Struggling with Self Doubt

This is a different kind of post for me, I've not sat down before and just written about something personal, something I'm struggling with. To be honest I'm not the sort of person who shares the thing's that are going on inside my head. I'm a bit of a bottler ...

 

I really, really struggle with self doubt. I've always been creative, but over the last few years my doubt and fear has become a really controlling part of my creative process. It's gotten so bad now that it's leaking out into every aspect of my life. I doubt everything! 

 

I've been coming back to the post over and over this last week, it started off as a total meltdown, but now I'm rewriting it for the third time, I'm seeing it with a bit more perspective and understanding.

It's fear! Fear of being wrong, fear of not being good enough. Shooting myself and my ideas down before they actually physically exist!

 

I don't remember being so afraid to put myself out there when I was younger, but somewhere along the lines; those nasty little voices in the back of my head that told me I wasn't good enough, started getting louder. I know I'm quite a critical person, I can be a bit of a perfectionist and a control freak when it comes to anything creative and visual. But instead of driving me forward, it's starting to pull me down. I'm afraid to attempt my ideas for the fear of my own critical voices.

 

I'm going into my second year of my Illustration degree in September and I already know I don't want to be the one standing in my own way! I don't want to ever feel like I could have done better but I was afraid to go for it! And I enjoy blogging! But I have the same voices holding my back from posting as much as I would like. I want to change this, and start right now!

 

I'm not really sure how best to go about changing the way I feel, this is really just the beginning.

But even if no one reads this, just having gone through the process from draft one to posting this now; I already feel like I have a more positive outlook for what's ahead. I'm ready to improve my confidence, not be afraid to unleash my full creativity and banish those voices so far to the back of my mind I never hear them again!