Is believing in yourself so hard?

Today was a day of both realisation, incredible self doubt, relief, pure happiness and chocolate cake with Lindt icing (heaven). When I got back to South Africa I was asked to help my mother’s company with their branding, she knew that I have had experience in brand generation, design and web design and thought well… it’ll keep me out of mischief and because I love designing so much it fitted like a glove.

In the past, when I designed something while working at a company or gave my input, name generation and brand generation I was in form, I had confidence and it worked. I took the changes that were suggested and worked with it, I take criticism well and have always seen it as a tool towards progress than anything against me personally. This time round, working on this project with them as my own entity it felt like each design was a painting that I had painted with all my heart and soul, I found myself getting so nervous before I pressed the send button in case I was letting them down in the design I had created. It felt like what ever I did I just didn’t want to let them down, I didn’t want to fail them in any way.

Each time I send off my designs I feel a knot in my stomach, sit on my hands till I know what they think, good or bad I can take it just let me know if I’m on the right track kind of thing. When I leave a meeting with them I am always questioning everything I said in the meeting, going over it again and again in my head, obsessing about every detail only to hear later that they really like the straight forward way I spoke, the way I communicated my thoughts and didn’t just accept theirs, the fact that I did that showed them that I knew what I was talking about… Firstly hearing that I was relieved that they thought that and then I was shocked with myself (each time) that I would be worried, this is how I have always spoken, this is how I am in the corporate world so what makes now any different!

That realisation was a big wake up, why would I be any different now that I am temporarily working for myself if I have always been like that? Self doubt can be an amazing creature and a dangerous one at that. I have wasted so much time on perfection and obsessing that I was doing the right things that I skipped over by talents, I forgot who I was and how other saw me only looking at myself internally, the self beatings were interesting to say the least…

Each time they came back saying that my design is perfect even though I had gone against their wishes and designed something I thought would work, each time I had taken basics from their preferences and moulded it into something that I thought worked better and they liked it!

Designing something in a sense is art but it is different from painting, it is on a whole different spectrum, except when it is commissions. When I paint it is from my heart and with the sole purpose of being for me, therapeutic and relaxing. If someone saw one of them and wanted to buy it it would shock me that they liked it (an artist is its worst critic) but I felt honoured that they would think it good enough to hang on their walls. It was first designed by me then bought by them, designing is first bought by them and then designed… It took a while for my head to get around this concept of being paid for a “commission” before it is fully delivered, to take someone’s thoughts and make something creative from it.

Self doubt is slowly disappearing with each new order I get, today was the climax, I reached the top of the self doubt hill and I can see the valleys of the past weeks and the silliness that self doubt brings. Today I showed them the website design, one I had not shown anyone, did on the sidelines while going along with their wishes (not so nice) and the difficult customer’s jaw dropped. The nerves that ran through my whole body as I set up the laptop, the sweaty palms all disappeared in that one moment and I fully realised that perhaps I can do this and perhaps doubting myself is a pure waste of time.

I think I will always feel the same way about painting a commission but I think the hurdle of designing in the corporate world is fully over, the self doubt is obliterated and I actually am starting to believe that perhaps, just perhaps I can actually do this

Self doubt is pointless and just wastes valuable time…