Gain Instant Confidence Wherever You're Lacking
Lacking confidence? Borrow some.
Hey there, creatives. Welcome back to the Creative Spotlight. I really love today's topic because, to be honest, I really haven't heard anyone talk about it online. I know we hear the same thing spoken about by different people all the time. This one's a little personal, so if the topic freaks you out, endure for a moment and maybe ask why it freaks you out.
We know that as creatives, or just humans in general, that sometimes we're lacking confidence. It happens, sometimes daily depending on how you are, who you are, where you are in your journey. Something I learned a while ago is the idea of borrowing confidence. It is not the same as fake it ‘til you make it, which is also a good lesson, especially as an actress. Isn't that what we're doing all the time as actors? We're faking it.
The idea of borrowing confidence is not borrowing confidence from someone else. It's actually borrowing confidence from yourself from a different category of your life. I love this because it's so accessible and tangible. You can feel it. You can grab onto the confidence from one area of your life and move it into a different area of your life where you are lacking confidence.
Here's my story time. This is the part that could freak you out... maybe. I won't get graphic, but there's an area in my life where I have always felt inherently confident. I didn't struggle to find the confidence; I didn't have to nurture it or build it up. I was just confident, and it doesn't really make sense why, but I just was. There are several other areas in my life where I'm lacking confidence, so I've borrowed confidence from this area in my life on more than one occasion.
If you don't already know, I am a mother of four little boys. At the time of posting, they are eight, five, three and I just had a baby a month ago. So I have four little boys and I don't know how or why, but I have always had this incredible confidence in my ability to birth children. I have had four home births literally right here in my living room with a midwife. I didn't go take a lot of classes or training, or do weird breath work like from the 80’s. I just knew that I could do it, that I'm in a woman's body and that the creator created this form to birth babies. I knew that I didn't need a hospital or an intervention - and there is NO shade to anyone who does. You have your babies how you want to have your babies. For me, I just knew it was a very big and deep connected confidence, like spiritual creator level connection. Women have been doing this since the beginning of time. Heck, even before human women, creatures of all kinds have been doing this.
I live in the woods of the Ozark Mountains. When I'm pregnant and getting ready to do that big crazy thing of, like, having a baby, I think a lot about deer… the elegance and calm, quiet energy of a doe, a mother deer expecting. They're such quiet animals. That's helpful. And I think, She's not going to the hospital.She's not having ultrasounds and monthly checkups. She's not going to have a doctor administer the pain meds. She's isn’t going to have someone shouting at her when it's time to push and do all these things. She's going to go to a safe space in her woods and lay down and do what the creator designed her to do. Have a baby.
Now, this doesn't mean that I think all women should have babies. Super NOT saying that, just sharing a personal story here.
I think the reason the confidence from this area of my life is so profound - and that I can borrow from it - is because it feels bigger than me. I have no idea what day they will grow eyelashes, I just know that the cells are doing the miraculous thing that the cells do, that I'm a vessel. I'm just nurturing it and loving it and enjoying it. When it's time to have that baby, my body will do what it's designed to do and I will confidently have this baby.
I want to note that I live an hour from the hospital, so if something did go wrong, I've got a little trek ahead of me. That fact never scared me, not even the first time around because I was like, I'm not going to need a hospital. Call me foolish, call me naive. I don't care. I've had four beautiful, smooth home births where everyone was safe and healthy and well, I'm super blessed and I know that that's not the case for everybody. I only want to emphasize the confidence I have in that area, this insane and unshakable confidence, and correlate it with the outcome that it worked.
No babies or bellies were harmed in the making of Silence in the Jungle… this mama just loves producing spooky gorgeous entertainment! ;)
That's the kind of confidence we want to have as creators who are creating artwork and putting it out into the world. Maybe your lack of confidence is that you're not good enough at your craft, whatever it is. Maybe you're new-ish at it. Maybe you're not new-ish at it, but you still just don't think you're that good. I've had that experience before, because I didn't go to New York and get validated by all the producers in New York City. No, no. I self-validated. I said I'm going to write the script, I'm going to produce it, I'm going to sell the tickets and I'm going to see if it's good. Okay, so I've had audience validation a little bit. ;) The audience comes and they say it's good, five stars, we love it. That's really helpfu! I also know in my guts that it's good. I know it's good.
I've been able to move through in my times of doubt by borrowing confidence from myself. When I did my first fully scripted show after moving from purely dance shows, I thought, “Oh my god, is this even going to work? Is anyone going to like it? Is this going to be a flop?”
I needed to borrow confidence from somewhere, right? My times of doubt are less so now because I'm getting so good at borrowing this confidence. Actually, what's happening is I'm just getting really confident in my craft, but sometimes we need to borrow it. So I want you to find the area in your life where you're stupidly, naively, unshakably confident and I want you to go over there and grab it. When I say grab it, all you really have to do is close your eyes, take a couple breaths and get into that feeling of confidence from that area of your life. Feel the physical sensation in your body and then shift your mental space over to the thing you're not that confident about. Let that confident feeling in your body permeate that other space.
Maybe I'm really confident about having babies, but not so confident that tickets are going to sell out. Can I borrow that confidence and move it over here? The answer is absolutely yes, I can - by getting myself into that state of confidence, feeling, and self-belief, then moving myself into the area of incompetence. It's a little woo. We're creatives though, aren't we all a little woo? It's real, guys. This quantum stuff, it's real.
That's my two cents for you. If you're lacking confidence in one area, you beautiful creative you: first of all, you’re more of a badass than you give yourself credit for. Second of all, just go to that area where you feel confidence, feel it, grab onto it, take some deep breaths. You can even physically grab it and move it if you want. “I'm going to take that and move it over there.” Like magic, now I'm confident in the area that I need to be confident in.
You will absolutely get there. So, lacking confidence? Just borrow some from that other part of yourself.
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Darlings, that's a wrap. Now, go do your creative work.
