Self-Doubt. Recognise It and Move On.

Ah, that thing called ‘self-doubt’. It’s that little guy on your shoulder or in the back of your mind challenging you, doubting you and telling you that you definitely can’t do something. It’s a real problem for us as human beings if we choose to let it affect us, and a real burn for any creative person, especially graphic designers.

Throughout my career as a creative, I’ve always doubted my abilities (albeit that imposter syndrome feeling) but it’s only recently that it’s become less and less, and I think that comes down to age, maybe a little bit of wisdom or whatever you want to call it, and a lot of work I do with myself around practising mindset. Don’t get me wrong, I still definitely get that little voice in my head every so often but I’ve learnt to recognise it as a sign of growth; that what I’m doing is actually a bit challenging so I must be learning something new.

Today, we have endless opportunities, endless people to look up to, whether it’s designers or other creatives, entrepreneurs, business owners, powerhouse women in business or anyone else the internet can let us get access to. Let’s say we have an abundance of information and sometimes the too much information can actually be quite harmful to our development and our creativity.

Here’s a few little pearls of wisdom I’ve learnt across my career that has helped me in overcoming the self-doubt cloud:

No one is like you, thinks like you or ‘designs’ like you — this IS your advantage:

No one is inspired by the things you are inspired by and no one really quite sees the world in the way that you do. We are all on our own path and our own journey and that actually makes us completely unique. I find it handy every so often to re-evaluate myself, my goals and what I’m trying to achieve and write down all the qualities that are desirable for my clients –– what actually makes me unique to them. It’s a really good way for you to see the gaps in your self-development and a great way when someone asks you “what can you bring to the table?” you already have a little elevator pitch ready.

Recognise others work as inspiration, NOT as comparison.

We all doubt ourselves and our abilities and in the creative industry, this is often a daily occurrence. I always remind myself that no one is born into this world with an abundance of skills. Skills are learnt and practised… and practised and practised and practised. I’m a huge believer that you will only ever put time towards something that you value (and we all value different things). If you don’t value that something enough then it won’t become part of your life. I think oftentimes people forget about the hard work, practise and consistency (and sometimes even the risk) that goes into getting the end result you desire, preferring to just look at the shiny great thing at the end rather than recognising all the daily habits that go into anything that is worthwhile in life. I see this often when designers look at illustrators or artists that are excelling in their field and I’ve heard people say “I could draw that,” or “that’s just a simple line drawing illustration it’s easy to do.” But my question back is always “if it was easy then you would do it wouldn’t you?” Don’t ever discount someone’s process and don’t ever discount that your process just might be a little bit different to someone else’s.

Comfort will kill your career.

Harsh, but it’s what I believe. Being comfortable is one of the scariest things for me in my career. When I start to feel a sense of comfort of where I’m at, then I know that it’s time for me to re-evaluate my position, to question what I’m doing or where I’m going, or how I can learn something new that will push me forward. Nothing good ever comes to me in my comfort zone. I think being comfortable is where people sit when they are scared to believe in themselves or take a risk towards growth. If you lean into your talents or try something new then you inch towards starting to overcome those self-doubt feelings because you are practising the act of doing new things, learning, failing or succeeding. Of course, with risk, there will always be some type of failure, but failure can be a good thing. It means you actually learn something and push into another direction which could potentially be the right one. If you don’t try something then how will you know if it’s good or not? Lean into the uncomfortable. Go for it today, it could be the best thing that ever happened to you.