Writers and the Four Horsemen of Doubt: how certainty, truth, approval and belief might be working against you

PRELOAD FACTS

1. Life is uncertain

2. The human mind is hardwired for problem solving

Stick them together and we get the chaos that is solution driven thinking. Great in a maths exam, not so great for conducting a three week post-mortem on all the reasons we messed up at a poetry open mic.

This blog is our story. A story where AI companies are scalping and devaluing our talent. Industry rejections taint everything. Comparison is a death of a thousand cuts every time we go online. Writers and doubt is just another chapter, right? You bet your magic beans it is.

So who are these Four Horsemen of Doubt, and why might they be working against us?

HORSEMAN ONE: CERTAINTY

If you had to define doubt, it would be a chronic sense of uncertainty. Doubt is so at home with uncertainty, it has its own duvet. And when we feel uncertain, what we crave most is the beautiful Horseman of Certainty.

Perfect. Except doubt isn't the same as uncertainty. Doubt is a response to uncertainty. Slot them both into a comparative sentence and it's easier to see why this is important:

I'm uncertain if anyone will read my book

I doubt anyone will read my book

Anything that promises to give us an answer gets the thumbs up, which means we don't always see doubt for what it really is. And when we're not seeing something for what it really is, then understanding it is like trying to unlock a car with the TV remote.

So what's the problem with craving certainty?

Certainty is a full stop. It doesn't allow for movement. It doesn't allow for mistakes or different perspectives. Once we use certainty and as an antidote to doubt, our creativity is stuck going nowhere.

We look for certainty because we don't trust ourselves with our own lives. The less we trust ourselves with our own lives, the more uncertain we feel. The more uncertain we feel, the more doubt gets involved. The more doubt gets involved the less we trust ourselves with our own lives. The less we trust ourselves with our own lives, the more uncertain we feel. Around and around and around we go.

Certainty is like a drug. The more we use it, the more we need it.

The opposite of uncertainty, I hear you ask?

It's the badger of confidence. Confidence has loads of room for movement, it allows for mistakes and different perspectives. And once we start leaning into confidence, we begin to trust ourselves with our own messy, wonderful, human lives.

HORSEMAN TWO: TRUTH

We crave the Horseman of Truth because it's the mouthpiece of blame. And just like reality TV, blame is a trusted human strategy to avoid feeling emotional pain.

Worse still, blame doesn't feel like avoiding emotional pain, it feels like a solution to emotional pain.

And good old blame isn't picky about deployment; it's happy to be directed anywhere, including inwards. It's an emotional fix that feels like a cure. Doubt is so busy writing a prescription for the truth, our talent is bleeding to death.

And what a mouthpiece doubt is. That itchy, sneaky way it has of bargaining us into insolvency. Before we know it, the most unlikely suggestions are starting to sound like the truth. Couple this with the human tendency to identify with our thoughts, and the brightest and bravest of us can be convinced that we don't have the knowledge, ability or courage to write anything beyond a shopping list.

So how to quiet the mouthpiece?

It's not easy. There's a sneaking fear in the relationship between doubt and blame. It's easier to blame ourselves or our partners or our lifestyle than admit that we're struggling with comparison or paralysed by agent rejections. Letting go of blame is a huge act of courage and ultimately an act of self love. Because blame shows us where we're shutting down as a writer. And once we know where we're shutting down, we can figure out what needs to happen in order to move forward.

Honestly, doubt likes to shout its blaming mouth off, but it's totally useless at creative problem-solving.

HORSEMAN THREE: APPROVAL

Come on, what's not to love about approval? That pat on the back that tells us we did something right, that flutter of likes we got on social media for a blog we wrote on doubt.

The Horseman of Approval doesn't need to chase after us, we chase it down like it's a piñata full of gold.

What we don't chase down is the skunk of disapproval. And yet approval and disapproval are two sides of the same coin.

Whether we crave approval or avoid disapproval, we're trapped in the opinion of other people. We doubt ourselves, we avoid doing anything that might attract criticism, we play to the gallery, we try to figure out what will sell better. The Horseman of Approval might cheer us up for a while, but it never satisfies us, because the ultimate approval exists in how we see ourselves.

If we doubt our self worth, then no amount of external approval will fix that. You're a writer. Know your worth. Creativity isn't a collage of other people's opinions.

HORSEMAN FOUR: BELIEF

Sing along if you know the words: I can't do this. I'm no good at writing. I can't get an agent. I can't finish this book. Feels like doubt, right? But this little slipstream of thinking isn't doubt, it's the Horseman of Belief.

This handsome horseman is it's own undoing. Because any doubts that profess to be true are not doubts, they're beliefs.

Doubt, on the other hand, doubt won't fix it's damn flag to anything.

You'd think it would be easy to spot, right? But the Horseman of belief also comes saddled with a familiar stench of failure, which triggers every single one of our anxieties. It's no wonder we feel like we can't be trusted with our own legs. Over time, this belief solidifies into an identity. And then one day, letting the creative dream die becomes easier than keeping it alive.

In my experience, most negative self-talk is the avoidance of emotional pain. Next time you catch yourself believing your doubt, turn it around. Check in with your heart, and ask the question - what's hurting here?

So what's good about writers and doubt?

In a backhanded, clumsy way, doubt is showing us where we're most uncertain as writers. Which is great, because it's not always obvious. AND lucky for us that same doubt stinks of failure, which lights up areas of uncertainty like a runway.

Being stuck in doubt gives us an opportunity to stop and look at our options. It also shows us where we feel most powerless, and provides us with a safe place to look at all the things we're trying not to look at. If we let it, it can even teach us more about who we are as writers.

AND never forget you're one of a kind. You have a weird determination about you for getting to the end of this blog, and a toolbox of knowledge and life experience like no one else on this planet. Get creative with your doubt, be tolerant for the days when everything goes wrong, and look out for the sound of hoofbeats.

Love

Jac