cringe to confidence: 3 mindset shifts to turn creative beginnings into artistic growth
Beginning a creative journey is like going through second puberty.
Your emotions are all over the place.
Everyone around is way cooler than you.
And you have to tell your parents all over again that it’s not a phase, mom.
If we’re not careful, our insecurities can destroy our efforts in starting something new.
I would know: Starting my YouTube channel has given me many moments of self-doubt. Filming, editing, uploading — each part of the process gives the voice to the back of my head cause to point out my inadequacies.
The worst part is that it’s right.
My videos don’t look like those of my favorite YouTubers. In fact, they don’t even look remotely like them. That realization alone has been enough to make me want to quit about a hundred times.
But luckily, I had another realization:
your biggest problem are your unrealistic expectations.
We’ve all been there:
Staring at the blank, white page, cringing at the recording of our newest video or ready to throw our sketchbook out of the window. Meanwhile, our social media feeds are swarming with prose that would make Le Guin seethe in jealousy and art that would move Monet to tears.
Intellectually, we know that our third painting won’t look the way someone’s 300th does.
But still we expect the result of 10,000 hours of practice if all we’ve put in is 10.
That isn’t only lazy.
It’s entitled.
Instead of caring what someone else accomplishes in their fifth year of practice, we should focus on what we can do in our first six months.
In the beginning, exponential growth is easy.
In the first 20 hours of learning anything, we go from no ability at all to basic ability.
Once we’ve passed the stage of initial growth is when the awkwardness sets in. Now we know enough to have an idea of what we yet don’t know. We see mistakes and knowledge gaps we wouldn’t have been able to recognize before.
Seeing you suck is a win. It shows that you’ve moved on from being a total beginner.
Being bad at something is the first step to becoming good.
It’s also the stage where most people quit.
Because the most difficult thing about being a creative is dealing with your emotions.
Creation isn’t a mechanical application of skill. It’s the purest form of self-expression. And just like most people fear expressing themselves in relationships, they fear expressing themselves in their art. That’s just human.
And because it’s human, every creator struggles with this.
Experiencing insecurity, jealousy, and shame doesn’t make you less of a creative — it makes you part of the club.
While these emotions are natural, they sabotage our efforts. Instead of minding our own business, they make us concentrate on what others are doing.
comparison is the most dangerous distraction.
The only emotions you need looking at other creatives are joy and curiosity.
The first for their success, the second for what you can learn from them.
Everything else is comparison. Instead of cheering our peers on, we start to see them as competitors.
Comparison makes us lose our sense of reality. Instead of being realistic about our own merits and achievements, we zero in on our shortcomings. And when we’re feeling down on ourselves, the easiest thing to make us feel better is by pulling others down with us.
Oh, of course so-and-so’s art has more likes than ours. It’s easier for them — they have more talent, more free time.
We conveniently forget the reason they have more time is that they’ve been out of a job for six months, that every due rent is an anxiety inducer. We only see how they supposedly have it better than us.
Not only does jealousy make us a less pleasant person: It hinders our ability to improve.
No one has ever gotten better by making someone else worse.
The energy we spend looking at what others are doing would be much better spent on our own projects. It would even be better spent doing nothing.
The more jealous we are, the more we lose sight of our own way. We start following someone else’s path when they don’t even have the same destination.
Stop minding everyone else’s business. Instead, take an honest look at yourself:
Have you improved from where you were three months ago?
Have you showed up for your goals?
Have you put in the practice?
The only person you should compare yourself to is you.
And the only way to do that is to be realistic. Both about your failures and your successes.
Chances are, you’re already aware of your limitations. That’s why you need to double down on acknowledging your achievements.
And only you get to decide what a win is. Just like you can’t follow someone else’s path, you can’t use their benchmarks to measure how you’re doing on yours.
Don’t think that only the “big things” count. You don’t need to be validated through external metrics. Stop thinking of success as something you can show to others.
Instead, focus on your inner development and your progress in your craft. That way your wins are small and frequent.
By focusing on your achievements, you gain the willpower to keep going in the face of adversity.
Don’t let your fear of failure convince you to abandon ship:
the easiest time to quit is before you’ve ever truly started.
The beginning of a creative journey ignites all our insecurities.
The worst one of them all:
What if I make a fool out of myself?
The prospect of putting yourself out there for people much more skilled than you to see is terrifying. Feeling judged is a visceral experience and so, the prospect of social disapproval can feel like life-or-death.
We’d rather not try at all than risk looking like an idiot.
But who says The Fool is a bad role to play?
In Tarot, he symbolizes the beginning of a journey.
The Fool is innocent and carefree: He’s a spontaneous spirit, unburdened by past experiences or future concerns. Instead, he wanders towards the edge of the cliff. He worries little — he’s too busy gazing at the clouds.
Embarking on a creative journey feels just like that: Heading towards the end of a cliff. It’s exhilarating— and terrifying. It’s easy to see why we think we should quit before it gets truly dangerous.
But The Fool encourages us to embrace the unknown.
He doesn’t know what will happen once he steps off that edge.
Will he fall?
Or will he fly?
Failure is always a possibility. But so is success.
Just how likely they are depends on how we define them.
If we focus on external factors — such as likes or subscribers gained — we’re likely to experience failure sooner rather than later.
But if we define success by how we show up — by our hours of practice, by how often we put ourselves out there– then success becomes the only option.
Love,
Jenya x
Thanks for reading! I’m also on YouTube and Substack. When you support my work, it helps me dedicate more time to my writing. Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.
