IWSG: Be more confident in four easy steps

Happy IWSG Day! For those who are new here, I participate in the monthly Insecure Writers Support Group blog hop. Details and signup here. This month’s optional question is: There have been many industry changes in the last decade, so what are some changes you would like to see happen in the next decade?

I’m going to be a rebel this month and not respond to the optional prompt, because a) I’m still a novice and don’t feel qualified to talk about what’s going on in the publishing industry, and b) I want to share something I discovered last week that helped me, both in my writing life and my library life.

I’ve been trying to build personal development into my days, because it motivates me and helps me stay positive, even when life is… challenging. Until today, my university had a campus-wide subscription to LinkedIn Learning (we’re now moving to Udemy to save money, so I have a new resource to check out), and I’ve been taking advantage of that to grow my skills. Last Monday, I logged into LinkedIn Learning and saw a short session called Complete Confidence in Minutes. It was about 30 minutes long, and I wanted to walk for 30 minutes, and who doesn’t need more confidence, so I hit Play. The presenter was Selena Rezvani, a consultant and speaker on women’s leadership. I won’t try to summarize her entire presentation, but I will share her four power statements, short affirmations that may inspire you to feel more confident as you take on new challenges:

• Today is a totally fresh start.
• Be afraid and do it anyway.
• I move on from setbacks completely.
• Change is inevitable and good.

Every one of these resonates with me as both a writer and a leader:

• Today is a fresh start. I am not bound by who I was 30 years ago or last year or yesterday. I’ve been slacking off on my writing? Today is a new day! Today I can make progress. I am not a slacker. I’m a productive writer–starting today. This idea is so liberating!
• Be afraid–and do it anyway. Being afraid doesn’t mean you’re a coward. Fear is a normal response to risk and to the unfamiliar. Courageous people aren’t free of fear (in my experience, only drunks and clueless people are free of fear, because they aren’t able to recognize risk). Courageous people are afraid, sometimes knees-knocking-like-a-skeleton-in-a-windstorm afraid, but they push forward anyway. This kind of courage is essential for writers. Every time we let someone read our stuff, every time we create a blog post, every time we submit a story or a query, we’re taking a risk. We’re putting ourselves and the precious fruits of our creativity out into the mean, cruel world. We might get rejected. We might get criticized. We might get ridiculed. But unless we want to keep our writing locked away in a drawer for our hapless heirs to ceremonially burn in their fire pits after we’re gone, we have to face the fear and do it anyway.
• I move on from setbacks completely. This simple statement was exactly what I needed to hear last week. I’d had a setback that, for reasons I didn’t and still don’t understand, bugged me way more than it should. Moving on from setbacks is another skill that’s essential for us writers. We’re going to get rejected. Our story that we lovingly crafted and are so, so proud of–will get rejected. With a form letter. And that will happen over and over and over. If we can’t move on from setbacks, we’ll never be able to share our words with the world.
• Change is inevitable and good. Raise your hand if you love change. Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, didn’t think so. Change is good for vending machines. Most of the rest of us hate it or at least find it stressful. I’m a novelty-seeker, and I still get discombobulated by change. I knew how to do whatever-it-is the old way. I was competent. Now I’m not. Ugh. I suppose this statement relates to the optional IWSG prompt for this month, since the publishing industry has changed so much in the last decade and likely will keep changing. What works today will fail tomorrow, and we’ll have to learn new ways to share our words with the world. We can complain about it and dig our heels in and pitch a good old-fashioned fit, or we can learn to roll with it and–this is key–find opportunity in it. I’m trying to change the way I look at change, to stop moaning and consider how the change might be good–for me and for others. I’ll admit, that’s been a challenge in the age of COVID, because most of the changes associated with the pandemic are less than wonderful. But at the same time, I’ve managed to find opportunities for self-renewal (like Selena Rezvani’s presentation that inspired this post) and self-reflection that I almost certainly wouldn’t have made time for in my pre-COVID world.

Cheesy as it sounds, I’ve been reading these four statements as affirmations each morning, and they’ve improved my attitude and, yes, my confidence. I hope they do the same for you.

Now it’s your turn. Do you have any tips for building/increasing confidence? Any affirmations or quotes that help you step out of your comfort zone? Share ’em in the comments!