Shutter Sisters

be the change

By

It was so interesting to read where Paige was yesterday… I’ve been feeling a tap on the shoulder from that visitor, Mister “self doubt”.

It happens every now and then, sometimes taking me by surprise and other times I can see exactly where it’s come from.

What can we do when we feel overwhelmed as artists by self doubt?.

Here are a few things I do –

  • Talk it through with someone who will just listen, not judge. (They may even have been through this feeling before)
  • If you don’t have someone to talk it through with –  write it down – the power of putting it out there is sometimes remedy enough.
  • Stand barefoot on the grass, connect with nature and feel in the moment. Breathe.

Tell me… tell others visiting here – let’s gather an arsenal of weapons/actions to blast through self doubt. What do you do? What mantras do you hold close?…what do we need to come out beaming on the other side.

Comments

  5. Thank you so much for this post. Beautiful words and image.

    Meditation and prayer help me through times of self doubt.

  12. With more pictures being taken now than ever before, it's a challenging time to define yourself as a photographer. It seems every time I make a bit of progress – get a picture in a show or do a shoot for a client – I experience an initial high and feel full of possibility, and then, like clockwork, it's followed up with a wave of self doubt. I don't know why, but I have come to recognize the pattern, which I'm calling progress.
    To work my way out of it I remind myself that everyone in the world can have the same tools, but still no two people are going to take the same picture – what my eyes see, what my brain finds interesting, and what makes my heart sing – that's my own personal, unreproducible algorithm. And then I take my eyes, my brain and my heart out with my camera and shoot – even if I don't feel motivated, and soon enough I am again.

  13. what a meaningful post. Good advice.
    I tend to get away from the computer and go into nature. At the very least, getting off the computer and embracing and interacting with life: call a friend or neighbour to join you for an outing. Walks are great and conversation is a great way to lift a person up.

  14. I have learned to just put one foot in front of the other and "do the work" Action is the key. I say to myself "just do one small thing, listen and watch one small thing, just for it's own sake". Other times I get into tough love! I say to myself "you have such a first world problem but you have a full enough belly to moan about this? Just get on and enjoy your freedom to create….. it is a luxury" I love talking to myself, sometimes I make so much sense!!

  16. Sometimes I have the courage to really listen to the self doubt, to just rest with it, ask it questions and try to befriend it, so I can learn the lessons I must need to learn. If it is panic/anxiety inducing self doubt then I just try to remember to breathe well, deeply, in and out, for at least a couple of minutes.

  17. a couple of years ago i wrote a manifesto.. a reminder of some of the things i sometimes forget. i printed it out and hung it on the wall, and put it up on my blog for other people to download if they wanted. its my all-time most viewed blog post, so i guess we all need reminders from time to time 🙂

    http://leoniewise.com/2010/06/manifesto

  18. When I get out of the shower in the morning, I write loving messages to myself on the fogged-up mirror. Whatever I'm needing that day or thinking about, I write about! Sometimes I doodle fun pictures, too. 🙂 It always helps ground me and always helps me feel better, even if just a little bit.