Creativity and self-belief

Moving forward with a new creative venture requires courage and self-belief. Each creative act requires us to step forward into the world and believe that we have something to offer. This might be more obviously the case with singing, poetry, dancing, painting, sculpting – the things which have traditionally been recognised as creative, but it’s also true of starting a business, creating a dating profile, cooking a meal for family and friends or planning a new route in life.

Having self-belief isn’t about thinking we are better than others or that we have reached a magical standard whereby we have a right to give the world something of ourselves. All that is required is a smidgen of desire or need to express something of our unique experience of the world. We do not need to judge the quality of our output or to imagine what others might think of it – our task is to bring of ourselves. Perhaps one day we will want to shape it for an audience, but our tender shoots of creative energy are worth protecting from internal and external critics alike. If we try to be pleasant, clever, interesting, unique etc we will surely find that our creativity will shy away. Instead, we patiently show up in whatever form that takes for us, and we listen to the voice within.

Perhaps, this is why Lockdown was a time of creativity for many of us – the quietening of the outside voices led us to look within, and we found a gentle voice urging us to create. For many, time spent outside in nature stilled us enough to feel the natural urge to express ourselves in one form or another.

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising and gave to it neither power nor time.”

(Mary Oliver)

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

(Goethe)