If you’re a writer (or any kind of artist), the odds are you’ve struggled with doubt and I bet there have been days when it has been downright overwhelming, perhaps even enough to make you want to give in and give up.
Fear not, doubting one’s self is human nature, but (and this is a big BUT) it’s also part of human nature to overcome and triumph over one’s doubts.
YOU can do it! Yes, you can!
Today I am happy to announce the winner of the “Happy Every Day” Caption on an Image Contest, Jessica Peterson.
Jessica is an exciting young artist who aspires to make a living creating art. In the interview below Jessica shares with us her success using crowd funding via Kickstarter, how she’s overcoming her doubts and her plans for the future, plus much more.
I hope you enjoy the interview, and join me in congratulating Jessica! And thank you to all who entered the contest, you can view the entries on Pinterest.
Last week Jeff Goins (the dude who wrote the foreword for my book), posted something deceptively simple and quite thought provoking, “Why I Write”. In his post he talked about, you guessed it – Why he writes.
Jeff ended his post with an invitation to his readers to share why they write in the comments. I typed off an answer, but I soon realized there was so much more to it and suddenly I found myself going deep.
When the rest of my answer came to me, I was floored. I have a feeling that a lot of writers, and other creative types for that matter, will find themselves identifying with the rest of my answer.
As writers, we are by our very nature, critical thinkers, but for some reason we don’t think too much about the ramifications of our own counterintuitive self-talk.
All too often we allow doubt to rule over us and take command of our gift to write words that matter. We tend to think that the harder we are on ourselves the better we will become. We challenge ourselves and, unfortunately, to do this most of us are drawn to using reverse psychology. Hey, even some of the greats have advised it.
But what if reverse psychology is one of the many tools doubt uses to cause you to stall, and even, give up?