How often do you doubt yourself?

Posted 15Jun2017.

From time to time, doubt creeps in:

“What am I doing?”

“Do I know what the hell I’m about?”

“Am I self-delusional?”

Ecetera…

Then I remember a couple of quotes:

…That’s why I don’t believe you can fail. You only fail if you give up. The second you decide ‘Aw, I’m not gonna do it’… “Aw, I’ll just give up,” that’s YOU making that choice. You’re the one choosing to fail. You have to make the decision to fail. Whereas, if you don’t ever make that decision, you say “No… I’m just going to keep on going until it friggin’ happens” well, then you don’t fail. You’re just in the process of making it happen.

I looked at the ice cream scoop in my hand, my chocolate bespattered apron, and my future in the world of minimum wage work… Or I could go up to New York and audition for this crazy band who was my favorite… What’s the worst is going to happen to me? I miss a day of work? Ooh… There goes 21 bucks… and I get humiliated in front of my favorite band. Yeah humiliation and young people kind of go together – I was used to it.

The first one starts at 8:58 – Jeb Corliss’ views on failure. The second starts at 2:10 – Henry Rollins on the moment he decided to join Black Flag.

I have had moments of doubt hit me at inopportune times: performing duties as an instructor in the Army, conducting hoist training missions in garrison (non-deployed status), and even when I was in the process of doing CPR on a patient as we rushed him to Balad from the wreckage of his HMMWV after it was hit by a roadside IED:

“What am I doing?”

“Do I know what the hell I’m about?”

“Am I self-delusional?”

Then there is suddenly no time for those thoughts. What I was trained to do, the task at hand, and my attention went right back to the moment and those which followed because, despite my doubts… despite my questions… the thing I was most afraid of was not the answer of “Uh, nope” but of failing the people who relied on me… the fear of failing myself. You drive on and question later, if at all.

If you doubt yourself, occupy yourself in a way that leaves no doubt that who you are, what you are doing, and your potential you are fulfilling is a work in progress.

Doubt and fear will kill you. Either it will cause that moment of hesitation or indecision at the worst possible time, or it will kill your soul with endless ponderings of the chances and opportunities you passed on.