I had a very similar feeling at the end of my graduate program. I got an entire PhD and my confidence in my academic and professional abilities had never been lower. It certainly feels like the more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know. And like you touched on, it’s so easy to fixate on the not knowing part versus how much you’ve grown!
Yes, exactly! If only we could keep the same confidence that we had when we were freshmen and knew so little 😂 (Congratulations on your PhD by the way! That's an incredible achievement!!)
Wow, the way that Christopher Paolini really set the bar for an entire generation of young writers...I had that exact thought and these same age-related publishing goalposts for myself, so I'm glad to know I'm not alone! At the start of this year I was feeling so disconnected from my writing / identity as a writer that I told myself I was going to take this year to really give it my all. I signed up for a nonfiction writing class at my local writer’s center, and have since discovered a beautiful community in that class, as well as renewed confidence in my ability and my identity. My delusions for the future are back, I’m dreaming again, and it’s so motivating and exciting. As lame as it sounds, having the external validation and encouragement from my fellow writers in my class has reignited that positive inner voice within myself. I think we think we should be above that, that we shouldn’t need that validation to keep going, but as the years and those markers in the sand go by, it can be hard to keep that spark alive without encouragement from others. If this isn’t something you’ve found already- a real life writing community- I’d suggest giving it a shot! It’s a beautiful thing to find those delusions of youth again. ❤️ Thank you for making this thoughtful and relatable video!
Haha I'm glad I'm not the only one who was enamored with the Paolini publishing dream! 😆 A writing community is so very important and definitely something that I'm working on building around myself! I have some amazing friends already who are writers and creatives, and my next goal is to be brave enough to share more of my actual writing with them. External validation is something that we're told we shouldn't need, but when it comes from a healthy source (friends who care!) then I think it can be a wonderful thing, especially when it's reciprocal. I'm so happy for you that you've had such a wonderful experience in your writing group! 🤩
Thanks for creating this video! You’re definitely not alone in feeling this way. It’s so odd because I used to spend almost my entire weekend writing and creating bookish content at university and now I struggle with spending two hours writing. Hopefully we can all find our delusion again soon and get these creative projects done ❤
Lovely topic! I remember finding your videos a good while back and being inspired by you to write :) I am still writing to this day, but as you said, definitely not published by 18 or 20 xD I just turned 27 not even a full week ago and... yeah. Felt a bit letdown about my "unacomplished"" goals. Some of them are works in progress, like writing/publishing (I tried publishing a few coloring books first so that was fun). Now trying to get back to posting on RU-vid more and writing a fresh draft of an urban fantasy :) So am working on my goals, but as you mentioned, shifted some of them and they're adjusted to who am I now (versus 18 year old me). :) Thanks for an interesting video!
That's really cool that you've published some coloring books!! I would be terrible at designing them myself haha, but I used to enjoy coloring while watching TV in the evenings; maybe I should pick it back up again 😍 Thank you for sharing about your goals, then and now! Adjustment is definitely the key: as we grow, they can too ☺️