Confidence and setbacks
I woke up this morning feeling a terrible lack of confidence in just about everything. Magnus is still sick (back to the vet today) so I’m feeling like a subpar cat mom. I’ve been struggling with book sales for 2 straight months now which will be a blow to anyone’s confidence. I think there’s a part of me that fears I’ll always just be substandard at everything. There are those that excel at things and really hone in on that one thing they’re really good at, and I’ve never been able to find that “thing.”
Do I spread myself too thin? Do I change my mind too often? Should I focus on one single thing and go from there?
My book came out 6 months ago and I’ve learned so much about myself and the book world in that time. If I knew then what I know now, there’s a lot I would have changed. I would have waited, for instance, and built up anticipation for the release. I would have come up with some kind of marketing strategy instead of just begging people to buy my book. But I was impatient and wanted my story out in the world. Now I’m left questioning my actions every single day and wondering if it was at all worth it. People tell me that my story is great and that people should read it, but I simply can’t seem to get anyone interested in it.
Then there’s my photography. Again, people have always told me that I’m talented and, while I shrugged that off, I think I always hoped I could do something with that. I tried to make a business out of it years ago but nothing came of that. Recently I’ve added an order form on this here website in the hopes of selling prints. As of the writing of this, those orders have been: zero.
All of this on its own isn’t that big of a deal. Everyone has setbacks in life and not everyone in the world achieves their dreams because I think the world would be chaos if everyone got exactly what they thought they wanted (cue clip from Bruce Almighty). I often think about how much my own dreams have changed over the years. What I thought I wanted 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago isn’t what I strive for today. This brings me back to: am I trying to do too much? Maybe if I focused on one thing then when that one thing falls through I wouldn’t feel like it’s such a blow.
On the other hand, though, failing at one thing and having something else be there to pick up the slack doesn’t sound too terrible now that I think about it. I just wonder if I’m working towards the right things sometimes. If the time and effort I’m putting into certain endeavors will ever pay off. Granted, we can’t go through life wishing that every single thing we do will pay off in the end. It’s positive thinking, sure, but the reality is that the larger percentage of what you attempt will never come to fruition.
So now you may be asking yourself, “Why should I bother, then?” The answer to that is simple…
If we stopped doing the things we enjoy simply because it’s not getting us anywhere, then what would we have left? Writing and photography are things I do because I enjoy them. This blog, for instance, hardly has any readers anymore but I still write. Why? Because I like it. I write for me more than anyone else. My photographs? Same thing. There is nothing more soothing than walking around with a camera in my hand. Do I still think I’m subpar at both of these things? I do. Do I think I’ll ever make any kind of living off of either? Absolutely not… and that’s ok!
You don’t have to make money off of the things you love as long as you love them.
I’ve been working on a new book (yes yes, it’ll be a while though) and the main theme throughout is time. If you had infinite time, what would you do? What conversations would you have? What new things would you try? Would you live each day exactly the same or would you deviate from what you consider your normal life and do the opposite? Playing around with this idea has opened up so much for me and while I still struggle with confidence in my own passions, I’m never going to stop pursuing new things and finding new stuff to be passionate about.
Confidence does not have to equal success and it never has to take away from your passion or love for something. We all struggle to keep going when we feel as though we’ve done everything we can, but that fire, that passion for doing something… that never actually goes away. When you feel you’ve reached the end, look inside and I bet you’ll see the flame is still burning. It might just need a little help.
