Do feelings of insecurity and self-doubt impact our creativity?
Of course.
In this article, artists and psychologists express perspectives on understanding and dealing with our common feelings of insecurity and self-doubt – and how to improve confidence.
“I hold myself to such ridiculously high standards that if I don’t meet or surpass them, I doubt myself. Zendaya
“I had a lot of insecurities and like confidence issues when I was younger.” Jessica Chastain
“If you are a highly creative person – someone with a big drive or determination to achieve your life goals or dreams – an injured self-esteem will show up in your journey over and over again…” Psychotherapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz
“You want to be in a place of uncertainty, a place that maybe something surprising could happen.” Annette Bening
“I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.” Director Francis Ford Coppola
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Actor and musician Zendaya once commented about one of the ways we may undermine confidence:
“I hold myself to such ridiculously high standards that if I don’t meet or surpass them, I doubt myself.
“That fear of not being as good as you want to be can limit you from doing things.
“I feel a lot of people doubt me in the acting space because I’ve never done a big movie, and that’s why I’m excited about doing ‘Spider-Man’ — I have no preconceived notions about how I’m supposed to deal with it.”
[“Zendaya Opens Up About Her Insecurities,” Access Hollywood, September 8, 2016.]
Another article notes, “At 21 years old, Zendaya is an actor, multi-platinum recording star, fashion icon, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
“And now, thanks to her turn in The Greatest Showman, she is also a professional musical theatre performer.”
[“Did You Know That Disney Channel and Greatest Showman Star Zendaya Has Musical Theatre Roots?”, Playbill Dec 23, 2017.]
[Photos of Zendaya: top from her Twitter, lower one from her Facebook page.]
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Jessica Chastain has received multiple accolades for her work, including a Golden Globe Award (Zero Dark Thirty), plus three nominations for Academy Awards (latest for The Eyes of Tammy Faye), two British Academy Film Awards, among other awards and acclaim.
But, like many artists, she has had feelings of insecurity and low confidence.
In this recent Instagram video of hers, she comments:
“I had a lot of insecurities and like confidence issues when I was younger.”
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Psychotherapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz helps creative people in TV/Film, performing and fine arts.
In one of her articles on her site, Creative Minds Psychotherapy, she notes:
“As a creative or a performer you know too well that moment when you have to ‘show up!’
“Perhaps it’s right when you step onto the stage or when you are about to present your creative ideas to a room packed with important people.
“It’s that moment when you almost feel drunk on the cocktail of your emotions – a mix of fear and courage at the same time, flooding all that you are.”
She adds,
“In these moments of ‘showing up,’ you need your fear to ignite your courage and you need your courage to face your fears.
“Fear and courage are like yin and yang – complementary, interconnected, and interdependent.”
> See more in my article Artists dealing with fear and insecurity.
Photo from article:
Elton John is among many performers and other artists who experience insecurity.
Actor Taron Egerton, who portrays Elton John in the 2019 biopic Rocketman, says “There’s a lovely quality of vulnerability that he has.
“Sometimes, even now, he can be uncertain of himself, even with all of that massive success and all of those accolades, all that universal acclaim.”
In another article, Dr. Holtz writes about unhealthy self-esteem:
“If you are a highly creative person – someone with a big drive or determination to achieve your life goals or dreams – an injured self-esteem will show up in your journey over and over again…
“It will interfere with your ability to invest yourself in creating your life.
“An unrealistic or harsh internal voice can repeatedly stifle your creative spark or disconnect you from your performing abilities.
“As challenging as it may feel, when your self esteem issues are triggered it’s an opportunity for you to heal and build a healthier and more grounded sense of self-worth.“
See more in her article How EMDR Can Help you Heal Low Self-Esteem.
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Creative and highly sensitive people and self-acceptance
Many if not most artists, including performers (who may also be extroverted), are highly sensitive people (HSPs), with the personality trait of sensory processing sensitivity.
Nicole Kidman for example has commented, “I was a highly sensitive child…Most actors are highly sensitive people, but you have this incredible scrutiny. You have to develop a thick skin, but you can’t have a thick skin in your work.”
– From article Nicole Kidman on fame, and actors as highly sensitive people.
But this is a trait of a minority of people in general: about 20% of us, which can often make us feel”wrong” or “misfits” and erode our self-confidence and healthy self esteem.
Sensitivity expert and author Julie Bjelland, LMFT helps sensitive people understand themselves better – and thrive more.
Podcast Episode 117: Confidence: Let’s Explore Where it Comes From and How to Get it
Julie Bjelland notes “Many of us have received messages our whole life that something is wrong with us for being so sensitive. Or maybe we have been so overwhelmed by the challenges of our sensitive nervous system that we are in survival mode, instead of truly living our life with purpose.”
Hear more episodes of The HSP Podcast
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Here is one of a number of my videos about Julie’s work:
The video includes a reference to one of her courses – a student of the program, Michelle gives one of many testimonials:
“This course gave me clarity, understanding, and acceptance of myself and what I need to thrive – like having an owner’s manual to myself as an HSP.”
Learn more in article How Can Brain Training Help Highly Sensitive People Thrive?
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Her fourth album “Red” had opening sales of 1.21 million – the highest recorded in a decade, and Taylor Swift has had two million-plus opening weeks.
But in a taping in front of a college audience for the tv show “VH1 Storytellers”, she responded to a question from a college student, and said:
“I doubt myself 400,000 times per 10-minute interval.
“I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything — diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.”
[Hollywood Reporter 10/17/2012]
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How can we overcome self-doubt?
“Feelings happen. Doubt happens. What will you do with that story your brain is telling you? Will you buy in to it?
“Or will you observe it, acknowledge it, and let it pass? The choice is always YOURS.”
Those quotes are from the caption for a photo on the Facebook page of Mel Robbins.
See video of hers: The Biggest Obstacle We All Face In Pursuit Of Our Dreams – in article How to build self-confidence.
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In a conversation among a group of actors about their work, Kate Winslet commented about acting in “Wonder Wheel” (2017):
“Well, I mean Woody Allen is an extraordinary writer. And he’s obviously known for having created extraordinary roles, very powerful complicated roles for women for many years.
“And to join that lineage of incredible actresses made me feel terrified.”
Winslet also said:
“It takes years to acquire confidence — whatever your chosen vocation is. To have the confidence to be who you are.”
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Annette Bening notes:
“When you’re a creative person, whatever your field — writing or painting or singing, acting — there’s always a certain amount of insecurity or uncertainty or there’s a search going on and, in a way, that never really stops.
“What you were describing when you were working with Woody, that’s always there.”
But, she adds, “You want to be in a place of uncertainty, a place that maybe something surprising could happen.”
Audio excerpt video – follow link below to see multiple videos of actor interviews.
[Note – the card at end of my video here – “Follow link to article” – refers to this article you are seeing here.]
Winslet and Bening quotes are from article: Jessica Chastain and Saoirse Ronan speak their minds — along with other top actresses., Los Angeles Times Dec 21, 2017.
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Natalie Portman said in her 2015 Harvard Commencement Speech [video]: “I’m still insecure about my own worthiness.”
Facebook / Goalcast video with added footage from some of her movies:
Natalie Portman talked in her Harvard Commencement Speech about impostor feelings and other kinds of insecurity that you may relate to as a creative person:
“Today I feel much like I did when I came to Harvard Yard as a freshman in 1999. …
“I felt like there had some mistake, that I wasn’t smart enough to be in this company. And that every time I opened my mouth, I would have to prove that I wasn’t just a dumb actress…
“I have to admit that even twelve years after graduation I’m still insecure about my own worthiness.
“I had been acting since I was 11 but I thought acting was too frivolous and certainly not meaningful. I came from an family of academics and was very concerned with taking it seriously.
“I couldn’t shake my self-doubt…. I got in only because I was famous: that was how others saw me, that was how I saw myself.” …
“I realized that seriousness for seriousness’ sake was its own kind of trophy and a dubious one.
“There was a reason I was an actor. I love what I do.
“And I saw from my peers and my mentors that that was not only an acceptable reason, it was the best reason.
“After four years of trying to get excited about something else, I admitted to myself that I couldn’t wait to go back and make more films.
“I wanted to tell stories, to imagine the lives of others and help others do the same. I had found or perhaps reclaimed my reason.”
From article: Natalie Portman addresses Harvard grads; reflects on ‘Black Swan,’ insecurities, by Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2015.
In her Commencement Speech, she also notes:
“Sometimes your insecurities and your inexperience may lead you to you to embrace other people’s expectations, standards or values.
“But you can harness that inexperience to carve out your own path, one that is free of the burden of knowing how things are supposed to be… a path that is defined by its own particular set of reasons.”
Natalie Portman is fluent in Hebrew, French and Japanese…and told a newspaper that she’s considered leaving show biz to become a vet or a clinical psychologist.
Before graduating from Harvard with a psychology degree in June 2003, Portman was credited — under her given name, Natalie Hershlag — as a research assistant to Alan Dershowitz’s “Case for Israel” and had a study on memory called “Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence” published in a scientific journal.
From my article Gifted Child, Uncommon Adult: Natalie Portman.
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Director Francis Ford Coppola made a couple of comments I like on this topic:
“I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.”
“I try always to do something that’s a little beyond my reach, so that I’ll try my best.
“Sometimes I fail.
“Sometimes I almost succeed, but I think this is what life’s all about.” (imdb)
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Thora Birch has commented on how transitory perspectives and feelings – especially about ourselves – can be:
“If I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I look in the mirror and see the most vile creature.
“But if I’m feeling comfortable about myself, then I’m more accepting.
“I’m not like, “Oh my God! look at that gorgeous person.”
“It’s just like, “Yeah, okay. That’s doable.”
From article Actors and Insecurity.
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Insecure and self-critical even with acclaim and accomplishments
Over the years of reading biographies and doing interviews with many highly talented and creative people, it has often struck me how many of them talk about being self-critical, feeling insecure, and suffering from an inner critical voice.
Even people with exceptional talents and accomplishments may have these feelings.
These feelings of insecurity and self-criticism can be issues for anyone – but perhaps especially for many of us who are creative and highly sensitive, as many actors are.
Meryl Streep, for example, has said, “I have varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing…
“You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent…
“Or that you’re boring and they’re going to find out that you don’t know what you’re doing.”
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Can these feelings ever be useful?
In her article How to turn insecurity into confidence, psychotherapist Diana C. Pitaru makes some interesting comments:
“A certain amount of insecurity is healthy and helpful.
“When we feel insecure we question the things we do which, in turn, forces us to look closer at any given situation to analyze and clarify our options in order to move forward.
“The problem with insecurities is not that they exist, they do and will, but how they manifest, how you unconsciously integrate them with who you are, and how you allow them to define you.”
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Actor Alison Lohman has also commented on the potential value of not feeling secure or free of fear:
“With any film and even theater, you never get over being scared and overwhelmed, because it’s a new character and that brings on a whole new set of circumstances.
“That’s the exciting part of it – it’s those nerves that bring you to a higher level and makes you more hyper-aware.
“It makes your performance better.” [Hollywood Reporter, Mar 5 2003.]
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Being self-critical is an experience for many people, sometimes based on their drive to achieve.
Self-compassion researcher, teacher and author Kristin Neff, PhD notes that the ‘typical way’ of motivating ourselves is harsh self-criticism, but that research shows this leads to a fear of failure, performance anxiety and other problems that can hold us back.
Dr. Neff says, “We know through the research that when we’re very hard on ourselves when we make a mistake, or fail in some way, we start becoming afraid of failure, and we start developing performance anxiety.
“We don’t do as well so we fail more often, we start losing confidence in ourselves and therefore we’re more likely just to give up.”
Read more and see clip from a free video series with Chris Germer and Kristin Neff related to their course in article The Power of Self-Compassion.
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The Self-Acceptance Summit produced by Sounds True provides video conversations with 31 leading experts in the field of self-acceptance and self-compassion, including Elizabeth Gilbert, Martha Beck, Marianne Williamson, Gabrielle Bernstein, JP Sears, Kristin Neff and others.
See article with excerpt videos: The Self-Acceptance Summit.
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Impostor Syndrome – Feeling Like a Fraud
Impostor feelings are another form of insecurity we may experience.
Here are some examples of impostor feelings and thinking:
“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’” Maya Angelou
“I don’t know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this?” (Meryl Streep)
“I convince myself I’m fooling people.” (Jonathan Safran Foer)
“Any moment, someone’s going to find out I’m a total fraud.” (Emma Watson)
“I felt inadequate the entire time I was in graduate school.” (Rosalyn Lang, Ph.D.)
Valerie Young, Ed.D. is an expert on impostor syndrome and commented in an Entrepreneur magazine article:
“Millions of people, from entrepreneurs to celebrities, have a hard time internalizing their accomplishments.”
The article author notes “the impostor syndrome is especially common among people who become successful quickly or early, and among outsiders, such as women in male-dominated industries.”
Dr. Young adds, “They explain away their success as luck or timing. They feel this sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
From my article: Getting Beyond Impostor Feelings.
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Psychotherapist Paula Prober notes how impostor feelings can develop for gifted people:
“Was this you? You were told repeatedly that you were so smart; that you had a high IQ. You were the top student.
“Your parents and teachers praised you often for your abilities and achievements.
“School was easy so you could get high grades without studying. You won awards.
“Teachers said that you were gifted. Your parents said that you’d do great things when you reached adulthood; That you could do anything you wanted. Expectations were high.”
She explains further:
“Kids who are gifted are often told, repeatedly, how smart they are, by well-meaning adults. High grades and other achievements may be praised excessively.
“This can lead children to believe that they’re loved because they’re ‘so smart.’
“Their identity becomes dependent, then, on their capacity to continue to show their advanced abilities and on the praise and attention they receive.”
But, she notes, “This can lead to unhealthy perfectionism: fear of failure, avoidance of activities that don’t guarantee success, impostor syndrome and procrastination.
“It can lead to anxiety and depression. Being smart becomes a static thing. You either are or your aren’t.
“And because you’re used to learning many things quickly, you think that’s the way all learning should be. If you don’t get it fast, well, it just proves that you’re not gifted. Not gifted? Not lovable.”
Read more in her article, including suggestions on what to do about all this: If I’m So Smart, Why Do I Feel Like A Failure?
Paula Prober is a licensed counselor and consultant, specializing in gifted adults and youth.
She is author of the book Your Rainforest Mind: A Guide to the Well-Being of Gifted Adults and Youth.
[Photo: valedictorian Bianca Phillips from my article: Gifted adults: Is high ability a pass to success and eminence?]
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Some related articles:
How to deal with your inner critic.
Being Creative and Self-critical
Talented, But Insecure [from my main book: “Developing Multiple Talents”]
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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