Voices Of BHX: Dealing With That Pesky Thing Called Self Doubt

What should you do when you just don’t feel good enough? When the first sign of trouble brings up all the fears and insecurities you think you’ve dealt with?

As professionals, and particularly those in the creative field, we often face massive amounts of rejection. In fact, one of the most common statements we hear at the Beachhouse Project is that a successful, skilled and accomplished professional just does not feel good enough.

Shocking as it may seem, some research shows that the more we learn and grow, the less sure we are of ourselves. When BHX Bali resident Akanksha was in her late teens, she started her first job. Very soon, she realised that she wanted more, and felt that pursuing an MBA would give her the skills, and the street-cred, she needed to build something more for herself.

The only issue? Mathematics.

If that sounds like your story, know just this- the similarities do not end here. In Akanksha’s case, the worst thing that happened was not her fear of a subject, nor self-doubt, but the fact that no one ever expected too much from her. That’s the thing about social expectations- too much and too little can both do harm.

When she didn’t eventually make it to the B-School she wanted to, Akanksha immediately assumed that it was an inherent flaw in her that caused her to fail. Today, as the head of a successful PR firm, she is able to detach from the situation and look at it more objectively.

Luckily for us, she has time on how to deal with quicksand when you’re actually still in it.

Not Feeling Good Enough Is A Great Experience To Have!

Can you take some clay and make something beautiful from it? Can you look at every failure, over and over again, and challenge that failure to try pulling you down once again? Every successful individual in the history of humankind has failed. You’ve probably heard that often enough, but let’s really put that into perspective.

Galileo Galilei is in all our science and history textbooks today, but back when he was alive, he was tortured and exiled for telling people that the Earth goes around the Sun and not vice-versa. Vincent van Gogh killed himself at the age of 37, unable to bear the rejection of his work and abject poverty. Do any of these instances look like success?

These are, of course, the worst-case scenarios. Best case, you die as one among a team that made a breakthrough innovation, and the world doesn’t know too much about you.

What we need to tackle, then, is the feeling of not being good enough, itself. We have several different ways of doing that.

You can choose to tackle the feeling itself and weed it out from the root. This is where Jigar’s story from an earlier journal entry comes in. Sometimes, too much criticism, even the kind that starts from within, can do more harm than good. The best thing to do, then, is to get rid of it entirely.

However, some people find that a degree of uncertainty in the path, a certain amount of trepidation is actually a good thing. It clears up the mind and makes you sensitive to threats. In other words, it ensures that you start something new with full disclosure on what to expect.

In Akanksha’s Words

When you have doubts about your own worthiness, nothing anyone else says on the subject can resonate with you. I have experienced this, too. But what I also did is find a thought framework that allows me to treat the situation more objectively when I do face rejection or fears about how well I might or might not do.

Every thought is basically an amalgamation of three things. When you are faced with a situation that puts you in conflict with yourself, you have your emotions which are instantaneous responses. Then, you have your feelings which point to specific instances in the past when you faced a similar situation. Lastly, you have reality, which often gets the smallest amount of our attention.

The key is to process the emotions, soften the blow of the feelings and magnify reality. It takes immense amounts of practice but it really works. When you place the highest weightage on what is actually happening as opposed to what you perceive as happening, you can look at things with a more detached perspective. More significantly, you get to observe as an outsider and not make it about yourself, which in turn means that you do not criticise yourself.

When you start doing this and don’t quite get it yet, talk to people and ask them to help you see what’s real. You don’t have to do it alone!

Quote: Marco Pierre White once told me, “In business as in life, you must learn to be vulnerable.” I am who I am, and it is enough for now.

The Beachhouse Project is where fifteen creative minds meet in one secret villa for seven days. The result? Magic. We are now a tribe of over 150+ creatives who continue to learn and grow from each other well after their residency ended. To apply for your chance, go on over to https://bhx.theexperience.co