memo to me: let your confidence come from trying

I feel resistant. Maybe because I know it’s something I’m supposed to do. I can feel it in my heart. I want to do it. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid that I can’t.

What if I try and it’s not as good as I want it to be? What if I’m not as good as I want to be? What if I’m not good enough for anyone to care?

What if…

What if…

What if…

What if…

What if…

What if…

Who gives a fuck?

Where’d you get the idea the things you do have to be anything other than what they are…. just something you did.

Where did you get the idea “if I’m gonna do it, it better be the most amazing version of what i can do”?

Like really, where did that idea come from? You weren’t born with it.

Have you ever met a little kid? They’ll show you the worst drawing in the world with a smile like they put the stars in the sky.

Why don’t you allow yourself to just do things for fun anymore?

Why do you feel like the things you do have to amount to something to be worth doing?

Why are you commoditizing yourself like that?

Who cares if you don’t know how to play a game, or you suck at drawing or baking isn’t your strong suit…

What’s the worst that will happen?

It sucks? You lose?

So what? Is your world going to end cause your drawing wasn’t pretty or the cookies taste like shit?

Are you afraid if you do something and it’s not excellent, its confirmation that you suck?

So maybe the problem is the way you allow your performance to dictate your worth.

You don’t know how to love yourself when you’re not in a state of excellence.

Why are you judging yourself so harshly?

Why do you create unreasonable expectations for yourself?

So you inevitably don’t meet them and you have another reason to hate yourself?

After all, that’s what you’re committed to isn’t it?

Hating yourself?

That’s what perfectionism is.

Finding reasons you don’t deserve your own love – or the love of anyone else.

You don’t try because fear tells you if you don’t do it perfect, you’re a failure and you can’t live with the shame of failing

But when you don’t try, you still feel like a failure and still hate yourself for it.

What if you tried and didn’t make your worth dependent on the outcome?

What if you tried without such high standards and expectations?

What if you tried with the expectation of being bad at it and allowed that to be ok and to have fun with it anyways?

What if you felt secure in your worth independent from how you perform? (in work, in life, in creative matters)

It’s all just a mindset. A perspective shift.  

Make a commitment to notice when you don’t do something because “what if I fail? What if it’s not good? What if I can’t?”

Make a commitment to notice when you’re allowing the perceived quality of something you create to dictate how you feel about yourself (“painting a picture then feeling bad because other people can paint ~better~”)

Notice the internal monologue of shame and judgment that overshadows what you want to do.

How will your life be different when you drop that narrative?

How will your life be different when you decide you’re allowed to feel good about yourself regardless of the perceived quality of what you create?

What if the simple act of trying was all it took to make you feel good?

You’re in charge of the benchmark.

If you place it somewhere unattainable, you’re always going to be miserable.

You can choose to move it. Lower your standards for yourself.

That doesn’t mean settling or giving up on greatness it’s just lowering the definition of what you need to feel good.

The only greatness that is truly sustainable, and in my opinion even worth it, is the greatness achieved from a place of feeling good.

If you want to do it

if there’s something pulling you to it….

Forget about how well you think you will or won’t perform. TRY IT.

Let trying be your source of confidence.