Self -Doubt is One of Your Biggest Enemies
Sometimes, we unknowingly nurture habits and emotions which only leads us to be unhappy and dissatisfied. We end up pushing ourselves to lead a life where we struggle each day because we lack self-confidence and self-esteem. Unfortunately, I have been a victim of low self-esteem and self-confidence and I realized this much later. All of this negativity stem from self-doubt, at least that’s what happened in my case.
Almost half a decade back, I had discovered my passion for writing and sharing stories with the world. I decided to not let my passion die and pursued it. I started to freelance for online magazines, wrote under an array of subjects. I had written on lifestyle, which ranged from life to relationships to women-centric issues.
Monetary compensation while freelancing was never my focus and was a mere added benefit. I started to write and I continued only because I was passionate about writing and I loved to see how people related to what I shared.
Unfortunately, irrespective of how exceedingly passionate I was about writing, I gave up on it a couple of years back. I had given up because of a few people’s reactions to my articles. These few would often open up my articles and listicles, start reading it out loud, and would make fun of it. Maybe they intended to only pull my leg or crack a joke considering my articles mostly encompassed relationships, women-centric issues, and my experiences in life. While these few cracked multiple jokes, I always stood there with a wry smile, letting the world crush my passion and motivation.
Little did anyone know that these remarks of theirs were demotivating me. I suddenly was no longer proud of my work, instead, I started to feel ashamed. I was made to feel or rather I let them make me feel as though what I wrote was utter rubbish and that I wasn’t good enough. After a series of such instances, I stopped writing altogether. I no longer wrote captions on the images I used to post over social media because I feared that someone would pull those out and pass comments which would demotivate me further.
Today, after over a year and a half or so, I’ve realized that I let those people get to me, I let them demotivate me and unfortunately, I gave up on my passion. Honestly, I don’t blame them. I should have never let people make me feel that I wasn’t good enough and I shouldn’t have given up on my passion. Now that I know where I went wrong, here I am, back at what I love.
We often end up believing what another person says or thinks about us, leading us to doubt our capabilities. Constructive criticism should always be welcomed but I don’t think we should let people demotivate and discourage us. Well, I believe, there will always be people who will constantly try to make you feel inferior or pull you down. It is completely up to you as to how you react to such a situation.
It takes years to love yourself and be confident of yourself. Do not let people just walk into your life and inflict self-doubt in you. Always remember that you know yourself better than anyone else and you do not need to consider their opinions and kill yourself from within.
You’ll be the only one at a loss if you ever decide to tame self-doubt. Stop feeding and nurturing self-doubt.
Be brave enough to love yourself. Be brave enough to go after your dreams. Be brave enough to take in constructive criticism. Be brave enough to ignore those who inflict self-doubt and demotivate you.
