“What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you.”—Lucius Annaeus Seneca

by Dr. Rachel Ballon

Is self-doubt sabotaging your writing? Do you become insecure when your writing is rejected or your producer doesn’t like your screenplay? Is your ego and self-worth tied up in your writing? Well, most writers are just like you and suffer from insecurity during their writing career, especially if your expectations of success have not yet been realized. So if you feel doubt about your writing ability you’re not alone, but like thousands of others, whose hope has been dashed by disappointment.

As a California Licensed Psychotherapist and an international script consultant/coach, in private practice for the past 30 years, I’ve specialized in writer’s personal and professional issues such as overcoming writer’s block, fear of rejection and procrastination as well as increasing confidence, productivity and creativity. Working with scriptwriters and teaching writing, I’ve dealt with every type of personal, career and psychological problems related to writers.

Writing is hard work and in order to succeed you need to separate yourself from your writing. At least you can improve your writing skills, so that you’ll feel more confident and competent. The good news is that you can reverse your negative feelings into feelings of self-esteem, regardless of whether your script is sold, optioned or made into a film or television series. How? By separating your “self” from your script when it is rejected. It is your product and you can’t look at yourself as being rejected. This type of thinking is based on your perception and your attitude toward results and contributes to your insecurity.

I know it sounds easy to say not to worry if other people like your writing, especially if they could give your script a greenlight. Assuming you are confident in your craft and have the knowledge and competence in being a professional writer, you need to answer the question, “Do you have faith in your writing?” If you answer “yes,” keep the facts and feelings separate to make overcoming your insecurities a challenge not a death sentence.

Lack of self-esteem is more powerful than any other factor keeping you doubting yourself. If you anticipate rejection in advance in both your personal or professional life, you are making your self-fulfilling prophecy come true. This type of thinking will keep you stuck in your writing and your life.

You need to accept that rejection is part of the writing process. And even if your script is rejected don’t reject yourself. Expect rejection, accept it and keep on writing after you get rejected. Most importantly, keep your self-confidence based on who you are, not on whether your product sells. Although, this is a difficult process, no matter what the result, remember to be resilient and don’t give up. Remember, you’re a writer. Believe in yourself.

Having a positive attitude creates a positive cycle rather than the vicious negative cycle you create for yourself when you can’t separate yourself from your writing. You are not your script. Of course I am making the assumption that you know about structure, characterization and story, otherwise, you have every reason to lack confidence. And if your script doesn’t work, the good news is you can always rewrite it until it does.

Your self-esteem is tied to your thoughts, behavior and your choices. There’s a saying, “I can change the way that I feel by the things that I do and the things that I think.” It’s all up to you to challenge yourself, and be aware of your negative thoughts and consciously transform them into positive thoughts in order not to give up until you reach your goal.

You must go within yourself to understand your low self-esteem and lack of confidence. In these cases, where the problem isn’t obvious, more often than not, it’s the writer who has the problem, not the script.

For example, Sally, a screenwriter in her early thirties, came to see me for a script consultation. She wasn’t sure if the script was good or not. After having been a staff writer on several television shows, this was the first script she actually wrote by herself and not with a group of other writers.

As we spoke I realized how little confidence she had in her writing. I asked her a lot of questions and it turned out she had seen several script consultants, made the suggested changes and now felt completely overwhelmed and hopeless.

As I listened to her story, I told her to put the script down, since her problem had nothing to do with her script, but everything to do with her! The block on her script really wasn’t about the writing at all. It had to do with her lack of self-esteem and belief in herself.

By not trusting her own writing ability, she gave into that inner critical voice that fed her insecurity. Sally began therapy and I encouraged her to delve into her psyche and discover why she lost faith in her writing after months of rewrites. My task as a psychotherapist was to help her bring to the surface the basis of her fears, and refute them. “I want you to write down in a notebook all the negative thoughts you have throughout the day and night.”

After several sessions it was clear, her destructive dialogue caused her low self-esteem and stopped her from writing. I had her read her inner dialogue aloud. “How can you ever write anything by yourself?” “You’re not a good writer.” “Everybody will reject your script.”

I had her change the destructive dialogues to positive pronouncements, which refuted all the negative messages. As she continued to keep track of all the negativity and reframe it positively, she gained more confidence and respect for her ability.

Together, we dealt with her fear, which was definitely not about her writing. Her problem was an inside job, and had everything to do with her self-perception, self-attitude and self-belief, which had all been negative.

By helping her write about her internal negative messages, she was able to realize they weren’t true. She was good enough! Sally started writing again without the mountain of negativity weighing her down. As she learned to believe in herself she gained confidence in her writing and knew when her script was good. She stopped her constant battle of self-doubt, no matter what outside circumstances occurred.

Sally worked very hard on improving her self-esteem and now exudes a winning attitude, a new found confidence, which enables others to believe in her ability to write a good script. The good news is an independent production company recently bought her script.

You can see the importance of discovering what is stopping you, when your script is rejected. The reasons could be emotional or structural; psychological or personal; confidence or craft. It is only after digging up the real problem and not just dealing with the symptoms—procrastination, blocks and insecurity—that you will find the right solution. You will then be able to reconnect to your creative spirit, your vision and your confidence as a person and as a writer.