On subconscious concerns, effort, and confidence

Why spending quality time with ourselves helps us believe in ourselves

Dear Reader,

I recently started reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, hoping it will help me learn more about myself. It starts out with the concept of Artist dates. An activity where you set aside time for yourself, (say 2 hrs once a week) and spend that time only with yourself, without any interruptions. You don’t plan to get anything done in that time, you don’t give yourself objectives, you don’t aim for an outcome. You just let yourself be.  Julia has the following to say about artist dates:

You are likely to find yourself avoiding your artist dates. Recognize this resistance as a fear of intimacy—self-intimacy. Often in troubled relationships, we settle into an avoidance pattern with our significant others. We don’t want to hear what they are thinking because it just might hurt. So we avoid them, knowing that, once they get the chance, our significant others will probably blurt out something we do not want to hear. It is possible they will want an answer we do not have and can’t give them. It is equally possible we might do the same to them and that then the two of us will stare at each other in astonishment, saying, “But I never knew you felt like that!”

Intimacy, with both ourselves and others, is hard. We avoid intimacy because we don't want to hear what we are or what they are thinking about since it might hurt. Sometimes avoidance is about safety. We avoid speaking up because we want to be safe. We avoid tying out new things because it is much easier to be in our comfort zone. We avoid facing ourselves lest we realize we are not the self our confidence deems us to be.

This exercise helps be honest about any and all things that might be bothering you. When one does this exercise, the first instinct is to run away. I know I wanted to. There is nothing better than the sweet relief of escape from facing yourself. But the subtle nagging of your subconsciousness is like an itch. You can ignore the itch until you realize the joy of scratching it. The mandatory self-intimacy helps us face our subconscious fears. It helps us face the not-so-concrete beliefs we have and it helps us create a space where we can be vulnerable and strengthen them. The exercise helps you create a safe environment for yourself. Once you realize that you are within the safety of your own company, you can see and acknowledge what bothers you.

When I started spending more time with myself I tried to do it multiple times a week. For the first few days, there was the mandatory facing of the regular anxiety-inducing issues. am I doing this right, am I spending my time on the right things this week, should I be learning something else, am I good enough, and so on. 

Once I developed a stance on those issues - either by taking actions towards them or by changing the narrative around them, other underlying concerns crept up. 

The ones that feel like a pea under the mattress, they’re subtle but they’re always there.

At first, my underlying concern seemed to be a voice that was questioning my abilities. But it wasn’t as negative. It wasn’t impostor syndrome, I had already dealt with imposter syndrome. No, this felt different. It felt more stable, it felt like it was just an invitation to inspect. To inspect what? It was then that I realized, it was to inspect my beliefs about myself. The constant underlying struggle for me has been my identity. Who am I and what am I good at?  If there is one thing I often avoid, with myself and with others it is true reflections of who I am and what I want to be. 

The idea of facing the question was (and still is) scary. I didn’t know how that would go. Would I come out of it with a different version of myself? Would I come out of it not believing in myself at all? What if it is just me being afraid and it isn’t really anything? Because I didn’t know what this voice was, I always ignored it. But it seemed like something I really wanted to do subconsciously. And now was the time to face it.

I’ve been reading two books recently, The Artist’s Way that I just mentioned and Mindset by Carol Dweck. The Artist’s Way helped me realize the problem. It helped materialize the question I was avoiding. Mindset helped me solve it.

There is a chapter in Growth mindset called  “The Truth About Ability And Accomplishment”. The chapter talks about a study done on 100s of adolescent students. The students were given 10 hard questions similar to an IQ test and were split into two groups of similar scores.  One group was praised for their achievements, they were told how they must be natural at it, whereas the other group was praised for their efforts. When given more challenging problems, the group that was praised for efforts did better, while the group that was praised for achievements got more and more frustrated when they found them hard. After that the groups were given easier problems again, surprisingly, the group that was praised for talent didn’t do so well on it. In fact, they didn’t even enjoy doing them. Whereas the group that was praised for their effort was able to do better on the easier problems and also found the harder ones to be their favorite problems. They enjoyed the challenges.

This felt revealing to me because I realized achievements are how I judged my self-worth. Your track record is your proof of ability.  I thought I succeeded because I was just good at some things.  I could succeed at the next project at work because I had succeeded in the past at a,b, and c projects. This meant I also did not know which of my efforts contributed to the successes, all I had was the end belief that I could do it. And with time, my belief was getting shaky.

This happens to all of us, we mistake outcomes for effort. Growing up, we are often praised for our outcomes, and often called our “talented”. Subconsciously, we associate the outcome with praise. We develop the idea that we are supposed to get to the outcome with no or little effort. We ground our confidence in the image and not in the process, not in the effort, not in the abilities, and not in the tools. Hence giving rise to the problem of lacking confidence in ourselves (among other things). 

It is only natural to lack faith in an image that is supported by seemingly present pillars, pillars whose presence and strength we haven’t cared to assess. 

When I switched my focus to the effort, I realized I had a blank slate. I had no idea what my strengths were when it came to my process of achieving goals. As I built my list of strengths over time, I was able to become less anxious about whether I would be able to achieve my goals and more excited about what I would learn from pursuing them. I looked forward to how much stronger my skillset would be once I was done putting in the effort. It is like running, it is much easier to get better at running if you focus on building strength and endurance rather than trying to chase a time or a mile goal.

Hence in order to instill confidence, it is important, to be honest with ourselves about the technique, effort, and outcome. When you are doing this, you don’t have to judge the outcome, you just have to be honest about it. It is also important to do this exercise often. This really helps. Because the more you do it, the more data points you have. You can look back and realize that your abilities are not a matter of luck or natural talent anymore, you know exactly what helps and what doesn’t. It is now possible to vouch for them and rely on them with a little more faith in them.

This safe environment that the artist's date creates for you makes a whole new set of tools available for use. In my case, I found myself longing for the moments when I could reflect and calibrate myself in my own company. It makes facing new challenges more exciting because facing new challenges is like solving a puzzle. Instead of being afraid of whether or not you can do it, you want to keep going because you want to figure out what works. It does wonders for your self-confidence and your abilities.

But of course, it is also hard to do. We are wired to judge ourselves, to question, to calculate our chances, and predict the negative. We over-index on our own faults. Accepting others is easier. Accepting yourself is hard.  This only reinforces how important it is to practice this exercise regularly - take time apart for yourself, listen to the subconscious, and go through the things it brings up. In doing so, you build trust in your abilities, you look for challenges to try your abilities and you learn better. At the end of the day, I cannot recommend artist dates enough. It doesn’t matter what your profession or end goal is, it is a crucial tool for reconnecting with yourself and finding your own direction.

Until next time,

Ketakee