Pushing Through Self-Doubt
“I don’t like vomiting, but there is a time when you say, ‘I’ll feel better if I finally throw up.’” is what filmmaker Warren Beatty said about his creative process. As I begin a large personal project of my own, it’s affirming to know that I shouldn’t have any guilt in not “finding the joy in every moment”, as some insist you must do if you are in any kind of creative endeavour. Not every moment is going to be fun, and that’s okay.
Some of the most successful people in modern history are on record spouting the same truth as Beatty. Churchill wrote that, “writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress. Then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to you servitude, you kill the monster and fling it to the public”.
Leonardo Da Vinci had a mantra that helped him push through his countless day-long practice sessions: “ostinato rigore”. It translates as “stubborn rigour” or “tenacious application”, and it encouraged him to push through all of the self-doubt and distractions that he faced. By developing an inner “ostinato rigore” you can find some solace in the hours of hard work that are needed to complete a larger project. It may seem from the outside that people like Da Vinci needed only to rely on their artistic talents and genius to succeed in what they did, but the reality is much less attractive. “Relying on craft and routine”, as illustrator Christoph Niemann put it, “is a lot less sexy that being an artistic genius. But it is an excellent strategy for not going insane”.
It is inevitable that at the beginning of a project, the excitement and thrill will overcome you. This is what gets you into gear and motivates you to begin. However, it is also inevitable that it won’t last. Some days will become increasingly harder than others; the returns on how much work is put in won’t be as high. However, moving into this more self-critical state should not bare such negative judgement as it does. “If we remained as excited as we were in the beginning of our project”, wrote Robert Greene in his book Mastery, maintaining that intuitive feel that sparked it all, we would never be able to take the necessary distance to look at our work objectively and improve upon it.” A level of despair and gloom isn’t always a bad thing. It helps to make you look at what you’ve created and ask ourselves “is this the best I could have done?”, instead of blindly charging forward and depriving yourself of producing your best work.
However, it is healthy to remind yourself that until your work is shown to the public, you are entirely free to chop and change it to our hearts’ content. “The first draft of anything is shit” as Hemingway put it; keeping that in mind will prevent some of the paralysis that everyone experiences at some point during their project. Doing creative work is scary; it feels risky to put something out into the world and completely own it. It feels safer to work for a company that seems too big to fail, that takes away all of the risk for you at the price of your freedom to impose your own set of rules on life.
Neil Gaiman said that “when people tell you something is wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong, they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” The criticisms that people throw at you are not to be taken to heart for two reasons; first, they are most likely about your work and not your character, and second, that it is almost always a reflection of their own insecurity, fear, and jealousy rather than your insufficiency as a creative person. It is easy to get caught in the specifics of what people are telling you about your work. Just remember that they are not always right, and if they are right in that there are issues with your work, they are probably wrong about what those issues are exactly. Trust your own judgement and do what interests you and what you think is good; that is what will push you through to the end. “Write on subjects in which you have enough interest in”, wrote John McPhee, “to see through all the stops starts, hesitation, and other impediments along the way”.
There are so many things to overcome when starting and seeing through a whole creative project. At times it may feel like life itself is trying to stop you. The biggest demon to face is always the one inside your own head. If you can overcome that, you can push through any distractions, criticisms, or other external forces trying to get between you and the finished project.
