Don’t Believe In Yourself

Yikes! How negative of a headline is that?

But I promise you, this is going to end up way more positive than my clickbait-y title would have you believe.

So let’s start with that word — believe.

For years, we’ve been conditioned by the phrase “Believe in Yourself” as the key to success — an endless string of movies have re-affirmed this statement and then we hear it repeated in our careers from life coaches and big name speakers who attract thousands to hear them give some variation on that same message: “Believe in yourself and eventually, everything will work out.”

And while, yes, I do believe in the power of self-esteem, confidence, drive, affirmations — all those things — as tools for success, they are not enough on their own.

Get used to it now, but I’m going to quote Stephen King’s book On Writing a lot. It’s been one of the most transformational texts for me in my own writing journey and if you haven’t read it, then go get it now.

But in that book (page 74 to be exact), King writes “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in your makes a lot of difference.”

And he’s absolutely right. Writing is about as lonely as it gets sometimes.

It’s really easy as writers to shove aside the debilitating aspects of this loneliness and try to take control back by embracing it, wearing it as a badge of honor, or even romanticize it with comparisons to Thoreau in his cabin in the woods, writing his heart out. We may even go so far as to call ourselves “lone wolves” like this is a good thing. But just a reminder for those who don’t watch as many nature shows as I do (thanks to my son) — it’s the lone wolf who dies. That’s why wolves do their best work in packs.

Before you embark on a writing career, or if you’re wondering why your writing career feels like it’s going nowhere, let’s start here: Who do you have supporting you? Who believes in you?

When I was working on my first novel, I was nervous about showing it to anyone because it had started out as an experiment, and I worried: Is it too weird? Is it badly written? Is the story boring? After all, just because I was having fun writing it, doesn’t mean it would be fun for others to read it.

But I finally read it aloud to my wife chapter by chapter when we would go on long drives. She was my first sounding board — told me what was good, told me what didn’t make sense, and most importantly, was honest! So I can’t tell you how much it bolstered my confidence when at the end, she said, “Overall, it’s the best thing you’ve written so far.”

So I worked away on some revisions and then I had two more people I was able to get to read it. One was an old college friend with a similar taste in literature who had grown up in an artistic household: her dad was an Emmy-winning director, her brother a working actor, and she was an English teacher herself. The other was my mentor’s wife who had a knack for grammar. My mentor also read it and recommended that she help me with the proofing, for which I’ll forever be grateful for because proofing your own work is very difficult.

The two amazing people gave me lots of notes and feedback that helped me further transform the novel. Though I’m still developing it to this day, the greatest lesson I took away from the experience was that, as a writer, you need a support network. You need people who believe in you and want you to succeed.

Who do you have supporting you? Who believes in you?

So, okay, yes…believe in yourself. But that’s only one piece of it. Because believing in yourself alone eventually falls apart — when you have writer’s block, when you get the rejection letter from the query you sent, when you find out that your screenplay didn’t make it to the next round of the competition. When your novel only sells four copies in the first week because you didn’t develop a marketing plan (a topic for another day).

There’s been lots of times I’ve been tempted to walk away from writing, to give up on my dreams of doing it professionally, because my own belief had evaporated. I’ll tell you now that I don’t think I would have made it to this point without my support network. Truly.

That started with my parents who let me stay up to 2 am on Saturday nights working on plays because they knew I loved it and that was a simple way they could encourage me. For that matter, my mom who would proofread my early work and also tell me, “This wasn’t my favorite.” She’s always hated delivering bad news.

Then it was my wife who I would read my work to and get her thoughts. She’s more of a nonfiction reader, so her insight was incredibly valuable in terms of where I would lose her attention. Today, it’s my manager who provides me with notes that have helped me approach my writing in new ways and take it to the next level.

It’s tough to get this process started, though. Maybe you’ve tried writer’s groups in your area and found it’s just a bunch of people who only want to talk about themselves and have shallow feedback — or no feedback. They just want people to go on Amazon, buy their ebook cheap, and write a review for them to help their numbers. (Again, a topic for another day…)

I used to be incredibly jealous of my musician friends because it was so easy for them to get feedback on a four minute song. Much more difficult for me to get feedback on a 120 page screenplay or 200 page book. I get it — people are busy.

So I want to give you a place to start.

Find a writer’s critique group near you: Writer’s Relief

Network with other screenwriters (including me): Stage32

And of course, Facebook has a ton of writing groups you can join, especially in your specific genre, so I’m not making a link to all those here, but a little bit of searching and you can probably find one that fits your needs and you can connect with others to bounce ideas around.

And just for giggles, I’m building a newsletter and community of storytellers RIGHT HERE, so if nothing else, take the 5 seconds it takes to sign up for that below…

Believe me, I know this can be a huge obstacle, especially for those who have social anxiety or are natural introverts. Opening yourself up to feedback and critique can be nerve-wracking, even panic inducing for some. 

That’s why it’s important when you join these groups, spend time interacting first. You can dip your toe in the water, check the temperature, and if you feel comfortable, wade out deeper and deeper at your own pace. In other words, no one’s saying you need to go barging into the party, waving your manuscript around, demanding readers. In fact, that’s literally the exact opposite of what you should do! Talking to you, Type A extroverts. 

Instead, regardless of your comfort with social situations, build relationships first, offer critique to others and figure out who in those groups you really trust, both in terms of feedback on the material and in terms of kindness in delivering that feedback. Not everyone in these groups is good at giving insightful feedback, so pay attention to the conversations that are happening and seek out the people who actually know what they’re talking about — not the people who act like they know what they’re talking about. Because there’s plenty of those too.

It’ll take some time, but eventually you’ll be able to narrow down to a couple of people that you trust, who trust you, and you can build a small community of believing in one another, cheering each other on. As my favorite poet John Donne famously said, “No man is an island.” We’ll just substitute the word “person” for “man,” obviously.

A quick note: it doesn’t have to be another writer! As my own story shows, it can be your significant other, family member, best friend — you get the idea. As long as you know that they’ll be honest with you because they want you to succeed!

The really wonderful thing about finding others who believe in you is that it actually helps you believe in yourself more, helps you get through those really tough writing days. For me, this is one of the easiest, most practical things you can do in your writing journey to set yourself up for success. 

So what are you still doing here? Go out there and find someone who believes in you.