I'm a big fan of Ira Glass and his radio show This American Life. I've listened to every single episode through the years. In a 2009 interview, he shared some insightful advice from his own life experiences on overcoming self-doubt. I found this advise to be very helpful to me when I was just starting to work with encaustic a few years ago.

Every once in a while, I still re-visit his words. According to his theory, there's a "gap" between the quality of work an individual puts out at the start and that person's potential. This frustrating disparity is often clear to the beginners themselves -- they have the "taste" to know that what they're creating isn't as good as they'd like it to be, but don't yet have the experience to achieve that level of quality. But that's normal, Glass says. For anyone with a passion for something, Glass' words are a timeless inspiration and a reminder that experience is the only way close the gap.

Here's a wonderful video created to illustrate Glass' advice by German designer Daniel Sax.