how do i get more confident in my art?

confidence is a big thing i lack when drawing, and i feel like it really makes itself evident. im nervous about stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new things to draw because i know ill be upset they don't look right first try, unfortunately. ive been trying to work on this, but in the meantime, any advice?

So for starters, it can help to realise that nearly everyone feels this way. Even people who have been drawing for years professionally. I am not a pro myself, but I've sure watched enough content from pros to know that they say that all the time. If people didn't feel nervous, everyone would be drawing all the time, akin to how we are as children. 

So, obviously, since limited experiences, children have no judge of if their art doesn't match what they were attempting to draw, they just do it. Unfortunately, as you get older, that sense of 'it just doesn't look right' starts developing and that's what puts people off going any further with art. That, and obviously combining that with the social ideas of 'talent' and occasionally bad experiences of feedback. 

However, if we didn't have that sense of 'it just doesn't look right', we would also all still be drawing trees like lollypops and humans who are bigger than those trees and the houses they supposedly live in, so it's a double edged sword!

The overall advice I've found from many, many hours of content I've consumed, and not just related to art but literally any hard endevour (including STEM subjects such as engineering and computer science) is get used to the feeling of failing as quickly as you are able to. Because if you can pick yourself up from that and keep going, then not only will you learn extremely quickly, you will be doing what a majority of people give up on doing almost at the start. A good quote I saw was 'A master has failed a thousand more times than a beginner has'. 

So that's all good in theory, but the emotional burden can be quite heavy. In my experience as a beginner, I do three things currently to combat that:
1. I do drawings without references or tutorials where I try my best to connect to the child-like 'I want to draw that' and just fill a big page full of ideas and sketches of things, most of which look bad but at least get the idea across, and see what I really struggle to draw. In this way I learn what I really struggle to recall from memory, AND I realise that my brain isn't just boring, I do actually have some pretty wild ideas, I just can't draw them that well yet. The only thing about this process, especially at the beginning of trying it, is that it can feel extremely frustrating and make you anxious. See 'Draw a Box' website for this idea, he suggests making 50% of your time in drawing dedicated to just doing this and talks about it at length.
2. I have a lot of books, websites and places I can go for tutorials, and I do them regularly for that 'instant win', because that takes all the brain work out of picking colours, compositions, etc. out of the picture so you can just get that feeling of making something and having a good result at the end. Another easy win for me is drawing birds, I absolutely love birds and I draw them well because I've practiced them a lot, so I will do this for that instant good feeling too.
3. I study concepts and then try to apply them. For example, I use Line of Action and other figure drawing books to study people and their shapes. Because my thought is if I can draw people well, anything else I learn afterwards will feel a lot easier. Or, if I've identified I can't draw something in step 1, I'll maybe study that (like I found out I can't draw dogs for example). This can be extremely heavy on my brain though.

The combo of these three keeps me going with drawing and painting. This is just how I deal with feeling unconfident, so you may find the specifics to be not right in your case and need to adjust some stuff. I've now clocked around 300 hours of drawing and painting, not including time I spent as a child and teenager as I have no way of estimating that, and I have actually found it significantly easier recently to just start and 'enjoy the process' rather than focus purely on the result. I now lose hours just drawing and painting and don't even notice the ugly stages as I go through them, and I often enjoy my results too even if they do look weird and aren't drawn accurately. I love being able to actually fill a sketchbook instead of them just sitting there unused the most!

The only other thing to say is, and this may not apply to you at all so don't mind me if it doesn't, I lost a lot of my 20s to endevours like this because I was struggling along with undiagnosed C-PTSD. I've also had 100+ hours of intense therapy at this point before I could really get started with art, as my reactions to failure were really quite extreme beforehand. So if you are finding no matter what you do, you absolutely loathe what you've created, and you can't find any joy in the process at all. Also especially if you find that your very ideal of happiness itself is tied to the thought of recognition as 'something', be it as an artist or whatever, then it may be worth seeking out professional help alongside of doing art. 

I hope that helps and I haven't rambled on too long ^^; Keep going, I'm sure you're doing great!