Featured image credit: Emily Morter on Unsplash
Over many years, I have refined the ability to pick myself apart. Every idea I have ever had, every endeavour I’ve thought I’d like to try, they always get the once over by my self-doubt. So good I am that I don’t even have to question myself anymore, I just pass the sentence – you will fail, you are awful, you are bad at this, you will be bad at this, you aren’t liked by anyone, you are wrong (again).
And so, I send myself back to Doubtmoor Prison. A repeat offender with little chance of reform.
When my self-doubt kicks in, a cascade of anxiety follows. Or it may even be the other way round, anxiety followed by doubt. Like the chicken and the egg scenario, I am not sure which comes first, and wonder if they can actually be separated.
All I know is, that for me personally, self-doubt is self-sabotage. It keeps me stuck in the same place. It makes me quit before even starting. It stops me from doing the things I want to do. And it takes me a lot of effort to push past this thinking.
I started The Lilac in the hopes I’d finally push past the sentencing and take a shot at an appeal. But for the most part I’ve found myself obsessing over every detail, editing every word until I may as well delete the post entirely. And for the past two months, I have been all-consumed by anxiety and self-doubt, wondering whether I should bother continuing with this website and at many times wishing I hadn’t started it.
And yet I know I would have regretted not doing something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
I’m not the kind of person who can use my own or another’s doubts and criticisms as ammunition. I’m the kind who gets hit once, falls to the ground with only a flesh wound which I subsequently allow to fester to the point that said body part needs removing. My logic being, if I no longer do something, I can’t doubt myself and feel anxious over it.
As a result, what I do has dwindled down to the things that very rarely include other people or require putting myself ‘out there’. I’ve been following social distancing rules and quarantining myself long before COVID entered everyone’s lives.
For years, I had a desire to travel the world, and for a time my bank account had a reasonable sum to make that happen. But I could never give myself the push to actually do it because my mind was full with the “what ifs” and “what do I do when I get back?”. And so, my passport remains relatively unused and my wanderlust remains unsatiated.
I used to enjoy cooking for others, but expectantly hoping for a compliment (and only a compliment) from a particular family member took all the fun out of it so then I’d only get irritable. Now, I mostly cook for myself and rarely, very reluctantly, cook for others.
I used to talk to people about my hopes and dreams openly. But now, after years of “why do you want to do that?”, “there’s no money in that”, “you should do this instead”, if anyone brings up a question relating to my career or future I immediately shut down and my responses become a minimal mix of mhmm, yeah and not sure, all the while I’m desparately hoping the subject will change.
And job hunting, after finalising my degree at the end of October, has become a minefield riddled with self-doubt. Every job description I read, I presume I won’t be any good at and so put myself off applying. I can’t even bring myself to set my CV on Indeed to public; so used to picking myself apart and sentencing in one go that I unfairly project my doubts on to potential employers and presume they will do the same.
But I have come to realise that I have been utilising two key actions to help me push past many of my doubts and move forward with my goals in recent months.
The first action is breaking everything down into very tiny steps, so while progress may feel glacial at times, it is progress nonetheless. I forget about the overall goal as each tiny step becomes a goal in itself. Some I find easy to accomplish and the doubt/anxiety double act take a break, while other steps I find the double act take centre stage and make a lot of noise.
So, in order for me to sit through the double act, the second action comes into play. Seeking accountability from another person; in my case, it’s my Mum. I have found that being honest and vocal with the doubts I am having about a particular goal has resulted in my Mum checking in to see if I have completed it and offering encouragement and advice when I haven’t. She makes sure that my finger finally hits the button to publish on WordPress, send in Gmail, or submit on a job application.
These actions may not be infallible and at times the doubt/anxiety duo prove too loud, but together these actions have been helping me push through self-doubt and finally stick two fingers up at my anxiety. And while I still have little idea what self-esteem is, having only heard about it in fairy tales and self-help books, I hope that if I keep on pushing then at some point my doubts will no longer come to control my actions and define who I am.
You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Maya Angelou
The Lilac 