While the extended period of social isolation has provided a unique opportunity for musicians to double-down on their songwriter, too much introspective time alone with one’s thoughts can also be detrimental to one’s creative confidence. Here, we explore how to build your confidence a songwriter.
If you’re in self-isolation right now, or trying to figure out, well, “what now?” with live performances and recording sessions all but stalled for the moment, you’re not alone.
Many musicians are wondering the same thing, and many have taken to going back to the somewhat ancient art of songwriting, in the hopes that one day they’ll be able to share this new material with an audience.
But it’s not that easy for us artists to be alone with our thoughts, our doubts, and our demons — we can often be our own harshest critic. Whether or not you’re already prone to self-doubt, this is likely to be a tough time for you with all the pressure to churn out high-quality work without the help of your band, or your co-writers, lyricists, and producers available.
Let’s talk about how to build your confidence in your songwriting abilities, and why it’s even something to consider in the first place.
1. Confidence is inherent in creativity.
You might not like to acknowledge it, but confidence is absolutely an integral part of maintaining a creative mindset. It’s embedded in the process of making new connections between ideas, solving problems, and novel thinking. Confidence is needed to hunt and gather ideas, to sift and consider which you think are interesting or useful, beautiful, or challenging, and to decide which ones to develop.
The word “confidence” comes from the Latin fidere, which literally means “to trust.” Having self-confidence means trusting yourself, your abilities, and choices. It’s part of defining who you are as an artist; an artist aware of what you have to offer; an artist secure in the inner knowledge that you’re capable and that your work has worth.
There’s a world of difference between having confidence and the over-display of it. What I’m talking about is knowing you can readily access your own songwriting zone, come up with ideas, and explore and develop them, consistently.
2. Confidence helps you navigate the music industry.
Whether any particular song or artist finds “success” is completely unpredictable. There’s no clear relationship between effort and reward in the industry. It doesn’t always matter how good you are, or how hard you work, how well you network or what team you have on board.
All the unknown variables of luck, taste cycles, and major global events like COVID-19 can influence market uptake.
So it’s hardly surprising that the industry can be daunting for most artists. Even if you’ve had significant success in the past, one’s confidence is often eroded at the start of the next project (i.e: can I repeat this?). There is no equality or level playing field. There is asymmetric risk — a few hits and an ocean of misses.
And here is where improving or attending to your confidence is critical.