Sometimes you need to crush your self-esteem, to the point where you don’t give a damn anymore, in order to access your highest creative self.

Exposure to other people’s written words in massive quantities has the capability of reducing the perpetual neurosis that you have concerning the quality of your work or creative output, because it makes it inevitable that you come to the realization that whatever sense of importance that you ascribe to yourself as a creative person or to your work as unique, phenomenal, unmatched, or unrivaled is not an accurate representation of reality, but is somewhat, if not entirely, delusional.

That effect can only be expected after consuming massive amounts of other people’s work only. It has to arrive as a result of unconscious processing that gives you that conclusion. If something is not strong enough, it will be easily dismissed as not a threat to your sense of self worth without much unconscious processing needed. In order to trigger the full unconscious processing of everything in your mind, you have to receive a great deal of information or input that justifies the initiation of such process. You have to read a ton of textbooks.

Here is where comparison becomes inevitable and any attempt to resist it becomes futile. Any neurosis around your creative work or its quality will instantly fade away, because now you cannot regard it as important as you used to, even if you wanted to, no matter how hard you try. It is not as important as you used to think it is anymore, after you’ve come across evidence that proves to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is not the center of the universe anymore or of extraordinary quality or worth. It is profoundly mediocre compared to anything serious out there in the world. And you cannot escape that fact anymore. Any neurosis, much less perfectionism or perfectionistic tendencies that you once had, is now history. It will be impossible to maintain crippling perfectionism or neurosis regarding anything about you or your creative work or writing at this point or from now on. You no longer believe whatever you can potentially produce, create, or author can be that important. It is at this point, when you hit your self-esteem and self-worth rock-bottom, that you can eliminate almost all mental barriers preventing you from accessing your superpowers and highest creative potential. It is at this state, you can finally do your best.