You know you have a message inside of you, but what makes it worth listening to?
This is a question that I can’t help but ask myself on a regular basis. As a creator, I want to express myself. I want to take that internal force that drives me from day to day, channel it into what I create, and share that with others in the hopes that they can enjoy and relate to it.
But then the doubt creeps in. What if what I make isn’t good enough? What if nobody likes it? Or, even worse, what if nobody cares?
And although the contrary is almost always true in my experience (which I’m thankful for), these questions still present themselves everytime I think of putting something out into the world. And yet, I share what I create despite these feelings of doubt, and the reason for it all boils down to one word:
Audacity.
Listen to me. If you have a message you feel compelled to express, then audacity is required for you to be succesful in doing so.
You need to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you have to give isn’t only something others will want to experience, but that once they do, they’ll want other people to experience it too. A belief like that takes a rock solid conviction in your own ideas and ideals, an unwavering understanding that people not only want what you have to offer, but will become better for having been given it.
Do you think anyone who ever stood out or achieved great things listened to thoughts of “Who the fuck am I?” and “Who the fuck cares?” The answer is absolutely not. Because if they had, they would have never become great or stood out in the first place.
They were capable of achieving greater heights than the average person because they never once gave into the thought that maybe the view from those heights wasn’t meant for them.
This is what is required of those who strive to go beyond what one might consider to be an average existence. I would go so far as to argue that it even takes a certain degree of arrogance and conceit, qualities we often consider negative, to achieve. After all, how else would you be able to justify sharing that which is within you without first thinking that it’s important enough to be shared at all?
In any case, be audacious in your decision to be a creator in whatever medium it is you choose to create by. Don’t just do it, believe in it, breathe it, live for it. And if it goes beyond doing it simply for yourself, if you feel in your heart of hearts that the world would benefit from what you have to give, then never consider that greater heights are not for you to obtain, and strive to be fucking great at it.
And don’t ever let yourself settle for anything less.