Hey, friends! Welcome back! Today is a special day here on The Picky Bookworm, because I have a guest post from one of my favorite people. Dianna Gunn is a friend of mine from Twitter, and she recently wrote a book all about using affirmations. When she asked if she could write a guest post for me, of course I said yes! This post is all about building creative confidence, and the strategies Dianna has used to build her own. I hope you enjoy!
This post may contain affiliate links. I’ll receive a small commission through your purchase, and I’m so grateful!
The publishing industry is, to be quite frank, one of the most demoralizing industries you can attempt to work in. It takes years, sometimes decades, to break into any part of the industry, and when you do break in you’re faced with the reality of terrible wages and working conditions for all but a select few. The whole thing feels like it’s specifically designed to break your creative confidence.
I’ve been on the rollercoaster of trying to build a successful career as an author for over a decade and I’m intimately familiar with the many different ways publishing destroys your confidence. I’ve had rejections, I’ve had a small press publish my first novella only to close a year and a half later, and I’ve had years of health issues and other personal setbacks completely derail my efforts to publish my own books. At first, I was able to weather the storm. I knew setbacks, especially rejections, were inevitable and I embraced them as opportunities to learn.
Writing for Creative Confidence
In the past three years, however, it’s become much more difficult to believe in myself. The reality of living in a pandemic-infested world, becoming the sole income earner in my house for a good portion of the past three years, and falling further and further behind on my goals because of it destroyed my creative confidence. And it wasn’t just my creative confidence; it was my entire identity as a writer, a creative, a person who loves stories more than anything else in the world. I knew I was on a dark mental path, one that might be the end of me. So I pulled myself out of it the only way I knew how: by writing my way out. I poured my thoughts and fears onto hundreds of pages, processing my big emotions and thinking my way through practical solutions to problems I had in both life and writing.
Journaling
I also took a more structured approach to my journaling. I still do free writing sessions in my journal sometimes, but most nights my journaling has a specific structure: a general overview of my day, my to-do list for the next day, and 3-5 affirmations. Each part of this journaling practice is designed to help me with specific mental health issues. The overview of my day serves to show me how much I have accomplished on a specific day, especially on days when I’m feeling down about not having done “enough”, whatever that means. This overview also allows me to track how things like weather, chronic pain, and mental illness influence my ability to get stuff done.
To-Do List
The to-do list also serves two purposes. First, to help me understand what’s coming in the day ahead and how much time I can expect to spend on my various tasks. Second, and for me more importantly, to prevent my mind from anxiously running through my to-do list 50 times in a row when I go to bed. It hasn’t completely silenced the anxiety loop my brain tends to fall into when I’m trying to sleep, but it has quieted it significantly.
Affirmations
The affirmations are both the most impactful part of my journaling and the one I was most reluctant to add to my regular practice. I had experimented with affirmations before, and to be quite frank, the only thing they did was make me feel silly. But that was a much darker time in my life, so I decided to give them another go. This time around, my affirmations became a comfort. They bolstered the creative confidence I already had and helped me build confidence in other areas of my life. Moreover, as time went on, I found my affirmations changing, becoming even more positive and more powerful. In a matter of months I went from reluctantly writing “I like myself” to confidently writing “I love myself.”
Practicing Creative Confidence
I was, and honestly still am, stunned by how effective my affirmation practice became. I’m not sure what made it stick this time, whether it was because I wasn’t quite so deep in my depression as I had been the first time, the fact that my journaling practice was already the most consistent it had ever been, or something else altogether. What I do know is that, as hokey as they might sound, affirmations can be powerful tools for healing and improving your mindset. And in a business as difficult as publishing, we need all of the mental health tools we can get. So I’ve created 151 Affirmations for Creative People: Healing Words and How to Use Them, a guide that will show you how you can incorporate affirmations into your daily life, complete with 151 affirmations for general well-being, creativity,
career, and finance.
You can grab 151 Affirmations for Creative People: Healing Words and How to Use Them in paperback on Amazon or as an ebook in numerous places:
Want even more practical help building your affirmation practice? I’ve also created 151 Affirmations for Creative People: the Workbook as a companion of the main book. This workbook contains exercises to help you choose your affirmations, create your affirmation practice, evaluate your affirmation practice, and create your own affirmations. You’ll also get access to journaling spreads where you can record your affirmations. You can get 151 Affirmations for Creative People: the Workbook as an Amazon paperback or as a PDF printable from my Ko-fi store.
About The Author
Dianna Gunn is a freelance SEO writer, digital marketing consultant, author, event host, and about 18 other things. She’s also a disabled woman who has struggled with her mental health for as long as she can remember and has now dedicated herself to sharing the strategies that have helped her heal with others who might benefit from them. You can find her on Instagram or her author website at www.authordiannagunn.com
Conclusion
I’m so glad Dianna was able to write this post for me! I think we all struggle with our mental health at times, and one of the things that helps me the most is knowing I’m not alone. Dianna is a wonderful human being, and her strategies for working toward creative confidence are amazing. Please leave a comment below letting us know your thoughts, and be sure to check out Dianna’s website for more information!
Until Next Time, Friends!
Pamela & Dianna
