Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential. Brian Tracy
On Saturday, I gave a talk at Mississauga Writers Group on self-doubt. How often does self-doubt keep us from doing something we want to do? Does it also have us check over something before we do it? Is the flip side of self-doubt hubris, where we feel invincible and overconfident? Would being overconfident be better than being underconfident and doubting ourselves? Do both of them come with an upside and a downside?
We might envy the overconfident but also consider them arrogant. The world appears to be their oyster, but does it come with challenges?
What does confidence feel and look like? We might be confident in one area and struggle in other areas. Do we compare the worst of ourselves to the best of someone else? Do we see other people’s ambitions as more noble, worthy, and important than our own?
We are where we are; our decisions and circumstances have brought us here. Some things can be changed, and some things cannot, but what if accepting the reality of our lives, where we are, the constraints we have, and embracing what is possible is how to live a joyful and consequential life, no matter our age or stage.
Do we have gifts we could and should be using to better our lives and the lives of those around us? What would it look like if we made the best of every opportunity? Encouraged every person we meet, built bridges wherever we can, and forgive ourselves and others for being less than we feel we and they should be.
Life is a journey, and of course, if we’d known then what we know now, we’d have made different choices in some areas, but that might also lead to consequences we don’t like.
You’re busy doubting yourself while others are intimidated by your full potential. Unknown
We were told the consequences of many things in the truisms we grew up with. Things like, “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” We may look at someone who lived by that maxim all their lives and wonder how they are healthier, wealthier, and wiser than us. Who can say they were never told to “Live below their means,” or “Self-mastery is the road to freedom?”
Was it hubris that we didn’t listen to the sage advice we received, or chose which nuggets to follow? Is life simple, but not easy, and everyone has challenges to deal with?
What if wrestling with self-doubt is part of life, and every time we want to take a new path, we will struggle with it? What if courage and faith are what we need to go forward in life? It’s what we’ve always needed. We might have areas in our lives where courage and faith are easy, other areas where we find it hard, and it is the combination of everything we do and everything we think that builds our lives.
What if self-doubt and fear, if we harness them, can help us build a better life, and we need to go forward with faith and courage to make the best of what can be? Our life won’t look like someone else’s because it is ours. If we all wrote a book, it wouldn’t be the same book, even if the prompts we were given were the same. That is how life is: we can’t change the past, but we can turn the page and write a new chapter.
What would we like more of in the next chapter of our lives? What do we need to do to make it happen, and what do we need to give up, change, redirect, or embrace? If we have life, we have choices, and our choices today will impact our tomorrows.
What choices do we have before us, what would we like to be, have, or do?
Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Unknown
When self-doubt creeps in, don’t ignore it – address it. Unknown
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. William Shakespeare
Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
