Lack of self belief

When will I start believing in myself?

Recently, I cried a lot, very often. There are days that I cried till my eyes got swollen and till I ran out my tissue papers.

I cried because work got too hard, because entrepreneurship is scary, because the future seems a bit confusing, because of my parents' relationship, because of missing my college friends...

The list goes on and sometimes I cry because I just do:) There are no clear reasons why.

And a lot of the times, I have been crying because I have a negative feeling about myself, specifically from work.

When work gets hard, when work doesn't turn out the way I want it to be, instead of looking into the WHY and the HOW, I go into blaming myself and feeling disappointed in myself.

"I am not good enough."

"I am not capable."

"I have been working on this venture for nearly 4 years now. Why have I not gotten better at running meetings, leading teams, building products, thinking more rigorously...?"

And do you know what is worse?

The more I cry, I more I feel upset that I am letting my work at the moment control how I feel about myself.

Deep down, I know that work is a tiny piece of life. But when I don't perform well, I often let it consume me. I let it shape how I think about myself, influence my relationships with my team and my loved ones, and make me want to work more to prove that I can be better.

But isn't that me letting my ego taking over me? I shouldn't be working to prove that I am better, should I? I should be working because I enjoy it, because I learn a lot, because I can make a positive impact, and because I get to build relationships.

I have been wondering a lot whether this emotional turmoil inside me comes from my lack of belief in myself.

I came across this quote from "Clear Thinking" by Shane Parrish about self confidence:

Self confidence is about trusting in your abilities and your values to others. Self confidence gives you the strength to acknowledge your deficiencies.

These quotes made me think a bit differently about my confidence.

I have been letting my ego take the front seat. I am afraid of facing the reality, facing my flaws, facing when I am wrong. I want to protect my self image more than feeling that I am not good enough for my work.

Deep down, I do believe in myself to a certain extent. I do believe that I am capable in my work to a certain extent. Every time work doesn't turn out the way I want, it hurts my image in my own eyes and other people's eyes. That ego, that self belief is being attacked.

But the attacker is my own self, setting an expectation that I have to reach a certain point, be a certain way, achieve certain things.

I should not let current lack of self belief consume me. Yes, I might not believe in myself now, but that doesn't mean I cannot believe in myself ever. Self belief is not fixed. Self belief is an evolving process. Being confident in myself means trusting in my ability to evolve and coevolve with the problem the people.

The past few weeks and the past month, these feelings of not confident, not good enough haunted me and they still sometimes do.

Yesterday, I felt very content at the end of the day.

In one of our courses, the design needed some tweaks the past week. I was really nervous and scared about adapting to the problems that arose.

Nothing is 'fixed' yet. But yesterday, I acknowledged that some students have trying out the new design and feeling out the values of it. I acknowledged the effort that I put in to coevolve with the problem.

New problems and challenges will always arise. I just need to believe and trust in my ability to grow with them and bring more values.

Thank you for reading <3

I hope we will all trust in our ability to grow, even if we are not confident (yet).