Stop! Never second-guess yourself.

I woke up reflective this morning. My past week flashed through my eyes as I realized how proactive I’ve been about improving my life, and I think I have done well in a short time. With MI Abaga’s ‘Stop! Never second-guess yourself’ playing in the background, and a tweet shot about the importance of not self-rejecting one’s self right on my phone’s screen, it’s like the universe set me up for writing this piece.

What I’m about to share is really important. It’s from a personal standpoint, and I feel like a lot of us find ourselves in this situation. The situation where we judge ourselves and tell ourselves the lie that we are not qualified enough to do things. I’ve caught myself doing this a lot of times, my best pieces have not been read, it’s somewhere in my draft because I think it’s not cool enough to be out there. I pass on awesome applications because I feel like I’m not qualified enough, or my essay won’t be stellar enough to get me a position.

But I’ve come to realize that all that is crap and I’ve just been self-sabotaging these whole time, and here is how I’m changing it:

This is something I started to implement recently: I do not allow myself to subjectively judge my output anymore.

I just don’t.

I don’t allow myself to be in a position where I say: “Oh man, this post really sucks. Nah, this article is not worth posting. I don’t have a shot at this.”

I don’t get to do that anymore and that has been a huge shift in my mindset and it has unlocked the feeling of freedom that just allows me to focus on doing, asking for feedback and then based on feedback and data I go ahead and refine, polish and improve.

Don’t allow yourself to be the one that decides whether your work sucks or it’s a 10, rely on feedback & data instead.

C’mon bro! You just put in the work to create something, you should not stress over it being perfect in the same breath. This is not to downplay the importance of knowing your strengths or working on the quality of your work. It is the call to make sure your quest for perfection doesn’t stop you from putting your work out. It’s progress over perfection, and it’s super cute to see your progress and growth over time whenever you look back. It gives you a sense of satisfaction and the confidence that there’s room for more growth.

I think we’re all our own worst critics, and enabling a perfectionist mindset alongside a comparative mindset makes you produce less output overall.

Operating this way will discourage you from taking potential opportunities as well, so it’s best to try and work through any internal issues that you have. I really encourage people to try practices like cognitive behavioural therapy. Perfect for getting over perfectionism. I just thought it might be helpful to share my experience if there are people here in our community that end up missing opportunities or not taking their shots just because they judge their work and themselves way too hard.

Shoot your shot. Get after it. You are amazing.