Is Your Confidence Hurting Your Creativity?
There are a lot of posts out there on creativity killers and motivation failures. However, few of them mention what seems to be one of the biggest motivation killers around: a lack of confidence in one’s own work. If you’ve ever doubted your work as a designer, ever started a project and given up, or turned down a client because you felt that their project was above your limits, than this article is for you.
In this post, we’ll look over some cues that you may have some low self-confidence tendencies. Be grateful, though, even the worst of habits, like poor confidence and negative self talk can be altered. It may be surprising to see how much believing in your own unique talents will eventually help your career as a designer.
Do You Have a Poor Negative Outlook as a Designer?
So here’s a new thought: how confident are you in your skills as a designer? As a coder? If you’ve ever felt the initial inspiration, or ‘spark’, of a new design idea, but let it fade quickly because of an excuse, what was that excuse? Just like in other areas of life, negative self talk can influence you professionally as well.
If you’ve ever gotten an idea, even possibly opened up Photoshop, but did not follow through, you may have said some of the following to yourself:
- “I don’t have enough experience in this, and I don’t have time to practice something new.”
- “This is way out of my league, the client will be expecting more than what I can give as a designer.”
- (After getting halfway through a design, after a spark of inspiration) “I’m not sure where to go with this now./I’m not sure how to finish this design to make it look great.” (Then compare yourself to other designers and their work)
- “I wish I could know these techniques by this designer, or have more of this designer’s talents.”
- “This project will just be too big by the end of it, and is something I shouldn’t waste my time on.”
I’m sure many designers, especially new designers, are guilty of this negative self-impression. We must combat this negative talk, though, and convince ourselves that we are (and can be) amazing designers with our own unique talents.
How to Fight this Creativity Killer
To fight this major creativity killer, do the following:
Stop yourself whenever you catch yourself comparing you to another designer. Then, actively think about how your talents and skill sets as a professional are unique to you and beneficial to your career.- Do something great every day. Design something new, tweak an old design, or learn something new. Doing something for yourself daily will not only help you learn, but also build confidence in your unique design style.
- When you start something, always finish it. Don’t ever be afraid of failure. Finish something even if its a client project gone cold. The more you finish things, as opposed to starting and giving up, the less you’ll be afraid of failure (however consciously or subconsciously that may be).
- Be confident in other areas of your life. It is likely that if you’re a negative self-talker, you don’t just do it in the professional world. Do you nag yourself about bad habits, your body, or your “interesting” traits? Embrace who you are in other areas of life, and your self-perception of your professional life is likely to change with it.
As a benefit to working on your creative confidence, you’ll grow as a designer learning new things all the time, and even increase the number of fantastic portfolio pieces you have to display. Of course, there is also one more benefit: the more confident you seem to others in the design community and to clients, the more likely you’ll win them over.
What Do You Think?
Do you think you are responsible at times for limiting your own creative freedom? Were you guilty of a negative self perception when just starting out? Please share your thoughts, and especially experiences if you can relate!
Great Article. I use almost every excuse there somewhat regularly. The problem with design is, I think of it almost like a pass/fail test. So worried about failing that I typically pay someone to take the “test” for me. When I do design I get compliments and can turn out some pretty good stuff. I feel like it takes me longer than it should to create something good though.
I definitely admit to feeling the exact same way myself. Hopefully we can all move in a direction that’s not afraid to fail!
I think it takes even our most admired designers time to create something good as well. I really doubt there are any designers that have a ‘magical eye’ when it comes to design and they always get it right the first time. So perhaps that feeling of spending too much time on something is setting you (and all of us) on the right path!
I think this is a problem a lot of creative people struggle with. We get so attached to the work we are producing that we over-think things and worry about the clients approval.
I have learned (and I remind myself of this regularly) that our quality standards are usually much higher than our clients, and I find myself nit-picking issues that the client never notices or even cares about. They are hiring us based on our knowledge, skill, personality, and the ability to solve a problem for them – not because they expect an “award winning” design every time.
I often find that I get so picky about design work that it often simply blows the clients away. My expectations usually outweigh theirs by a long shot, so it usually all works out just fine.
I think a great key is to make sure that you really understand what the client is looking for upfront, before design work begins. Often, when you nail what they are looking for, they are less likely to come back with major design changes.
Guilty, guilty, guilty. Comparing yourself to the cream of the crop is a horrible thing to do.
I think most creatives are perfectionists (Im guilty of it). The best advice my sister gave me was “Get over yourself and stop being selfish with your work…people need to see it”.
When I think about a lack of confidence in that way, it makes me realise that my lack of confidence is no excuse and that I need to do something. Its not easy but it works.
Thanks for the article