Skip to main content

The End of Self-Doubt

 


I've been thinking a lot about my career. I have been everything from a financial controller and business consultant to an artist and now a writer.

I've spent the past couple of years developing my writing chops and figuring out what I'm going to next. Lately, some very exciting opportunities have come up and with them, the old demons of fear, self-doubt, and self-sabotage.

As I've aged, the patterns of my past are becoming clearer-just before I am about to level-up in my career or business, I pull back. I use the easy excuses of wanting to care for my family, to be home with my daughter. Such excuses sound so honorable. And they are. I convince myself that I am not walking away from an opportunity because I am afraid. No sir. I am walking away because my family needs me. It makes it easy to say no when opportunities arise. Yet plenty of woman are able to raise children and have successful careers. Why didn't I believe I could too?

Letting go of my art business in 2021 was more painful than I let on to you. I have struggled with a great sadness and disappointment in myself. I failed. Worse yet, I failed as an artist. I had tried for 15 years to make a living from my art and I failed. Giving up on a dream is absolutely gutting.

I told myself I wasn't talented, not a good enough artist to make it. But that isn't necessarily true. There are, surely, better artists than me out there, but there are also worse. Regardless of talent, they achieved levels of success that I couldn't seem to achieve.

But the truth is I undercharged for my work and gave too much away free. If I don't think I'm worth it, who will? I would get approached to do licensing, to create products, write books and I wouldn't follow. My excuse was that I was too busy. I had a small child to raise, the timing wasn't right.

I am on the brink of some new opportunities with my writing and I can feel the old patterns staring their engines. Except, my daughter is going to school soon, so using her as an excuse is off the table. Instead I say to myself, "I thought you were going to retire? I thought you were trying to slow down." My sanctimonious self warns me not to get drawn back into the hustle culture.  

But now, the wiser, mature woman in me is stronger. These past few years, since giving up my art business, have changed me and I no longer believe the stories I tell myself to stay small. Success doesn't have to equal hustle but it does mean believing in myself enough to make time for opportunities, to overcome fears and self-doubt.

I got off the phone the other day from an exciting meeting. Within minutes, the critical voices started working on me, finding ways to sabotage the opportunity. But this time, I told them to hush. It is time to focus on me. I have less years ahead of me than behind and if I don't grab the bull by horns, I'll have regrets. And so I move forward, into the terrifying unknown and I hope I will be the better for it. 

When the time is right, I will be able to share my new journey with you.  You are going to love it.

But for now, to support some of the changes I'm making, I'm moving my blog/newsletter to Substack. I hope you will follow me there. There will still be free content. But Story Club and some other content and goodies will be behind a very reasonable pay wall. Monthly stories for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

Even if you don't opt for the paid subscription, we can still visit on my free posts and, I hope it will be easier for you to comment and for me to answer you. I know Blogger can be a bit finicky sometimes about comments.

To visit my new blog on Substack, please click here. There's a bit of content from this blog over there. Fresh, new articles and stories will appear in a week or two. Thanks for always being patient with me and supporting me. It means more than you will ever know.



Labels:

Comments

  1. Alondra LarreguiMay 1, 2023 at 9:39 PM

    My mom always told me that if you get the type of fear mixed with excitement, you're headed for the right thing. And I'm so happy you're putting an end to self-doubt; imposter syndrome is also the worst. This is also a very encouraging post, because I'm planning to switch to an English Literature Major and my family's lack of support is very discouraging, especially when I'm at this age where self-discovery feels like a second-puberty.

    I can't wait to read about the exciting things you'll be working on. Congratulations on your new adventure!

    ReplyDelete
  2. NicoleMay 2, 2023 at 4:22 AM

    I can't wait to see what you have in store, and good for you for silencing those voices. Undercharging is a thing that a lot of people do, including myself. Sometimes it's hard to quantify the value of things that we do. But we are more valuable than we even know! Looking forward to following your journey.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SarahMay 2, 2023 at 11:51 AM

    Ooh I can't wait to hear about these opportunities! I think the reality is that working for yourself is much harder that it appears (I wrote a little about this in my post today). Success quite frankly seems arbitrary these days; someone just happened to get lucky and so their sales are up, and someone of equal ability could be struggling for no real reason at all. I'm glad you've stuck with your writing, good things are to come, even if they are not what you envisioned.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 5, 2023 at 3:47 PM

    I know what you’re saying. It seems to be what creative go through. So glad that’s exciting things are coming your way. Hope to get your new posts. 💛

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Witcherature

  There I was in my family’s half-finished basement, surrounded by my friends. It was the mid-1970s at the end of October, in a small town in Ohio and my mom was throwing me an epic Halloween party. We had just finished a game where we sat in a circle on the old rug that barely protected our bottoms from the cold linoleum basement floor. My mom started telling us a scary story that involved body parts and, as the story went along, she would pass the ‘body parts” around the circle. It was pitch dark in the room and we could only use our hands, not our eyes. Ice cold hands (water that had been frozen in rubber gloves, a heart (peeled tomato), and eyes (peeled grapes) were solemnly passed around. My friends and I were around eight years old at the time, so we tried to laugh off our fear, tried to remind ourselves it wasn’t really body parts that were being passed around, but I think we were all relieved when the story was over, the lights turned on, and cupcakes started getting passed...
1 comment
Read more

Building a Cookbook Library

I collect cookbooks.  I know I could look-up just about any recipe online, but I can't give up my cookbooks. I love sitting down with a stack of cookbooks and planning a holiday meal or dinner party. Sometimes, if I'm feeling bored or anxious, I'll pull a favorite cookbook off the shelf and just read it. I love the photos. I love to daydream about making the dishes. Sometimes they inspire me so much I get up and bake something. To me, cookbooks are so much better than cooking blogs. Is it just me or have they gotten impossible to navigate? First there's the pop-up ads that always seem to crash the website at the very moment I'm rushing to check how long the brownies are supposed to bake. By the time I reload the website, I have burnt bricks of chocolate. I also hate the long, drawn-out stories before I get to the actual recipe. Don't get me wrong. I love a good story behind a recipe. Heck, when I share my recipes, I usually give you a story. What I hate about mo...
20 comments
Read more

Melting Reading Watching

Want to know the best way to bring on a heat wave? Blog about the lovely summer weather you are experiencing... Melting A week of heat is just breaking here and I've fallen back out of love with summer. I think I may need to move Iceland if I have any hope of truly embracing the season.  The good thing about being locked up in one's house for a week, fans carefully organized around oneself, air conditioning blasting, is that you get a lot of reading done. Since this is the year that I'm working on becoming a better writer, I've been reading more. I credit the fact that I can write to my insatiable reading habit. If you read any book about the art of writing, reading is usually touted as one of the ways to become a better writer. I patiently explain this concept to my husband and daughter whenever they find me in the middle of the day, draped over a couch, iced tea in hand, reading (instead of doing laundry or making their lunch). I'm working I announce. And I'...
15 comments
Read more

Ghosts of Christmas Past

One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was a Sindy doll’s dining set from my father’s sister, my Aunt Kathy. Aunt Kathy always bought my sisters and I the best presents. She had three boys and I think she relished the chance to hit the girl’s section of the toy store. Many of my most beloved gifts were from Aunt Kathy. I mean, she’s the one who bought me The Barbie Beauty Center Styling Head too. Oh, I can still smell it-the plastic, sweet smell. I remember the way the powdery, blue eye shadow glided onto Barbie’s perfect eyelids, smooth as silk. And how her hair, always satin blonde, immediately became tangled, never to be like new again. But back to Sindy’s dining room set. A creamy, French provincial style. It was made for Sindy dolls but at my house, Barbie took it over. Barbie was kind of priviledged and tended to think the world revolved around her so she often furnished her life from the spoils she stole from other dolls. She took my Jody doll’s dog and, worse,...
15 comments
Read more

Fridays Are For Art

Those of you who have been with me since the beginning, the ones who have watched me go from mixed media art to craft design to watercolor to embroidery, may wonder if I have abandoned all visual art. I haven’t. I just stopped sharing it.  At first, my lack of sharing came from a place of hurt and vulnerability. All those years I spent trying to make a business from my visual art came to nothing. Although I wrote bravely about closing Laura Bray Designs, it felt like a profound and humbling blow. My creativity teetered. Then something amazing happened. I began to create just for the sake of creating. Now I sit down at least once a week and make art just for pure pleasure. There is no wondering if it will sell. There is no rushing because I need to put something pretty to look at on my Instagram feed. I just create. I make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. I create the same thing repeatedly until I land in a place of complete originality. This is easier now that I am no longer...
12 comments
Read more

How to Stay Friends without Social Media

How do you stay in touch with people once you leave social media? This one of the main concerns I hear from people when they find out that I’ve quit social media. To be truthful, you will fall out of touch with some people. But you know, that’s not always a bad thing. At least it wasn’t for me. According to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, the number of people humans can sustain relationships with is 150. He based this number (called Dunbar’s Number ) on the size of the human brain. The thesis is that primates are wired to be in group sizes that will assist with survival. While there are arguments about the validity of this theory, I know I feel stressed-out when I have too many relationships going on and not enough time to nurture them.   Being a good wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend is very important to me. It brings me joy to take care of the people I love. I cook for them, check-in on them regularly, and give them my focused attention when I am with them. But I mus...
12 comments
Read more