Creativity Is About Overcoming Rejection And Ridicule On A Regular Basis

Creativity is all about getting used to the trolls. Especially in this digital age of anonymity, you are going to have to get used to ridicule and rejection in a big way, if you want to be creative at all.

Photo by Paula Palmieri on Unsplash

Transcript

Hello everyone!

I hope that you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world.

My name is Boomshakah and I welcome you to my channel.

As always I'm so grateful that you're listening,

Subscribing and commenting.

I really appreciate the support.

In this one I wanted to speak to you a little bit about writing and writers and how one of the main things that we need to do as creative people,

Particularly writers because I'm a writer and that's what I relate to,

But as creative people we need to really learn to be alright,

Actually accept and maybe even be excited about ridicule and rejection.

Ridicule and rejection are going to hopefully,

If you become a creative person,

Become your best friends.

Really they should become your best friends because they're going to be a part and parcel of everything that you do,

Everything that you write,

Everything that you create and put out into the world.

Now because of our fear,

Because we've been taught from when we were very young as children to be afraid to run away from rejection and ridicule,

To be part of the group.

If you're ridiculed and you're not part of the group,

People are laughing at you and pointing at you,

Against you.

Same thing with rejection,

The world is against you and you're just sitting there crying in the corner because the world's against you.

In general as children we're taught,

You know,

Ridicule and rejection is a bad thing.

Being creative therefore is a bad thing as well,

So try not to be creative.

If you are creative keep it to yourself,

Don't share it with the world unless you're extremely strong,

Which makes absolute sense.

But then because we don't ever share our creative work with the world,

We kind of keep it to ourselves.

Probably a lot of you have creative work that you've done,

You know,

Writing and books that you've written that you have in a hard drive somewhere but you've never shared with the world.

Not even with your friends because you're so afraid of rejection.

And recently I've noticed this in some of the new writers that I've kind of hired,

Or not hired,

Accepted to the online publication that I have,

The Rage Against the Patriarchy.

And I have some writers that,

You know,

INFJ feminist writers,

That have come up,

Come forward and says,

I really want to write.

And they said to me,

You know,

I really want to be involved in this,

I love this topic,

I want to be a writer for you.

So I was like,

Alright cool,

You know,

Write something for me and send it to me.

And then,

You know,

A couple of them did,

Most of them didn't,

Right?

And I knew that that was gonna happen,

So,

You know,

I think 15 people messaged me till now and out of them three actually wrote something for me,

Three or four.

The rest of them,

I don't actually bug anymore,

I did a couple of times and then,

You know,

They had excuses and things like that and I was like,

Alright,

Obviously you're not ready yet.

But again,

It is the idea of ridiculous rejection that's coming up probably for these individuals.

They're afraid of putting themselves out there because,

Of course,

What's gonna happen when you put yourself out there,

Which happens to me every single day,

Is people are gonna ridicule you,

They're gonna reject you,

They're going to make fun of you,

They're gonna troll you,

They're going to send hateful comments to you where you're gonna be sitting there thinking,

Oh my god,

This is actually very hateful and negative.

And obviously for me,

I've kind of gotten used to it,

Unfortunately or fortunately,

Over time,

You know,

You just get used to it,

You're like,

Alright cool,

Another one,

Either you delete or you reply,

Say thank you for your feedback and then that's it,

You move forward.

But what I've noticed obviously for these newbie writers,

And this is something that I don't know how to help them with it,

You know,

I just,

I'm like,

You know,

It's just life,

You can have to deal with it,

Is that unfortunately a couple of them who did write for me got negative comments from people saying that,

No,

That's not my experience,

You're wrong,

Things like that.

And because of the fact that they got a negative comment,

They stopped writing again and they stopped saying that they're gonna write something for me.

Now maybe it's just a temporary phase and they're just kind of reconciling themselves with the fact that,

Oh my god,

If I put myself into the world then people are going to ridicule me or send me hateful comments or tell me that I'm wrong and I just have to get used to it,

Or it could be a permanent phase where they completely reject the whole idea of being creative or being a writer because they just can't handle the rejection or the ridicule.

Alright,

Now hopefully the second part doesn't happen,

Like hopefully they just don't completely reject the whole idea because I mean they're good writers and I hope they keep on writing.

But I wanted to do this video because I really wanted to share with you that it really comes through practice.

It's not something like,

And a lot of people asking this all the time,

You know,

You are on YouTube,

Oh my god,

You must probably get a lot of negative comments.

Actually no,

Really like I would say 99% of the comments that I get are really nice,

Really sweet,

Really generous,

Beautiful,

Amazing people who want to support me and really that's the case for me.

I've been very lucky that way I guess.

Also I'm not that popular yet.

So 99% of the comments I get are really nice,

Sweet comments,

So really I'm only dealing with 1% of the comments that are terribly negative,

Hateful,

Things like that,

Right?

It's like personally attacking me as a person or actually saying things about my parents which I'm like well I never said I'm doing these videos because I'm beautiful or I want to look beautiful for you.

It's what am I saying,

You know,

What am I saying?

It doesn't matter.

Is it interesting?

Are my ideas,

You know,

Coherent?

That's the whole idea behind my videos.

But of course they attack personally and at first I remember when I first started getting these comments I'm like whoa,

You know,

I've kind of been preparing myself for it because I was like maybe that's gonna happen and you know people would tell me,

You know,

If you start getting hateful comments,

If people start trolling you,

It's actually a good sign.

It means that you're making a difference.

It means that your idea is actually reaching people,

That people are actually looking at your ideas and being able to understand them and they're actually,

You know,

Something is triggered in them and that's actually a very powerful thing that you're doing in the world.

And so,

You know,

I had that context to work with.

I could have looked at the other way around,

Oh my god,

I'm a hateful creature and yes I'm terrible and oh my god my hair is terrible and I should never be doing videos.

I should just cover my face and walk around the world with a brown paper bag on it and things like that.

But in general I kind of took the other way and the other context saying oh cool,

Great,

Awesome,

I really want to do this because obviously I'm triggering people and affecting people and that's a good sign.

That means I'm actually making a difference because people are actually thinking and critically thinking or they're being triggered or they're kind of changing their worldviews or they're just being affected in some shape or form which is all that I want,

You know,

All that I want to do with these videos is to make you think in a certain different way or to trigger something in you that perhaps make you become a better human being or whatever it might be in that regard,

Right?

And so I took it in the right context and thankfully I had a good mentor who shared that with me and that mentor was Brené Brown.

She's the one who I read a lot of books by and you know I was like alright,

Being vulnerable,

You're putting yourself into the battlefield,

You're gonna do it,

You're gonna do it not because you want positive feedback but you're doing it because you have to do it because that's your soul's calling and that is a calling for me to put myself,

Communicate my ideas to the world using my writing,

Using my videos,

Using my podcast,

Using all the different avenues that I have.

It's my soul's calling.

I have to do it.

I can't not do it.

It's something that I have to do.

It's just I can't,

There's only one thing,

It's a non-negotiable term for me,

Right?

And so I realized that Brené Brown was saying that if you're going to be vulnerable,

There are gonna be people who are going to hate that and dislike it and dislike you for it and then say negative things to you about it and how you deal with it is how you're gonna progress in the world and this is why I wanted to do this video as well.

If you are all or some of you are thinking about being creative,

Becoming writers or anything like that,

Becoming artists and you get stifled or suffocated or stopped by the first negative comment that you get,

Really try to change the context of the negative comment in your head.

Actually it's a good thing.

It means you actually affected the person on a deep personal level and that caused them to say something negative about you.

Actually it's a great thing,

Right?

And so I really love the idea of you know changing the context saying that oh right okay if you're not on the battlefield with me,

If you're not also putting yourself out there,

I'm sorry but your comments don't matter to me.

A lot of people will do,

Will put comments on my channel,

Negative comments,

Under a synonym with no picture and no real name and come on like how am I gonna,

How are you,

How am I expected to listen to you if you're not even putting yourself out properly like in a really straightforward manner,

In a direct fashion where you put your face and real name out there and say you are a terrible person,

I hate you,

Then I'd be like alright cool great,

Good for you brave soul putting yourself out there but no you're not being brave,

You're being a coward,

You can never say that word and you're not being courageous,

You're hiding behind a pseudonym,

Behind the internet,

Behind the anonymity,

Anonymity,

Anonymity,

Ah I can't say that word either,

Of the internet and you're hiding behind it,

You're not actually actually saying things to me directly,

Face to face,

That's the courageous way to do it and so really those matter,

Those comments again don't matter to me because you're not being courageous,

You're not saying it out straight out to me and so I wanted to give you this context hopefully like a change in context so if you are thinking about putting yourself out there as a creative person,

Realize first of all that you're gonna get a lot of negative comments,

It's just common actually,

It's just the way it is,

Creativity triggers people and that's the whole point of it,

That's why we're being creative is because we want to make people think in a completely different fashion and sometimes people get uncomfortable by that and then they start attacking the person who made them uncomfortable,

It's just normal,

It's just the way the world works and so it's common,

It's gonna happen,

Get used to it but then put a right context around it,

It's not a negative thing,

It's not a terrible thing,

It's actually a good thing and if you can kind of go into it with that attitude,

Every morning I'm excited to look at the comments on my channel because I'm like oh let's see what people are saying about me now right and sometimes it's very nice things which is nice,

Sometimes it's terrible things which is also nice and sometimes it's really hateful degrading things where I'm like ah delete because I don't want that kind of negativity in my life anyways if it's not useful unless it's actually like you know you should really improve this about you then alright cool but if it's just like oh you suck and your face sucks and you're ugly and no one wants to talk to you which is a comment that someone left recently then I'm like thank you for your feedback but I don't need it right so hopefully this makes sense to you if you have questions about this topic if you try and be creative and you want me to do more videos about creativity obviously let me know but if you have particular questions comment below and I shall do follow-up videos on creativity and how to deal with trolls or negative hateful comments which is literally my entire life right now alright again have a great day I shall see you guys next time around

Reviews

Fabulous talk, and yes, some beautiful souls feel that we really do need to hear their appraisal. Love your approach, hope your world is flowing well. Sending Big Hugs and Love Bubbles over the airwaves to You 💜🥰

Thanks for your talk. I’m a musician, singer and songwriter. I’ve been desiring for ages to record my own music and put it out there but I’m constantly being discouraged by those who are “close” to me that say “creativity is dead,” and “creativity won’t pay the bills” among other negative remarks. I needed to hear what you said. Thanks so much!

Recently faced rejection and thats how i landed here. Thanks Shikha. Keep making more videos and keep helping people.

I always enjoy listening to your messages. Keep on keeping on! Thank you for sharing with us on Insight Timer.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom, insight, and how to deal with hurtful feedback. Take care!