The Little Hater

[owlmoose]

Every time I watch or listen to vlogger Jay Smooth, I fall in love with him a little more. I mostly know him from his commentaries on race and culture, but today I stumbled across this video about creativity, blockage, and procrastination:

I'm sure there are people who wake up every day confident that everyone wants to look at their face and listen to them talk, but I'm not one of those people. When I'm in the groove, and getting work done, and feeling like I'm making the connection with you guys out there... it feels natural to keep showing up and maintaining that connection. But if I go too long without putting work in, and it feels like that connection is broken, there's a little voice inside my head that starts playing tricks on me, and starts trying to convince me that the connection was never really there.

And I think this is true for most creative people, that we each have a little hater that lives inside our heads, and tries to set up traps for us.

Wow, does this resonate. We all have that, right? The voice in your brain that whispers to you, that says "You're not good enough; no one cares about your work; why are you even bothering?" on a near-endless loop. And I agree that it's especially a problem when I haven't been writing, or posting -- it breeds more insecurity, which gives the little hater more to feed on, and so I feel even more insecure, and the cycle continues. So the question is, how to shut the little hater down, or to keep her from piping up in the first place? I have no answer today. But I think it's an excellent question.

Check out the follow-up video, too.

Also, thanks so much to everyone for your kind words yesterday and earlier today. I appreciate them all so much. *hugs all around*