I have confidence

After last week were I spent my time admitting that I pretty much suck at selling my self and my work, I spent some time thinking about other reasons why I am having trouble selling it. I suffer at times from crippling self doubt. It is odd really. I usually start off a project with all of the confidence in the world. New projects make me feel like I can do anything. I work on it with vigor, thinking to myself that I have just come up with the most brilliant idea since cheese and the no one will be able to resist it. I generally have an over abundance of confidence when I start out on a new venture in life. Sadly though as time progresses on the project I tend to become filled with doubt, and become more and more self conscious of my work.

I begin to think to myself that maybe I was a little over enthusiastic when I started. Maybe I didn't think things through and the concept of my work is really only cool and interesting to myself. Maybe I didn't execute it very well and people won't like the finished product and that I was promising more than I had delivered. The more time I spend on a project the more of these doubts find their way into my mind.

So as I am sitting here coming close to a year of having my Etsy shop, where I am still producing the same types of paintings that I was a year ago, I am beginning to doubt wether all of this was really a good idea in the first place. Every day I have to shake off these insecurities and think to myself that the one year of work I have put in has seen very little of this world and cannot, as yet, be deemed a failure. I cannot rightfully call this a failure yet, because it hasn't been given a chance to flourish. I have read about other shops and know that it takes time for things to get moving, and I just have to give it a chance.

I cannot assume success or failure of anything that I do until I have given it the opportunity it deserves. I cannot spend time being down on myself when I still have so much more that I can do in order to help this work that I have started. I have to see this through to the end to determine if it was good work to begin with. I cannot let self doubt kill my work, and as hard as it may seem, I need to push through the hesitation and worry and put myself out there even if I have doubts.

Everyone has doubts, nothing in  life is 100% guaranteed. What I do know is that if I never work past this mental block and try harder to get my work noticed, then I will never know if it was a success at all.