How do you change your thinking to a more positive default outlook on your work?

I find the following has worked for me, and it's how I advise my students to think about any of their creative endeavours. (I'm a voice teacher, but my students know I draw, so we sometimes talk about that when we have time.)

• Accept and appreciate where your skills are at right now. You're likely already much better at what you're doing than the majority of people!
• Appreciate where your areas of strength are and enjoy them.
• Identify specific areas of weakness.
• Address those areas of weakness through focused practice and critique. If it's stiff art or poor anatomy, sketch from life and photographs a little every day. If it's writing, join writers groups (IRL or online) which give good, honest critique. And so-on. By taking steps to improve areas of weakness, you not only improve - you'll also feel good because you're actively doing something about them. It's empowering.
• Appreciate improvements and successes, no matter how small and/or seemingly insignificant!
• Don't rush the learning process, and try not to get impatient. You're in this for the long haul and so long as you cultivate good habits, you will improve over time. Not overnight - over time.

This goes for singing, art, writing, and pretty much every creative endeavour you can pursue!

For every bad thoughts that creeps up to me I always counter it with positive things because I always remind myself of the words: "Because I CAN" no questions asked.
like it has become my mantra on almost anything I set my heart to do.
"The idea isn't good? -- I will make it so, even as to scrap it and rebuild it into better ideas BECAUSE I CAN"
"The goal seems impossible -- then I will make it possible no matter how hard it takes, BECAUSE I CAN"
"That is just a hopeless dream you're chasing -- Very well, that's the reason why I will chase it until I reach it no matter what it includes in process BECAUSE I CAN"
For other people, that approach makes it look like I'm intimidating, but I always thought, if I cannot believe in myself or trust myself in the process then who will? It's not being overconfident, it is having the right amount of confidence to go on and keep myself on moving forward, it's a confidence where I know my strengths and weaknesses and accepting them openly, a confidence to accepted the fact that not all the time I'm the best, but at least I manage do what I can do to the best of my ability BECAUSE I CAN; happiness is a state of mind, it's where you are now, or nowhere at all, Always remember that the bitter things can only be better because of you and because YOU CAN.

I think it helps to learn to be forgiving of yourself for not being perfect yet. Especially if it's something you've only done a few times before, or if you're younger and you don't have too much experience yet. Like it's easy to forgive someone else and see the good stuff in their work, it's harder to do it to yourself.

Sometimes you have to step back and say "I have to post it now or I'll never post it." Like every page of every comic I've ever posted is covered in issues, but they take so long to make, that if I don't do it, it'll never happen. So, I work to a point, and just keep going to a different page, saying "I'll fix it later" but 9 times out of 10 I won't fix the issues becuase weeks later when it's time to post the thing I look back at it and I'll realize "this is good enough to go."

Like you have to humble yourself and say "this is who I am, these are my flaws, and I have to let everyone else see it" and that can be really hard to do.

Because art is a lot like music where if you practice alone and no one can hear you, you cannot improve as much as when you perform and get ready for a performance. In art you can study alone for a long time but you gotta post in order to see the improvements that you really want to see in a quicker amount of time, so I see it as a sacrifice--I humble myself and take the L if I screwed up a page or made a mess--but I don't usaully regret even the pages that were hard to read or not as nice. Because, in the end, it made a performance that other people could enjoy, even if it had some rough edges. And I learned a lot, and I got better, so it helped me feel more positive about my abilities as a comic artist.

I've been there. It's an awful state of mind to be in, but as they say, sometimes we're our own worst critics. Once, I even considered quitting writing for good. Then I somehow ended up making my story into a 4 book series. Dunno how that happened, but it did. After taking a little break, the ideas started flowing and I remembered why I loved writing the series again. Something I've found that's helped when in that self-doubting state is to remember what I love about the story and why I created it in the first place. Use positive thoughts to block out the negative ones. For instance, why did you write/draw this story of yours? What's something that you've enjoyed while working on it? What's your favorite scene and why?

You might not ever see your work as perfect, but that's okay too. I know I'll never view any of my works that way, but you just gotta keep writing/ drawing (Sorry, I'm not sure if you're working on a comic or novel ) Whenever you're feeling really down about your creative ability, it could also be time to give it a little break. Sometimes, while we love our works, we can get burnt out on them. Maybe try focusing on a smaller project for a bit or give it a few days away from your work without thinking too much about it. Try not to be so hard on yourself. You've got this.

Do you know (or have you asked yourself) why you are having these specific doubts?

I try to remind myself that I actually like my work and that I'm not a bad writer. It just seems "bad" or "tired" because I've read it a million times. When I read a sample out of context and with some perspective, the work is good.

In the end, there is always just one question that you should always ask yourself when you have doubts. And that question is: Do you love what you created and love doing it?

Being confident doesn't only come from art skills, storytelling, promotion, subs all that stuff. Everything starts in your own mind. When you look at people who succeeded, most of them are individuals who just loved doing something and wanted to show it to the world. With that love comes passion and confidence. Even when you need to learn on the way and work hard, your enjoyment of art and your story keeps you moving.

No one can fix this for you. Not even people who praise your work. If you don't love it yourself, it will ultimately fail. Practically, the short answer is, have fun, love what you do, everything good comes with that and you can't succeed without it. That's what I did.

It is good to take your time and get a breather here there. Also, looking at the high points of your art could help as well; I personally do this to see how I improved since then and pushes me to continue.

Staying off the internet a bit may help when the doubts come about.

The only thing that helps me is working offline until the work is finished. I find that of I start posting to early, I inevitably get unhappy about the story. Posting it after it is done, and on Tapas just scheduling and walking away is the best for my calm

Stop accepting self-depricating humor as funny and acceptable, and move on with your life. Get off any threads anywhere that are for reviews or feedback or critique and if a site you're posting to has comments that are those, quit the site. Negativity will breed and not help any self-esteem issues you may already have. The result is less voices are heard, yes, but the those that happen are authentic.

So... here's a truth of making comics that a lot of people don't really seem to know.

The people who succeed in comics are the people who absolutely love making comics. They love making comics so much that even if the readership is small, they'll still make them. They've usually been making them for years.

You know Emma Vieceli who makes "Breaks", one of the most popular comics on this site? She started out like... doodling comics on just any old random paper and using ink flicked at doilys for screentone patterns, and photocopying them out as crappy little zines to share with friends and family. She had none of the tech, she had no big audience, she just loved making comics. She succeeded because she just made comics for years and years, built an audience, made friends and contacts, got good at making them and learned where her best areas lay. She's worked on so many comics and the early ones probably were only read by a handful of people.

If you want this comic to succeed, you need to find the fun in making comics. You need to absolutely LOVE just the act of drawing out your panels "oh boy, okay we're going to go from this long shot and then the next panel zoom right in on the face with a low-angle shot for impact. What shall I do with the background? Oh hell yeah, flame pattern! This is gonna be rad!" That's what all the pro comics artists I hang out with are like. They're not just nerdy about their IP (in fact for a lot of them, they'll talk in terms of their "current comic" and comics they'd like to make in the future in different styles and genres), they just are absolute dorks about things like panel structure and colour palette and things. A lot of them would make comics for literally nobody, they just happen to have been making comics because they like it for so long they accidentally got really good and people started giving them money.

If you only care about the IP, but don't love making comics, you need to look for another way to sell or pitch it. Comics are incredibly labour-intensive and require a huge amount of motivation, so if a handful of comments and some likes isn't enough to spur you on for several hours drawing next page or episode, it's not realistically gonna work out for you.

I echo @darthmongoose on this one.

When it comes to comics (or digital art even) it's ultra important to not let anything stop you. Obviously not every day you draw will be a cakewalk...that's just the nature of life. But the desire to create needs to be first and foremost. Then application.
Comics are hard, but in my mind are so rewarding. The challenge of each new page (for me) is invigorating.

If you want to change your thinking, it starts with the little things. Instead of thinking "backgrounds suck, I hate them. I'll never get where I want." Change it to "I'm not where I want to be with backgrounds, but if I practice more, I'll get there."

Changing your mentality isn't easy. But it is possible, I know, because I have fought the battle. Still fight it too.
Having a drive for comics is something you can grow, but the key is training it, and kindling that spark. But you won't get there if you don't actually want it deep down.

I don't know what this process would look like, but I would think the first step then would be trying to rework the first arc into something that you enjoy more or have a stronger passion for.

That's definitely something that I can relate with- due to the time-intensive nature of making indie comics, I feel like it can be hard to strike a good balance for navigating the "set up phase". If it takes too long or is too mundane, then not only is it not super fun for the readers, but it's also rough on the creator, knowing that you'll be slogging through this portion of the comic for however many weeks/months before getting to "the good part". But on the flip side, it doesn't always work to just rush through or skip the beginning, you do have to introduce the world and characters in a way that the readers can digest and get invested in.

I'm still trying to figure out my personal ideal balance, but what I've found works for me so far is to expedite the beginning just a little bit. In past projects where I've trying to copy the pacing of professional long-running comic series, or shows, or anything really, I've found that the beginning just takes too long for me, the creator, to get through. I find that there's not much wrong with them as written, but if it takes me months to get to the "good part" I get discouraged and give up. So I have to either make the beginning brief (1-2 scenes, maybe. Enough to establish things, but not long enough that I'll have to spend months and months drawing them) orrrrr just rewrite the beginning to be more exciting to work with. I'm a fan of those "start in the action" type beginnings for this reason. This intro action might not be as exciting as what comes later, but it's still fun to draw and that keeps me going~ I dunno if this will work for you but food for thought

yeeeee this, going through the same motions doesn't sound very fun, gotta take those motions and rotate them 90 degrees or something >: D maybe, idk.