How to Work Through Writing Doubts
French author Honoré de Balzac once wrote, “When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.”
This quote resonates deeply because it highlights what I’ve long felt to be a key misunderstanding of the phenomenon of doubt. Rather than being an obstacle to overcome or an enemy to defeat, doubt merely highlights the reality of a choice: Will I place faith in myself or in my fear?
Neither option is inherently wrong. There’s a time and a place to heed fear’s warning, specifically in situations where confidence bleeds into arrogance. (Risking your life savings on a game of chance is probably a good time to heed your doubts, for example.)
But what does this all mean for your writing life?
How can you work through doubt and place faith in your creative abilities when you’ve been stuck in a cycle of stagnation for days, weeks, or even months on end?
Understanding how doubt and desire intertwine
We’ve established that doubt highlights the reality of a choice. That choice almost exclusively hinges upon the topic of trust: Do we truly believe that we are capable? Are our goals and dreams possible? Can we really place faith in someone who holds the power to hurt us?
The matter of trust couldn’t exist without desire. If we want for nothing, then there’s nothing to trust. Nothing that needs our hope and faith. Everything we want is either already in our possession or we’ve given up all hope of ever having it.
This interplay between doubt and desire is important to highlight because it gives evidence to the fact that doubt is normal and impersonal. We don’t experience doubt in our writing lives because we’re not meant to be writers or because we’ll never be good enough; we experience doubt because our fragile egos want to protect us from the possibility of disappointment.
This is an entirely normal response to desire, and you have nothing to be ashamed of should doubts arise in your writing life. Doubt merely highlights a longing for something greater, for something better, and that’s an exciting hope to have.
Nevertheless, managing doubt by repeatedly placing faith in your desires (and your ability to achieve them) can be exhausting. That’s why the foundational first step to working through writing doubts is to make sure that your doubts hold weight, that you aren’t worrying over something that you don’t actually want in the first place.
The next time you encounter doubt, consider asking yourself some of the following questions:
Why do I want to achieve this goal? What value will it bring into my life?
Does this goal align with my personal values and beliefs?
Does this goal align with the vision I have for the life I want to build?
Am I willing to make sacrifices to achieve this goal?
Do I only want to achieve this goal to please others or fulfill a sense of duty?
Would this goal prove detrimental to my physical or emotional wellbeing?
Would pursuing this goal out of a sense of duty or obligation still align with my values and beliefs?
You may find it helpful to journal through these questions for added clarity. If, after answering each of these questions, you feel confident that your goal or desire is worth pursuing, then it’s time to take a deeper look at the doubts that are weighing you down.
Self-doubt as a security check…
The language we use to describe doubt is frequently combative. We’re often told to overcome our insecurities, banish writer’s block, and defeat doubt — all phrases I’ve used in my own writing. But the more I consider the nature of doubt, the more I recognize the many ways in which this language can prove harmful.
Instead of treating self-doubt as an enemy, I like to think of it as a security check. The very same doubt that kept our ancestors from leaping impossible gaps between cliff faces or attempting to cross swift rivers is the doubt that asks us to take a step back in our modern world and reevaluate whether we truly want to overhaul our 80,000-word novel to improve its emotional impact.
In this light, doubt is an ally. It asks us to acknowledge the risk involved in pursuing a particular goal and to consider whether the reward is worth our while. As crazy as it might sound, more often than not, doubt has our best interests in mind.
“Um, excuse me,” you say. “Doubt has kept me from finishing my manuscript for years. How in the world can it have my best interests in mind?” I hear you, writer — and this is where our analysis of doubt might become a difficult pill to swallow…
Doubt isn’t holding you back; you are.
Every day, we make thousands of choices: what we eat for breakfast, how we speak to our loved ones, which hobbies or responsibilities we’re willing to temporarily displace to make time for writing. Among these decisions are the choices we make in response to doubt.
Remember, doubt is merely a question of uncertainty, a question of trust:
Are you willing to assume the risk involved in pursuing this path for the possibility of reaping its reward?
That’s it. That’s doubt. Are you willing to take a risk? Or does this path pose dangers too grave to entertain? This is the decision you make every time doubt arises.
As difficult as it might be to hear, the reason you’ve become creatively stagnant isn’t because doubt exists in your writing life; it’s because you weighed your fear of the risks involved in a particular writing goal and found that they outweighed your desire to achieve it.
(Note: For some writers, mental illness or neurodivergent operating can play a key role in creative stagnation. If you’re one such writer, please take only what serves you from this article.)
In some cases, deferring to risk over potential reward can be a good thing. For example, you might choose to forgo a new commercially viable project because the risk to your creative fulfillment is too great; instead, you might choose to work on a more aligned project.
However, more often than not, the decision to favor fear over potential reward isn’t rational. In the face of risk, we spook. Unconsciously, we begin to rationalize fear to protect ourselves from the feelings shame and inadequacy we might face should we take a risk and fail.
I don’t have time to write, we say.
— while creating busy work to avoid difficult creative projects.
Writing would take time away from my kids, we say.
— instead of acknowledging that it’s healthy for children to see their parents pursuing creative endeavors.
I’m not good enough to write that story, we say.
— to avoid digging deep into the art and craft of writing fiction.
No one’s going to read this anyway, we say.
— when learning to self-publish and market our work feels overwhelming.
I must be a terrible writer to receive this many rejections, we say.
— instead of reevaluating our manuscript and query letter and trying again.
The unfortunate truth is that it’s easy to live in fear. We might never find true joy and fulfillment when we live in fear, but at least we don’t have to face the immense pain of trying and failing. At least we don’t have put forth a wealth of time and effort that might prove wasted. Right?
This reaction to risk is perfectly normal. There’s a sense of safety in staying small; in never having to face the possibility of loss. But in reality, we lose so much when we choose fear over faith. When we mistrust ourselves and our desires…
The good is news is that, in recognizing our fear, we give ourselves the opportunity to brave it.
Cultivating confidence in the face of fear…
Confidence might seem as though it comes easily to some people, and there certainly may be factors that allow some to build confidence more quickly than others. Nevertheless, confidence is a trait that must be built — brick by brick and choice by choice.
In essence, confidence is an attitude of intentional bravery. It’s faith in one’s ability to both achieve a particular reward and survive risk should all go wrong.
Confidence is often framed as positive thinking (e.g., fake it ‘til you make it!), and there is some power in this approach. But more powerful than simply saying I can do this! is the choice to reframe risk as an opportunity in and of itself.
Confidence says, “I am willing to risk disappointing feedback because I know that constructive criticism is key to improving my work.”
Confidence says, “I am willing to risk losing money on my self-published book because I value producing a professional finished work.”
Confidence says, “I am willing to risk lackluster words because I understand that, like learning an instrument or running a marathon, quality writing skills are developed with practice and persistence.”
This is how you cultivate confidence in the face of fear, how you choose to pursue your creative goals and dreams no matter how frightening or far off they might seem. Not by striving to never doubt again but by choosing to brave your fears regardless of risk.
Remember, bravery is the decision to act in the face of danger. It’s a choice made in full recognition of the value of reward and in the knowledge that, even should you fail to achieve your goal, the effort will have been worth your while.
As you strive to cultivate confidence by writing bravely, here are a few key tips to bear in mind:
Tip #1: View failure as an opportunity for growth
Sometimes you will fail to reap the reward you seek, and it’s easy to view this failure as a personal shortcoming. It’s not. Failure is an everyday reality for those who choose to move through life with an attitude of bravery. You simply cannot win every battle, no matter how hard you try.
Rather than taking failure personally, see it for what it is: a chance to learn, reevaluate, and grow. A chance to try again with more experience under your belt or to harness what you’ve learned in pursuit of a new goal.
Tip #2: Measure your successes & lessons learned
It’s often easier to feel disappointed in where we are than to celebrate how far we’ve come. Unfortunately, disappointment can pave the way for a nasty bout with fear — a bout that could be avoided altogether.
By tracking your progress and celebrating small successes in your writing life, you can cultivate an attitude of pride and accomplishment that will help you circumvent fear in favor of powerful self-assurance.
Tip #3: Choose your attitude
Emotions come and go. They can be channeled, pent up, pushed down, or released, but their presence isn’t much of a choice. What we can choose is how to respond to their presence; this is attitude.
Attitude is the way we choose to walk through the world and engage in our lives regardless of circumstance or feeling.
We can choose to be grateful in the face of difficulty, to bravely face our fears, and to resiliently weather the disappointments we’ll inevitably experience in our writing lives. Make the choice, writer. Choose your attitude.
Tip #4: Seek strength in numbers
You’ve chosen to cultivate an attitude of bravery, which is a phenomenal step to take in your writing life. But this work isn’t easy. While you can successfully face your fears alone, there’s strength to be found in numbers.
For this reason (among many others), I encourage you to get involved in the writing community. You can absolutely find support from friends and family members who aren’t writers themselves, but there’s nothing like in-the-know encouragement (and commiseration) from fellow writers.
Consider getting involved in online writing communities on social media, joining an in-person writing group, or investing in a premium community such as the Tenacious Writers Society run by Emily Golden and Rachel May.
If there’s anything you take away from today’s article, then I hope it’s the understanding that the doubts you experience in your writing life shouldn’t be a source of shame. No one creates without questioning their art, as well as their ability to bring it to life.
The writers who find the greatest success in their craft are those who choose to bravely commit to their art despite fear and uncertainty. This is a choice that anyone can make, yourself included. So what do you say, writer? Are you willing to brave the risks involved in writing in pursuit of the incredible joy and fulfillment to be found in creating work you love?
