Overcoming a crisis of creative confidence

Don’t hate me. But I’m going to start this article by telling you how to parent your kids, warns Graeme Hall, group creative director, JOAN London.

Don’t hate me. But I’m going to start this article by telling you how to parent your kids.

After blundering through 11 years of parenting, I’ve finally realised there are some essential life skills we need to teach our children. An appreciation of teamwork. An elementary grasp of finance. An understanding that paint brushes do NOT clean themselves. FFS.

But one that I’m really focused on is confidence.

Because I’ve experienced firsthand what it’s like when your confidence suddenly disappears. Poof. Gone. And just when I needed it the most.

Scooby-Doo back to the early days of my career – 2004. I was a cocky little creative at DDB London on placement, firm in the belief that I knew pretty much everything about advertising. I mean, I took it as a sign that I’d been put in an office opposite John Webster. Like minds and all that.

But that confidence did me wonders. It enabled me to back my ideas; to argue for them. It gave me license to pitch concepts on a brief when all the other creative teams working on it were industry legends. And it stoked that fire to push on when an answer to a brief wasn’t initially forthcoming, safe in the knowledge that the answer was there in my mind, just waiting to be found.

It also saw me through some pretty seismic career moves. From London to New York, to Amsterdam, to working in-house at one of the world’s most famous brands. From creative to creative director, to executive creative director.

But then, all of a sudden, that confidence disappeared. I won’t say what triggered it – it was more a confluence of multiple things. A perfect storm of confidence-sapping events. And it was paralysing.

I started questioning all of my opinions. 

I second-guessed myself on every decision I made. I kept quiet, rather than speaking out. I berated myself constantly. In short, my core ability to do my job had been compromised. Like Sylvia Plath said – someone who was very familiar with introspection – “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Amen to that.

And it affected me outside of my job as well. I started panicking. I retreated further into myself. I felt exposed. And desperately unhappy.

What’s worrying is that it looks like I’m not the only one in our industry who has gone through this.

According to NABS, a record 5,200 calls were made to its hotline in 2024. Emotional support was the top reason for calls, with a 22% rise compared with 2023, and other common concerns included stress, burnout and anxiety. I don’t want to panic everyone, but there might well be a crisis of confidence going on.

“Ok, enough with the doom-mongering”, I hear some readers muttering to themselves, “you seem to be okay now. Got your confidence back, did you?” (Or, um, did you?)

Well, yes. I did.

To boost our kids' confidence, my wife and I look to create an environment in our home where honesty, respect, and love are core to every waking moment. Turns out that’s exactly what I needed in my professional life.

And that’s what I found at JOAN.

An agency that works together, not in silos or hierarchies. An agency that embraces failure as a vital part of the creative process. An agency that invests in your value and looks to nurture and develop it. An agency that prioritises transparency and rejects secrets and lies. In short, an agency where honesty, respect, and love are core to every moment.

At JOAN, we speak a lot about joyful rebellion. It’s core to what we do. And it’s something that manifests not only in the work we create, but in the way we work. We rebel against the tired and redundant ways of working, and that leads to a more joyful working life.

So, for any agency bigwigs out there trying to kick down the door of the known advertising universe, try looking at the environment you’re creating. 

Is it protecting and strengthening your creatives’ confidence? Is it a place where they feel ok to take risks? Because that can only lead to braver, bolder, and more interesting work.

And for any creative out there struggling with their confidence, look to your environment. Look to the people around you. Because that’s where the recovery begins.