<aside> đź’ś Some of my thoughts on making sure you can power through feelings of self-doubt, and try to move on.

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Perfection is never a realistic goal, and beating yourself up over some details that you’ve missed, is going to detract you from looking at your overall wins. The end of a project might not look like the end you imagined, but it’s important to recognise everything you did that led to the completion of that project, take away some learnings, and move on.

Hey, we’ve all been there. Maybe this time something you’ve made, had some problems. Perhaps this week you’ve seen a few too many angry, red errors on your screen and you’re wondering what’s happened to your craft. Has something taken you by surprise, and you weren’t prepared to have a difficult conversation? Did someone say something, to make you feel small, under the guise of being “a straight-talker”? Different occasions will have a different root, but that feeling is the same. You feel tiny, wonder whether you’re good enough, if you belong in this field, and worst of all, whether things are ever going to get any better.

Firstly, let me begin by reminding you that this happens to us all, in some areas of our life or another. You’ve probably felt this feeling before, and you’ve managed to navigate through this feeling, and do some amazing things, and you will this time too.

Brag Folder

Sometimes it can get to the end of the year and you’ve forgotten everything you’ve ever worked on. Each week and month is filled with so many accomplishments, that keeping a brag folder can help remind you on lots of things:

Having these details are great to refer back to, and it’s wonderful to go through evidence as proof of what you’re capable of, and where you’ve grown from.

However, this can all seem a bit too formal. And in moments of self-doubt, these details can seem hollow. You may even distance yourself and your contributions from these achievements, and start to think things like “..but x person helped me out so much with this”, or “I got lucky...” etc.

Find What Drives You

If you’re finding that going through your brag folder feels a bit hollow, or isn’t helping you to push through self-doubt, you might need to dig deeper, and ask yourself more reflective questions. You might find that your brag folder only makes up a small portion of what you need, in order to push through feelings of self-doubt.

In coaching, there are many models we use to get people to think about their goals, access their current situation and plan the route to get to their desired destination. It can be useful to use these models as a way of steering you away from the shaky feeling of self-doubt.

So, really think about it. What drives you? When you’ve had a really good day, why? What values were fulfilled, that made you have a really good day?