“If you find yourself in struggle with self-trust, the first thing to examine is … how you treat yourself, because we can’t ask people to give us something we do not believe we are worthy of receiving. And you’ll know you’re worthy of receiving it when you trust yourself above everyone else.” (Brene Brown)
We are very familiar with being fans of other peoples’ work, ideas, presence, essence, point of view, generosity, leadership, sense of humor, and/or charisma. In a lot of ways, it is the diversity of our fandom of others that leads to the uniqueness and speciality that makeup our own offer. But this is not the whole picture. Being a fan of others is only half of what it takes to be creative.
If you aren’t a fan of yourself, why should anyone else be? Do you want to hear what you create? Are you interested in “bringing forth the treasures that are hidden within in you” (Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic)?
Being a fan of yourself requires an “out of body” experience, you have to watch yourself like an endearing fan would from the front row while you simultaneously create on center stage.
Remember the first three years of your life? Regardless of whether you had siblings to compare yourself to or not, you weren’t intellectually capable of comparing yourself to others; therefore, you fully befriended your imagination and ambitions with 100% fandom.
Now, you have the privilege of doing the same in the context of what it also means to be a raving fan of so many others. And then, the cycle continues.
The reason you are fan of other peoples’ work is because they chose to combine their fandom of others with their fandom of themselves, and the combination of the two is what gave them the fuel to create stuff worthy of fans other than just themselves.
