I worked at a place once where the phrase “creative” was used as a passive-aggressive insult. “You’re very creative”, they’d say, “but we need you to be more [insert whatever attribute you want here that isn’t associated with being creative]”.
Creativity in this setting was almost frowned upon and used as an example of where you could improve rather than where you could excel. Which was strange because you can’t build a business without creativity. It was almost as though some of the founders were blinded by their own biases around soft skills to understand how creativity is core to what everyone does. All the time. In pretty much every job there is.
Creativity is core
When it comes to being creative, some people wear it as a badge of pride. They can confidently walk into a room at a party and introduce themselves as a writer or as an artist.
I’m always quite envious of such people because it really does take a lot of chutzpah to stand up and wear this badge of being a creative person. And I think it comes from the idea that creative industries are a bit of a nice to have. Some frills around the outside of where the proper work gets done.
So we start to subconsciously think of creative jobs as being a bit frivolous. Something that you do in your spare time rather than as the main thing which moves your business.
This, in turn, makes it harder to have the confidence we need to really stand by our creative work.
Think about it: how often have you paused before publishing a post because of what others might think? Or spent hours noodling about on Canva before feeling bad because your time could have been better spent? Or saved up all the fun creative work for the evening when it’s not really work time?
Prioritising creativity
One of the actions I get my blogging course cohort to do is track when they feel the most inspired to write. Whether that’s early morning, in the evening when they don’t have lots of other work on or if they do it when they are procrastinating.
When you start mapping out your creative energy, it gives you an idea of when you can do your best work. I’m not going to get into this too much this week as I’d like to dig into it deeper next week. But doing this small exercise can help you understand when you are at your most creative.
The point is – we can often feel like creative work isn’t really proper work. It’s the stuff we enjoy and get lost in but doesn’t necessarily have a direct link to sales at the end. Or not one we can instantly see in any case.
And yet, creativity is what pushes us forwards. It creates the motivation, the ideas, and the beautiful wonderful products and services we sell.
How can your confidence impact the quality of your work?
There is plenty of evidence to support the argument that confidence has a direct impact on creative teaching. This is important for those for anyone who runs a business where teaching or training is part of your service offering. And the same is true for leadership roles and creativity.
These are roles in which you’d expect a large degree of confidence to carry you forward. But what about being creative for creative’s sake? Such as art, writing, or design?
In a 2021 study of students at two Spanish universities, they found a direct link between how confident students felt in their creative self and the level of engagement they had in their studies. And since we know that engagement is key to getting good outcomes for your work, it seems that confidence in your own creativity is the key to setting all this positive action in motion.
The study also found that working collaboratively and engaging created a kind of virtuous circle. Confidence increases creativity, which increases good outcomes, which increases confidence.
Of course, this is a complex area and there are many other unattributed factors in how confident we feel with our creative endeavours. Our background, upbringing, friendship groups and experiences all have an impact on how secure we feel around creativity.
Creativity as an escape
Another reason why I think confidence can be lacking when it comes to creativity is that, often, it’s our safe space. When we create a thing, we often do it for ourselves (even when we’re creating it for others). And so, it can feel difficult to share this with others because you are essentially sharing something of yourself. When you share that thing you created with strangers, you can feel vulnerable and exposed. This can also feel like a threat.
And who wants their safe space to feel threatened?
I think this is why so many people feel a lack of confidence in their writing when it comes to blogs. They have the expertise and the passion. They most certainly have the creativity but if they didn’t go through formal training then up pops the imposter syndrome alongside the fear factor of exposing this small part of yourself.
It’s difficult to press that big green button if you lack the confidence that what you’ve done is any good. And often the only way to get over this fear is to do it again and again and again.
Doing it anyway
Heights absolutely terrify me. This wasn’t always the case. Age has a lot to answer for. So to get over it I took up indoor climbing. Every week I had to force my body to ignore its natural fear response and climb higher and higher up those walls.
In my first few weeks, I struggled to get up the kids’ walls. And I had to count backwards from 10 before I’d let go and belay down. This is despite my logical brain knowing I was safely harnessed to the wall.
Ironically, my confidence got a boost the evening I did fall from the top of the bouldering wall. I was trying a technique I’d seen online, did it wrong and found myself lying on the crash mat below. That fall proved to me that even if I took a tumble, I’d be okay.
And it’s the same with your creative endeavours at work. Sometimes it’s going to go tits up. You might write a terrible blog that no one reads. You may indeed record an embarrassing video. Or you might get a negative comment.
The first time this happens, it has the potential to crush you. But it also has the potential to build up your confidence because if that’s the worse that could happen and you’re a-ok, then you can crack on.
Building creative confidence
When it comes to anything in business, confidence is the key to success. This is not some “fake it ’til you make it” advice. Sometimes how other people see you is very different to how you think you come across.
A friend recently told me that I seem to be killing it on LinkedIn at the moment. This made me chuckle because it doesn’t always feel like I’m killing it at anything in life. But the one difference between how I’m perceived this year compared to last is that I did something to give my confidence a massive boost.
Recognising that there was a great big chasm between what exists in my head and what true to everyone else around me was the starting point. I did very specific work on my confidence (and if I’m being honest here, I still am doing).
Often confidence is doing something until it feels a normal and natural part of your life. You don’t always notice the moment you stop getting cold sweats when you do something, but slowly your brain learns that the thing you’re doing isn’t a threat anymore. Nothing bad happens, the world keeps turning and you are nice and safe.
Owning your creativity
Once you get to this point, you start to see how someone can walk into a room and say “I’m a writer” or “I’m an artist” without even thinking about it. Even if your business is neither of those things, being able to wear your badge of creativity with pride will help in every aspect of your life, not just your business.