What are you thinking?
By Robyn Jackson
Self-confidence seems to be a real issue for many writers. I hear it all the time: "Am I a good writer? Who would ever want to read what I've written? Who would be crazy enough to pay me to write?"
Sharing your writing with someone else is a very vulnerable act. You're sharing your innermost thoughts and dreams, work that might have come from your heart, and the reader might not react favorably. No one wants to be rejected, and when someone rejects your writing, it can really hurt because it cuts to the core of who you are.
I'm no expert on self-esteem or self-confidence, I struggle with it, too, but I really believe that it comes from within. Self-confidence is a product of "right-thinking," of believing in yourself and your abilities and not allowing negative thoughts to hold you back.
Or, as Dr. Phil McGraw writes in his best-selling book "Life Strategies," as Life Law No. 2, "You crreate your own experience."
"The law is simple: You are accountable for your life," Dr. Phil writes. "Good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, happy or sad, fair or unfair, you own your life."
Now that's a scary thought, isn't it? You can't blame someone else for the way your life is going.
I asked my coaching clients recently to write down all the things that were keeping them from achieving their goals. Lack of time is always an issue for writers, but time and again, those negative thoughts kept showing up on the lists: "I'm not good enough." "I don't have enough education." "I don't deserve to be successful."
You're programming yourself for failure and low confidence if you allow those thoughts to play in your head unchallenged.
"If you choose thoughts that demean and depreciate you, then you choose the consequences of low self-esteem and low self-confidence," Dr. Phil writes. "If you choose thoughts contaminated with anger and bitterness, then you will create an experience of alienation, isolation and hostility."
I tell my clients that if they want to be treated like a professional writer, they have to act like one. It's amazing how a small act like having business cards printed can give you a boost of self-confidence about your abilities. And then, as you distribute those cards, hand them to people and say "I am a writer." You will start to believe it, and opportunities to write - and get paid for it - will appear.
And if what you're telling yourself has a kernel of truth to it - if you don't have enough education, or your writing isn't that great - you can do something about it.
Words have power. Every writer knows this.
"The written and spoken word determines what we do in life and how we do it," writes Iyanla Vanzant in "One Day My Soul Just Opened Up,"a book about personal and spiritual growth. "And, since words ultimately guide our actions, it is important for us to speak words of truth, love and every good thing we desire to experience into existence. Self-affirming words and actions are necessary to counteract the unpleasant things we have heard about ourselves."
Poet Maya Angelou once described words as little energy pellets that shoot forth into the invisible realm of life. She believes words fill the air around us, stick to the curtains and carpets and our clothing, and ultimately become part of who we are.
As writers, we must choose our words carefully ... both the words that we put on paper and the words we use to describe ourselves.
Copyright (c) 2005, Robyn Jackson
