

If you’d like to begin developing this confidence-boosting connection to your inner self, start to notice what happens when you follow your instinct and trust your gut. How do things play out? Compare this to what happens when you deny your intuition or your heart’s wisdom.

It may take time to connect with this inner confidence, but it’s a powerful skill that can serve in all aspects of life. And when you learn to trust your judgement and access your inner guidance, your creative confidence will soar.

 • • • 

Dive deeper…

Confidence and self-belief are core pillars of what I call Creative Faith.

If you feel that faith and trust in your own capabilities are the missing pieces to your success, I have a short online programme to support you more deeply with the tricky business of keeping the faith…

This is for you if;
• You know what actions to take, but doubt or lack of confidence is keeping your stuck

• You’d love to believe in yourself and your work more fully

• You want to boost your optimism and expectation for things to work out in your favour more often

There are more details below if you’d like to harness the potent magic of Creative Faith – it truly has mountain-moving power!

PS If you’d like to explore The Creative Faith Collection, it’s included in my All Access VIP Pass, a journey through the many complex aspects of creative living.