Every time I sit down to write one of these, the thought that I won’t have anything to say, or worse that what I’ve written is total horse manure, brings on a slight panic attack. I can’t remember the last time I wrote something that didn’t give me at least a tiny bit of that anxiety. I often wonder if this is how it is for my peers and teammates and for people around the world who write.

I’m a firm believer that we are each our own harshest critics. I’d like to believe that anyone who says otherwise must not care for their craft. From my personal experience and in discussions with creatives spanning several industries, there is a commonality of doubt and insecurity. I’m learning to embrace it.

I believe these insecurities are what help me sharpen my skills. Here’s my typical creative process: come up with an idea, nurture and develop it, edit and revise, present it to the world, get feedback, rinse and repeat. Sorry, that last part is from the shampoo bottle and I can never get it out of my head.

In my case, the problem arises after the feedback process. Positive feedback can be especially crippling. My brain automatically asks, “How do I top this?” It doesn’t matter if it’s a surge in web traffic from a great article, a spike in the sales of a product or in interaction on social media, or any other number of calculable metrics. Is the next one going to fail? Was that the best I’ve got?

I take some reassurance from the fact that some of the people I look up to share my insecurities. I just wish that more of my peers spoke honestly about them. I doubt it will ever happen – there’s too much cache in “cool” to be vulnerable. A creative I look up to recently wrote a post that inspired me to share my own thoughts and had some great insight on this subject. It’s a game of numbers he wrote. I just need to remember the last part of the process, rinse and repeat. Whether the next idea is a greater success or falls flat on its face, remember to just keep doing more work. Audit every project, find its strengths and weaknesses for next time, but always remember to keep going.

It’s more than likely my best is ahead of me and not behind. And on that note I’ll leave you to explore and enjoy our latest creation, the Growth Issue.

Love it or hate it, I encourage you to grab a coffee, turn your phone on silent and give it a read.

And as always, let me know what you think. Not every at bat will be a homerun, but I would certainly like to hear your thoughts on how we can improve our on-base percentage.

Cheers,

Leslie