Developing your creative confidence

Resist judging yourself

We often don't realise that self-deprecating behaviour leaves the most harmful impact on our creative thinking. Always worrying, double, or triple checking before doing or saying something lest it should sound stupid – are signs that you're being way too hard on yourself. Failure might have come to you in the past, but you have to come to terms with yourself and internalise that your failures don't define you and that you are worth more than you give yourself credit for.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone

Acing the first two steps is primarily getting half the work done. This step is mostly about quitting the habit of fearing that your thoughts and opinions won't resonate with others. It's taking that first leap of faith. It's about going ahead with the theory that was going through your mind but you were too scared to try out, or that idea you wanted to share with your class that was just at the edge of your lips but you were too nervous to speak up about. You know what they say; you miss 100% of the chances you don't take.

The Snake Experiment

There's an experiment Albert Bandura, renowned psychologist and Stanford professor, had done in order to help people get past their lifelong snake phobias. He would, through gradual steps with increasing exposure to snakes, make his subjects accustomed to being around them. The people who went through it were not only cured of a crippling fear they had assumed was untreatable, but also had less anxiety and more success in other parts of their lives, like taking up new and potentially frightening activities like public speaking. Now you may lack all the snake-resources to perform the experiment on yourself, but the least you can do is let yourself be exposed to your deep-seated fears, taking baby steps. Hence, stop over-thinking about the phobias holding you back and let your creative ideas fly.

Eshanee is currently completing her BBA from IBA, DU. Reach her at eshanee333@gmail.com.