Cultivating a positive mindset for continuous inspiration
We all know what it’s like when we’re in a slump and everything seems to be going wrong. We find ourselves doubting our skills, abilities, and talents. With all this negativity surrounding us, the last thing we want to do is write — the simplest of tasks can feel overwhelming and tedious.
That's why today I want to talk about cultivating a positive mindset for continuous inspiration. In order to share my thoughts on how you can do that I'm going to go over some helpful tricks that will help you make the most of your journey as a writer, no matter where you are in your career or how long things have been tough for you as an artist with low self-esteem.
Let's begin with cultivating a positive mindset for continuous inspiration.
Step 1: Set yourself up for success
I know this might sound like a bit of an oxymoron, but it's not. The truth is before you can hope to have success you need to lower your risk of failure. How do you do this? That all depends on your situation and what steps you’re comfortable taking. Maybe the only thing holding you back is that you keep self-sabotaging yourself out of fear of failure or maybe there are external factors preventing your long awaited breakthrough from happening.
It doesn't matter what those reasons are, it's important to be able to put a stop on them because they’ll be your biggest stumbling block if you don’t.
So how do you do that? By setting yourself up for success — with a positive mindset.
This is where writing exercises, writing assignments, and writing prompts are going to come in handy for you. They give you the opportunity needed so that you can begin cultivating an environment which will help you overcome your fears and feel comfortable enough to keep at it even when things aren't going well. If you need help figuring out what kinds of exercises that would be beneficial to you, I have a list of writing prompts you can use to get started with.
Step 2: Know why you’re here as an artist
You might want a lot more than just to create art. You might want to change the world, raise awareness and all sorts of other things — but are you clear on why? Is your vision that clear? Because if it isn't then how do you expect to have the motivation and drive needed in order to keep going when things aren’t going well?
You need a vision because without it there’s no goal for yourself so what do you end up doing? Giving up.
What is it that you want to achieve? If you're not clear on that then it’s going to be really hard for you to cultivate a positive mindset when things are going south.
I get it, there are days where I feel like giving up and I have all types of negative self-talk going through my head about my future and what I should write about next. I have the self-doubt of being an artist, doubts about myself achieving success in what I do, internal conflict as to what direction my career should take, the whole nine yards.
But I’m here to tell you that there is a way to deal with it and that way is trying your best to make sure that this isn't a one-way street.
Step 3: Stop comparing yourself with others
Whenever there's talk about self-doubt, fear, and negative self-talk this is usually the first thing people think of. They compare themselves with everyone else because they're not seeing their own talent as being as good as someone else's or they worry that since they're not doing what said person is doing then they should quit entirely.
The fact is you’re not here to be comparison, you’re here to be yourself because no one else can do what you need to do for your career.
If this is a problem you can't stop then I suggest getting a journal and writing down as much as you can on how other artists came to where they are at now. Even if it's just a sentence or two that's great because it'll give you the insight needed into what that person went through, which in turn will help give you clarity into your own situation. It's always good to see how someone else overcame their own struggles so that way when it happens to you, it won't seem impossible for yourself.
Step 4: Focus on the end result
It sounds simple, but it's not. When you first start out, especially if you're not sure what you should be doing or where you should be going with your writing career, it can be very easy to get distracted by a lot of different things. But what I'm trying to encourage you to do is focus on the end result.
What is that end result for you? What are you going to be able to achieve by doing whatever it is that you're focusing on?
For example: I'm currently writing a short story about a woman struggling with her past and how she will deal with it. If I'm not able to get my work done by the end of this month, then I won't be able to move forward with the story. So yes, it's important for me to focus on finishing but I have to also make sure that what I have is good enough.
What do I mean by this? What I mean is that when you’re focusing on the end result, it's important to make sure that you're making sure your work is good enough for the audience that you want to reach. When I say “good enough” I don't mean that it's good enough to make money or get a publishing deal.
Conclusion
You have to be honest with yourself. If you’re not happy with how your work is turning out then you need to make a change. Maybe you should go back and do something else. You can have a thousand reasons as to why things are shitty but the truth is if you just aren't happy with what you're creating then that's a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately because when there's something wrong you can't try your best to ignore it because chances are it won't just go away on its own.
So, if there's something wrong in your work, write it down.