5 Steps To Regaining Your Confidence As A Creative Writer

Confidence in anything doesn’t just disappear overnight, it gradually seeps away. It’s more like the effect of having a hole in your bucket than emptying the bucket out completely in one go.
Because this decline is slow, it’s also difficult to detect. And usually by the time you’ve realised you’ve gradually been losing your confidence to write, it’s virtually dried up completely. So how can you regain that creative writing confidence? How can you return to a state of experimenting, writing freely and being proud of what you write?
Here’s a 5 step confidence plan for you to follow:
Step 1. Remember how confident and creative you’re capable of being.
Think back to a time when you were writing confidently and freely, return to a particular occasion and scene you can recall. Take yourself back as if you were there again and relive that feeling of writing with confidence. What do see around you? What does it feel like? What are you saying to yourself, what kind of thoughts are in your head in this confident time? Note them down.
Step 2. What’s missing that you can regain?
Now you have a detailed description of what it’s like to write with confidence, come back to the present. What are the differences now in each area? What are the obvious things that are missing? What are the little differences that make the difference? Write them down in as much detail as you can.
Step 3. Visualise being more confident than you’ve ever been.
You know what it feels like to write with confidence. Take the time to sit quietly, close your eyes and visualise yourself writing that freely once more. Use the details you’ve rediscovered in the first two steps above – see, hear and feel yourself writing with that freedom again. Once you feel you’ve re-experienced that state in your mind, write it down.
Step 4. Start writing, but start small.
If you’re not feeling confident in your writing, then taking on a huge writing project like a new fantasy novel to rival Lord Of The Rings is not the wisest approach. Start small, write a short story, or a poem or just spend time writing about things you’ve seen and done, places you’ve been. Become comfortable with writing again.
Step 5. A daily habit for life.
In step 3 we talked about visualising writing with confidence once again, and in step 4, easing yourself in gradually by writing a small amount was the way forward. Repeat these two steps each and every day, and gradually you’ll find your confidence not just returning to previous levels, but soaring far beyond.
This 5 step plan can help you regain your confidence as a writer and start to produce the most enjoyable and rewarding writing of your life. Take the first step today and continue through to commit to that daily habit. The results can literally change your writing life…