Do away with self-doubt
Embrace your own opinions
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I was in primary school. I seemed to be different. Instead of doing the things all same-aged boys did, I wanted to learn about the internet and it’s workings.
That’s controversial, because at the same time I was trying to be a part of social life by changing my opinions to match the ones of my classmates. I learned to continuously adapt to the other’s opinions instead of getting a grip on my own.
This isn’t right in many ways. While I was being a leader at home by experimenting with things my peers where afraid of, I was becoming a follower when I was at school.
Last week, I was in Lisbon with a group of young people from all over Europe. It was where I met someone who made me realise that the follower in me was still there – in many ways, actually.
She made me see the opportunities I forgot to seize.
While vaguely knowing this for years, it never really came to me how strongly I had developed this following behavior. At that moment, I realised that things needed to change. I was missing out on things.
Back in Holland, I had a conversation with my best friend – one of the leaders I’ve been following for a long time. Don’t understand me wrong, he has given me a lot of opportunities and without him, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.
He made me see that there’s no need for doubt about what I was thinking or feeling. I finally saw how I was caged by self-doubt, and how continuously following only strengthened this metaphorical cage.
Become your own leader
Think about your opinions, but don’t doubt them. Then, you might drown in self-doubt. This way you will never have the courage to stand up and speak out, and let people know about what you think.
Keep trusting your own views and write them down. It gives you more space to rethink those thoughts and improve them. You will start to be more self-confident and will be able to build up trust between you and your mind.
If only you’re able to do this, you can finally ditch the tiresome self-doubt that might have been there for way too long. Give way to the leader that’s inside of you and let it express itself!
