You might want to take a moment and imagine a world where your creative confidence is just the way you want it to be… It helps you make art and live the life you want. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Take a deep breath and enjoy that image a bit longer;)

Gaining creative confidence is a process.

In different stages of the creative journey, being (becoming) confident has different meanings.

For me, it was one thing when I was applying for the Academy of Fine Arts, another when I started exhibiting my work at home and abroad, and something different today.

But how to overcome the initial self-doubt most people face at the beginning of their artistic journey?

Let us first inspect this villain. How does self-doubt sound? How does it make you feel?

Basically, it’s an internal conversation between your inner artist and critic, and it may sound something like this:

• I am going to get some art supplies and start painting!
• What? Who do you think you are? An artist?!? You have no talent!

Self-doubt is one of the worst enemies of creativity, indeed. It makes people suffer. If it is strong enough, it may even put a full stop on a creative journey.

How I see it, overcoming self-doubt comes in phases and with a little help from your friends.

Your first best friend is courage. Courage to start creating despite the internal voices. Cause you know WHY you want to make art.

Then there is the next one: your ability to lose yourself in art-making, enjoy the process, and not judge your results. These abilities feed your confidence.

And your third friend is the ability to choose a good mentor (one who helps you with learning AND believes in you).

Accepting the help of these friends will do wonders for you, but there is also something else you should expect.

As I said, I believe creative confidence grows in phases. And although it becomes stronger and stronger from phase to phase, these phases overlap with occasional moments of glory for the inner critic.

It might be helpful to be ready for that and expect the inner critic to appear from time to time.

And what to do when she comes? Just recognize her as soon as possible and be curious about her ways. Watch her for a while and remember: while you are running the marathon, she runs only short distances (and will be out of breath soon).

Hope this resonates!