Creativity and Self-Doubt

I’ve discovered that one of the struggles of being a part of the creative world is self-doubt. Because design is arguably a subjective field, I find it hard to measure creativity and to know how “good” you are. If you are a business consultant and you meet your quota (or whatever “consultants” do) than you are good at your job, but what makes you a good designer? Sometimes you create great pieces, sometimes your designs are mediocre and sometimes they are just plain bad. I’ve learned that designers need to quickly develop a thick skin to deal with rejection and rejection is a part of the job. After working on a design for days, you present something to a client and they say, “Eh, I don’t really like it, show me something else.”
Stab through the heart!

Design is a more personal line of work than most because you are using your creativity, sweat and tears and that makes it hard not to take rejection personally. Ed gave us one of his famous pep talks in class the other night and he made an analogy of a designer who doesn’t think he/she can design to a basketball player who can’t make free throws under pressure. The more you think you can’t, the more you can’t, and the negativity is a vicious cycle. It seems you need a lot of confidence and a good self-image (and a little cockiness wouldn’t hurt) to succeed as a designer. I think there is something powerful in believing in yourself (was that too corny?) and without that you’re screwed. With that said, I’ve discovered that my designer ego can be somewhat fragile.

Does anyone else experience something similar to this and if so, how do you cope?
I wasn’t able to find a lot on the internet about creative self-doubt, so maybe I’m alone in this, but if anyone has some words of wisdom or finds some good articles about this topic, I’d love to hear it.