The
next part of self doubt, or the recurring refrain I hear in my head is,
“How will I screw this up? How will I subvert this from reaching
success?” You see, I believe I have a history of screwing up the things
that should work, or so I tell myself. I tell myself that I find these
ways of hijacking myself so even if I finish a piece or find my way to
success I won’t actually achieve success, instead, I’ll be left
disappointed looking at success, so close yet outside of my grasp,
achievable but not.

These
are incredibly destructive thoughts, especially when kept in the dark. I
know my initial reaction when thinking and feeling like this is to not
share that I feel, well, vulnerable. When I boil it down and really look
at these destructive thoughts I realize that when I’m working on a
successful piece, getting good news, or anything else good those good
feelings are delicate and unstable. Especially when I’m first getting
them established. In a way I think self doubt comes from a protective
instinct, a place where we want to protect those oh so delicate feelings
of success from the possibility of failure. At some point something
happens and makes those protective feelings turn inward and they become
destructive.

At
that point I shut down, declare that I’m in a rut and feel as if I’ll
never get out. Why work on fresh art when I’ll just screw it up anyway?

It’s up to me to break that cycle, no one can do it for me. I have to decide, “Hey, I can do this.” Then I have to do it. (Some external positivity helps, so give someone props on stuff you see online, comment on a blog post, or flickr upload. Spread love.)