The Graceful Human

If you were to ask me what is one thing that frustrates me the most about myself, I would say that sometimes I am riddled with self doubt. This “bad trait” of mine, unfortunately has followed me through so many phases and stages of my life.

Here is what tends to be my structure – I have this awesome idea, or something I want to try – but all of a sudden, doubt appears like an uninvited dinner guest. That same ‘awesome’ idea I was excited about, I second, third, and fourth guess myself and then talk myself into not going forward.  Days, sometimes even weeks go by of contemplating this idea, and the zest and momentum to do it slowly dies down until I reach the point of getting caught up with something else that’s going on and then I forget about it altogether … well, that is until something reminds me of it and then I feel upset with myself for not doing it and would you look at that, the cycle repeats itself.

This is truly a loop of hell that I place myself in.  And to be honest, it doesn’t solely affect the action i’m trying to do. It has a MAJOR impact on my mind, attitude and resilience.

Let us take this blog as a prime example. Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to start writing? If I was to ever show you my Google Drive, or even my Notes App on my phone, you would truly be astonished ( and/or mortified) with the amount of things I have written and truly how long ago I started to write. I even have poems I wrote on paper dating back from the early 2000’s. So what stopped me? 

That damn dinner guest that I mentioned, that’s what. 

But let’s be honest here – that guest was not uninvited. I actually invited him in.

Yep… I have to let that sink in.

I have been responsible for opening the door to doubt in my own life. And how have I done that, you ask? 

Caring too much about what other people think, not trusting myself, being afraid to fail…yeah, those things.

Instead of believing in myself, and being okay with trying and potentially failing, I just decided to let the guest come to my dinner and ruin the whole meal.

The problem with this is obvious –  instead of being honest with where I am at, I try to justify the negative self talk in my head. With my justification of these behaviors, it creates this false sense of reality – I blame others, myself, life events, you name it, instead of taking accountability for just not getting it done. 

I know many people feel the same way- they have ideas that they keep tabling for whatever reason and days, months, even YEARS can go by and they watch their idea fade away – or even watch someone else take their idea and run with it.

So how does one get through this? What’s the magical way to overcome your own mind and kick the guest out?

It’s really just focusing on one word. One core, foundational word that we need to prioritize, because if not, nothing else we do will matter. We can write 1 million schedules and plans, ask AI hundreds of questions, but nothing truly matters if we don’t have this in the center of our minds.

What is it?

TRY

Just try.

Before you side-eye me, hear me out on this.

When I look back at what was stopping me from doing the things I wanted to do and didn’t, it was simply because I didn’t try.

What about you?

“ Yeah, I tried _______but it didn’t/won’t work.” 

Did you really try though? (or did you give-up when it got hard) 

Can you keep trying? (or can you not bother do it)

Can you try something different? (because there isn’t only one way to do something)

Do you want it to happen badly enough? ( or are you okay with never doing it again.)

Trying does not mean you’re automatically going to have everything work out the way you want it to. But trying builds up resilience, trying gives us a baseline for understanding and/or improvement, trying gives us the motivation to be the best we can. Also, trying is the best form of love you can show yourself.

It is easy to open the door to the dinner guest. It is easy to give up, to stop, to let that doubt creep in. But this is not where growth is. This won’t help YOU.

The guest will show up, that is often inevitable ( especially when you are changing old behaviors and patterns). But you have the power to show up for yourself, love yourself and respect yourself and shut the door. Give yourself grace, love and patience…and just TRY.