7 Ways to Boost Confidence
How to Build your Writing Confidence by Katherine Clements
I’m so delighted to welcome
to today. Katherine is an accredited writing coach and a novelist. Over at she coaches writers and offers excellent advice and support.Katherine is going to share 7 ways to boost your confidence - which will help you with your writing AND with your life in general and we have also recorded a live Q&A on building confidence (details of the replay are below).
Over to Katherine…
‘Confidence is gained with experience, and that takes practice, time and a whole lot of courage.’
Katherine Clements
The first time I ever read my work aloud, I had a panic attack.
It was the mid-noughties, and I’d recently joined a small local writers’ group. After a couple of months listening to people share their work, my turn came around. I'd brought along a short story that I was secretly quite proud of. As we gathered at the Formica tables in the chilly room above the library, I was very nervous. But it was time. I was ready, or so I thought.
As I began reading, my mouth went dry. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. My heart started racing and my voice didn’t sound like my own. I took a sip of water, but my throat constricted. My vision began to darken at the edges, the words on the page shrinking down to a single bright white dot. I literally couldn’t read.
Convinced I was about to pass out, or have a heart attack, I managed to squeeze out: I’m sorry. I can’t.
This story is one I share often with coaching clients who ask me about writing confidence. I want to feel more confident in my writing, they say. And I get it. Me too! We all want to feel more confident in our writing. But confidence is not something that anyone else can give you. Confidence is gained with experience, and that takes practice, time and a whole lot of courage.
In my years as a professional writer – and more recently, as a qualified coach and business owner – I’ve learned a thing or two about confidence; how it works and how to build it. So, what follows is seven things I’ve discovered, and they all apply as equally to writing as they do to life.
1. Confidence is a verb
Confidence grows through action. The only way to get more confident at something is to do it. When we take steps toward something we think we can’t do, we gradually prove to ourselves that we can.
2. Small confidence grows big confidence
When we take action – whether in small steps or large strides – this increases our confidence, which in turn leads to our taking more action, which grows our confidence, and so on. It’s a perpetual cycle.
3. A lack of confidence is not a personal failing
Just because we haven’t done something before, and feel nervous about doing it, does not mean there is something wrong with us or that we will always feel that way. There are many reasons we might lack confidence in some areas of our lives. This is not a personal flaw. It’s completely normal, and we don’t need to beat ourselves up for it.
4. Confidence requires certainty, but creativity is uncertain
If we are very confident at something, we believe we can do it. This certainty is what gives us confidence. As human beings we seek out certainty – our brains are wired that way. Meanwhile, sitting in uncertainty can be really uncomfortable. (Think about waiting for the outcome of a job interview or medical test, for example.)
The problem when it comes to writing is that the creative process is inherently uncertain. When we set out to write creatively, we don’t know if we can do it, if our work will turn out any good, or if it will match up to our lofty ambitions (spoiler – it probably won’t – and that’s OK!). To grow our confidence we must learn to accept that uncertainty. But how do we do that?
‘I am comfortable with uncertainty because I accept that's the way things are. That said, when I start a new project, I always have anxiety because I'm uncertain of what's going to happen. and I want it to be good.’
Rick Rubin, (in a podcast with Andrew Huberman), author of The Creative Act: A Way of Being
5. Growing confidence requires imperfect action
In short, we need to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. We need to take risks and learn as we go. We need to let go of perfectionism and allow ourselves to write despite all the doubts and fears that try to persuade us otherwise. We need to let ourselves make a mess.
Perfectionism is the enemy of confidence because perfection requires certainty, too. It stops us from exploring and playing and taking risks, which is how we – eventually – create something of worth.
6. Confidence is not a constant
Confidence can ebb and flow. Our confidence can be impacted by many things, some within our control and some not. In the writing and publishing world there are lots of things that can easily knock our confidence – bad reviews, rejections, failed projects etc. I doubt anyone who says they feel confident 100% of the time!
Knowing this, and finding your own personal motivation for writing, can be immensely helpful in those moments when confidence is challenged.
7. Confidence grows in the stretch zone
You might be familiar with the concept of the ‘comfort zone’. Our comfort zone is our safe place, where we feel confident and certain in our actions. If we step beyond it, we enter the stretch zone, where things might feel a little scary and uncertain. If we push ourselves beyond that, we may enter the panic zone. Nobody wants the panic zone. The panic zone isn’t all that helpful, because it doesn’t feel good, so we’re likely to turn and run in the other direction.
To grow in confidence, we should aim to take regular and repeated action in our stretch zone – where we are doing things that are somewhat challenging, but not so terrifying that it backfires.
That evening in the writing group, I was definitely in my panic zone. Luckily, it didn’t stop me from trying again, and these days, I’m very happy to flip open one of my books and read aloud. I’ve done so countless times, to audiences large and small.
The difference? Years of practice.
Growing confidence also takes time. It was only after my second novel was published that I began to feel genuinely confident in my abilities as a writer – and I have only understood that in hindsight. I had to prove to myself that I could write a publishable book.
Then, I had to prove to myself that the first time wasn’t a fluke, and that I could do it again. No amount of praise or external validation could give me true self-belief, though of course, those things can help along the way. Only my own experience over time did that.
It was, as they say, an inside job.
What do you think?
Have you ever suffered from a lack of confidence in your writing or any other creative project?
What do you do to boost your confidence?
We recorded a live Q&A where Katherine shared ways to build confidence in greater detail—the replay is available for paid members.
This month at Wild Writing is all about growing in creativity, so in case you missed it, do have a look at:
my 3-part masterclass The Writer’s Path: How to Plan, be Creative and Find Flow,
particularly this month’s, on Building Confidence and Creativity,
and an article for
In pursuit of flow.
Website: katherineclements.co.uk
The Inkwell: katherineclements.substack.com
 | A guest post by
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Thanks for that. It really resonated. Carol Tulpar