As kids, we are always engaging in pretend play, asking the most absurd questions, drawing globs and blobs of all kinds and calling them “monsters”. This behaviour, however, fades over time, may it be due to socialisation or just our education system.
We diminish our creative impulses and become more aware of judgement that surrounds us. It seems that the world around us is divided into two half of “creatives” and “noncreatives”. We start to categorise ourselves as the latter category. So why don’t we reclaim our creative confidence?
It’s undeniable that creativity led to the continued success of such companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Apple. The magic potion all the successful CEO’s seem to have is what we call creative confidence. They dared to come up with new ideas and try them out.
The simple act of getting over the “four fears” is the key to unleashing the creative confidence: fear of loss of control, fear of judgment, fear of the very first step and the fear of the inevitable unknown. Yes, we know it is much easier said than done. We have all been there. Much like the writer who faces the wrath of a blank page and the businessman on the dreadful first meeting of a new project.
The hardest part of any creative effort lies at the very beginning. To start the process of reviving your creative confidence, start by deconstructing the challenges at hand into smaller steps. One tiny accomplishment after the other, you will be able to build up your confidence. This is the time for you to stop planning and just get on with it. Trust our words, the longer you persist, the bigger your anxiety build-up will be.
As Albert Bandura, a famous social cognitive psychologist once said, “people’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property; there is huge variability in how you perform”.
