Karen Sperling’s Blog

Painting by Karen Sperling from her photo, featured in Painting for Photographers.

In a previous blog, I offered the idea that confidence, not talent, is the key to creativity.
I also promised to reveal how to find confidence, which is the subject of this blog.
By the way, I’m not a psychologist or a therapist.
I’m basing what I say on my own struggles with lack of confidence through a zillion years of pursuing creative careers, from writing articles, plays, movies and books, to publishing magazines and books, to taking photos and creating art, to singing.
I write about my experiences with the thought that maybe you’ll find some helpful information for your own situation and pursuits.
I also offer these ideas because writing about them helps reinforce them for me.
Recovering alcoholics say they’re always alcoholics, even if they don’t drink. They could go off the wagon at any moment.
The same is true of recovering confidencephobes.
You don’t flip a switch one day and suddenly lose all your insecurities.
They’re always lurking, ready to yank you off of whatever creative pursuit you’re attempting.
Here are four ways to find confidence.
1. Figure out why you’re lacking confidence.
The first step in finding confidence is to look at why you’re lacking confidence.
I think it stems in part from childhood, and in part from who you are as a person.
The part that stems from your childhood is the message your parents and other authority figures gave you.
How who you are as a person comes into play is how you react to this early feedback.
Some peoples’ parents tell them they’re great.
Some people use that positive feedback to achieve positive results in adulthood.
Others take positive feedback like that and coast, they don’t have motivation to pursue anything, they’re already great.
Take the opposite.
Some peoples’ parents put them down and tell them they can’t do anything.
These people either grow up to be insecure, believing their parents’ assessment, or they grow up to achieve greatness to prove their parents wrong.
These are just some possibilities, and I’m sure there are many more.
To figure out why you lack confidence, take a look at your own set of circumstances.
What’s the message you got growing up?
And how did you react to it?
And is this helping you or holding you back?
In my case, I was told I couldn’t do anything.
It’s kind of odd when you think about it.
I have a trillion talents.
In any case, that was the feedback I got, and I believed it on a certain level.
On a certain level, I didn’t.
So I’d try things, but then give up easily.
That’s a lack of confidence, which I described in my previous blog.
That something was wrong first became clear to me when I began trying to write screenplays.
I had been a journalist for many years, I had written non-fiction books and I had studied playwriting.
Plus I’ve had a life-long love of movies.
I never even dreamed that I, a mere mortal, could write screenplays until my friends produced a movie and I was an extra in it.
I saw other mere mortals creating a movie, and realized it’s something I could do.
Well, something I could try to do, anyway.
I read screenwriting how-to books and read scripts and started writing movies.
It didn’t come easily and it became increasingly difficult to get anything down on paper.
Then it got to the point that I was paralyzed with fear and gave up screenwriting.
Funny thing about it, though, I never really gave it up.
Every few months it would occur to me to try to write movies, again, but after a few writing sessions, I’d give up again.
What was that about?
I read a bunch of books on writers’ block.
I highly recommend doing so even if you’re not a writer.
These books suggest possible roadblocks to your creativity and you can figure out which ones apply to you.
For me, it was hearing the negative feedback in my head that was planted there early on by my family saying I couldn’t do anything.
I never heard this negativity when I tried other kinds of writing, I guess because other kinds of writing didn’t seem as scary to me.
Being a screenwriter sounds pretty exciting to me, but wanting to do something so much turns up the pressure.
Because I was just learning screenwriting and didn’t know much about what I was doing, I was yelling at myself every step of the way, no, that’s stupid, no, that’s wrong, no that sounds horrible.
Yikes!
I realized, unfortunately, that this negative feedback I heard in my head while I was trying to write movies was what I heard as a child growing up.
It was pretty amazing when I did finally realize it, because then I could do something about it!
2. Change the messages you send to yourself.
What I did was change the conversation I was having with myself.
That’s my second recommendation for finding confidence–after you recognize whatever it is from the past that could be holding you back, replace it with something that will move you forward.
In my case, as an adult, I don’t let anyone degrade me the way my family did.
And I realized, I shouldn’t allow myself to address me that way, either.
I actually made a conscious decision to rephrase my self-criticisms as I wrote scripts.
I literally would say to myself, that’s pretty good, but maybe you can think of something even better.
Another way to combat criticisms from the past, one I picked up in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, is to think of all the people who have complimented you throughout your life. Think of a teacher or a football coach or your best friends’ parents, anyone who said anything nice to you. And when you start hearing in your head those doubts and negative thoughts, try to replace them with the nice thoughts and people who have encouraged you along the way.
We’re like comedians who can have an entire audience laughing at their jokes, but are upset by the one guy who isn’t laughing.
We have a tendency to remember the mom or the teacher who told us we can’t draw, sing, act, etc., but we forget the nice neighbor who laughed at all our jokes and the friend’s mom who said we were great in the school play.
Well, it’s time to remember the nice, supportive people and forget all these negativity spreaders who populate our psyches.
Nowadays, I can write without all this other stuff coming up, but it took really paying attention to the thoughts going through my head and changing their effect on me.
Become more conscious of the reactions you have to your creations, and be your own best cheerleader. And no more yelling at yourself about how bad everything is.
However, don’t go overboard, either. You need to be critical of what you’re doing to get a good result. If you just accept everything you do, then you’re not going to grow as a creative person.
But don’t accept that whatever you do is bad, either, like many of us incorrectly decide.
Some of it is very good! The rest of it can get better with practice! Take credit where credit is due!
Maybe this isn’t exactly your situation.
Isolate whatever feedback you’re hearing in your inner thoughts as you try to create, and also how you react to it.
And then make a conscious effort to flip whatever is holding you back into something that propels you forward.
It doesn’t happen overnight, you won’t suddenly find the answer.
But let it simmer and turn it over a few times and see if it doesn’t help.
3. Be the expert.
You now know two ways to find confidence–determine what it is that’s holding you back and change it to something else that helps you move forward.
The third way to find confidence is to be the expert.
When I first moved to California from New York, I got involved with the Wordplayer web site for screenwriters run by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, who wrote such hit movies as Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean.
One of Terry’s many philosophies is, “Be the Expert.”
By that he means, learn everything you can about screenwriting and know whether your own scripts are good because you are the expert.
I use this advice in everything I do.
Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s taking photos, painting art, creating movies, performing music, you have to study and know what makes something good and then use this knowledge to achieve your own goals and to complete your own projects.
Learn not just the nuts and bolts of your chosen field, but also see what everyone else in the field is doing, and know the history, find out what came before you.
You may not realize it, but artists, writers, musicians, directors, many creative people are influenced–steal–from that which came before, whether it’s a style of writing, a particular way to shoot a sequence in a movie or a kind of look in a painting.
Where the artistry comes in is in the different spin the new creative person gives the reference material. There’s no creativity in copying something from the past, but using it as the basis for new ideas can spark creativity. If you don’t know what came before, you miss out on an important idea source.
Using something from the past takes homework. It’s not enough to use something from before as inspiration. You have to know why it’s good and why you like it. Understanding why you like something enough to find it inspirational helps you to be the expert.
You can’t be an expert in your field if you’re creating in a vacuum, ignorant of other works in your discipline.
Learn the ingredients for doing whatever it is that you’re pursuing, be the expert, and know that what you’re doing is good, and if it’s not, know how to improve it.
Confidence comes from being the expert.
Being the expert also means not waiting for others to tell you whether something is good or bad.
A lack of confidence comes from not being sure of what you’re doing and presenting it to others hoping they’ll tell you it’s good, or asking them to critique it and tell you what’s wrong with it.
It’s nice to hear compliments, but if you’re the expert, you know whether your work is good, and why, and if it’s not, how to improve it.
After working on Painting for Photographers for two years, I’m thrilled that everyone loves it and is happy with it.
But am I shocked?
No.
I’ve been writing tutorials about Corel Painter for 20 years since I wrote the manuals for the program’s first four versions. Painting for Photographers is my fourth Painter book, and I’ve also published a printed magazine and an ezine about Painter. Plus I’ve been teaching Painter and using it all this time.
I know Painter inside and out.
Before I wrote the Painter manuals, I was a reporter and an editor for newspapers and magazines, both on staff and as a freelancer.
When I was starting out as a journalist, I learned to write articles by reading all the local newspapers to see how they covered the same events.
I analyzed writing styles and word usage, and I looked at what facts each article included and left out.
I read how-to-write books and usage books like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.
And to learn the art techniques and to paint the paintings, I minored in art in college, plus I’ve spent a lifetime going to museums and galleries and studying art and artists.
Meanwhile, I designed Painting for Photographers, including choosing the typefaces and designing and creating all the layouts and I’ve studied design and layout for 20 years.
I know Painting for Photographers is excellent because I put in the time to learn how to write, illustrate and design books and how to use Painter and explain how to use it.
That’s not bragging or boasting, and it’s not something I go around saying in everyday conversations.
But I type it here to show you what confidence sounds like.
Do I completely believe it?
No! That’s the plight of the life-long confidencephobe!
But like the recovering alcoholic, I take confidence building one day at a time!
At least I know what confidence sounds like! And I know what I typed is the truth because I know how hard I’ve worked to create a good book.
I decide not to listen to all the negative thoughts that simultaneously appear with the positive ones, just like the alcoholic tries to ignore the cravings for a drink.
By the way, if you’re interested in painting photos, one way to be the expert is to read my book.
That’s how you become the expert, by learning the nuts and bolts of what interests you. Painting for Photographers has the art lessons and software steps that you need to paint photos.
4. Pretend.
The fourth way to find confidence is to pretend you have it.
You’ve discovered what from your past is holding you back.
You’ve quieted those negative voices and people in your past and replaced them with positive, supportive feedback and people.
You’ve become the expert and know what good is.
And yet doubts still nag at you.
Just pretend the negative thoughts don’t exist and pretend you have confidence.
You will start to believe you’re confident, most of the time, which is better than never!
My mother’s advice about everything was, try not to think about it.
I used to think this was dismissive, but actually, she had the right idea.
Ultimately, a professional photographer, writer, artist, musician, anyone, gets to the task at hand without thinking about all the things that hold us back.
Successful creatives do the work while everyone else is sitting around thinking about it.
Don’t be the one sitting around wishing you were creating.
Be the one creating by finding the confidence and doing it!
My bonus bit of advice about finding confidence is to write a blog about how to do it.
Maybe seeing how much you know about finding confidence will finally convince you that you have it!

Tags: The process of art //