While some people (whom I find rather strange) might consider Pride a deadly sin of some sort, I find it can be an essential tool to staying motivated for creative work. There are those who would say that telling yourself you suck and you can always do better is the best way, and in some aspects that makes complete sense, but I find it too much of a negative attitude for creative work. And negative, if you haven’t heard, is bad.
Being proud, on the other hand, can be very very good. The idea is to tell yourself you’re awesome to the max and all that, and to use your work as a confirmation of this fact. “But Jer-Jer,” you ask, “what if my work totally sucks?” This is a very valid question, and in one sense a good argument for the Evil Anti-Pride Movement to denounce our beautiful plan. Too bad for them it is easily shot down. Before you can be proud of your work, you obviously need to make work worthy of your own pride. How do you make your work worthy?
Be proud of your abilities.
If you know within yourself that you can create amazingly awesome things, then any barrier you might encounter, such as lack of technical knowledge or bad planning, will be easily smashed and burned. It is the greatest motivation you could ever have. Getting an idea you like is a good boost, but it’s only temporary, what will really get you going is knowing that your idea is great and that the finished product is something you will most certainly be proud of. Whether or not you can match the final product to your grand ideas does not matter for this to work. In fact, this kind of attitude will prevent your failures from getting you down. Don’t be delusional though, figure out why your project failed, take whatever criticism you get, and learn from it. But keep believing in yourself and all that jazz, because if you don’t, why would anyone else?
Don’t think you’ll get lucky and wait for a project or work to become successful, and that you’ll gain confidence from that. It shouldn’t work that way. Get the confidence first, use that to make your work as good as possible, and use the reciprocal magic to create an endless cycle of super confidence.
Just don’t get cocky.
And stop calling me Jer-Jer.
