Confidence

There was this book that I read.

It made a convincing argument that if you wanted to be an artist, you had to be a confident person.

I was young.

I wanted to be cool, and confident, and an artist…at least I thought I did. I mean who didn’t?

All I knew for sure was that I was ‘good’ at art. It felt like an impossible distance from my assessment of myself to what the book seemed to be suggesting, though.

I guess that’s how it became my impossible quest. I NEEDED to be confident. I wanted to be. According to the book, it was necessary.

Art in college was competitive. The instructors pulled no punches. Even if I could keep up with raw lucky talent, we all were encouraged to compare ourself, our work, while being pushed to do new, never done before assignments and then criticed. My own small measure of confidence was chipped away at. I emerged feeling like less of a potential artist than I did going in. Definitely less confident.

Finally, after years of living with this stumbling block, someone suggested to me that confidence is a state, not a personality trait (as I had always thought). Everyone has confident moments doing things they’ve done a million times. We all get better at certain things and become confident while doing them.

Some people seem to have a natural tendency towards bravado. They give off confident vibes. (many teenagers master this). They seem to know before they actually do. This fake it ‘til you make it persona used to fool me all of the time. I believed for a good stretch of my life that most everyone was better than me at most everything, and if they weren’t, they believed they were so strongly that it didn’t matter. My skill or knowledge was easily trumped by another’s bravado.

When I finally understood the state of confidence, I had had enough experience to step back and really see this. Bravado or confidence could be conjured. I too could create this state of mind anytime, anywhere. In fact, I already had.

Lots of times. Without realizing it.

This shift in perspective changed everything. Where I once believed that I could never BE an artist, sure I could do art, but not as an artist, I finally saw that I actually was one all along.

It seems pretty silly now, this little distinction, but it is interesting how self assessment can play a powerful role in how one approaches the doing of things.