Life is tough man. I know everyone says that but you never really understand how tough it is until you have to walk through the fire yourself. You will never understand the hardships that adults warn you about when you are in your adolescent years, until you are forced to take them head on. Once you finally enter into adulthood life usually changes for the better, and that’s a good thing! You can finally do whatever you want without checking in with mom and dad.
However, what no adult ever warns you about is the cycle of self-doubt that you find yourself going through almost on a daily basis. And this cycle is way more vicious than the cycle of self-doubt in your adolescent years. Now I’m only in my 20s, so maybe you learn to stop doubting yourself once you get to your 30s? So far, my glorious years have been filled with nothing but stress, overwhelming thoughts and feelings, and a whole lot of self-doubt.
Self-doubt about what? About everything! I put myself through college and felt accomplished but at the same time that I needed to challenge myself more. So what did I do? I went on to graduate school, and thought for sure that my education journey would have ended after getting my Master’s, but it didn’t. As a result of that I find myself doubting my ability to secure jobs that require you to have a Master’s degree or higher. Why? I have no idea why! It could be due to the fact that I entered the workforce in my 20s and may potentially feel like I am navigating through it too fast. I could also feel this way as a result of not ever seeing a career progression before in my life, so I’m experiencing a lot of self-doubt about whether or not what I’m doing is “normal”.
I also find myself constantly doubting where I am in life. I am single. I am a full-time student and have been a full-time student for the past 7 years of my life. I have no kids (although I do consider my nephew and nieces to be my children). I don’t really have any friends, and my life literally revolves around my family and my job. So I feel alone a lot of the time. The funny thing about this is that I like to be by myself, which may be due to the fact that I’m always surrounded by people, but I don’t like to be alone. And I don’t necessarily think that I live a lonely life, sometimes I just find myself questioning what it is I am doing with my life. That questioning turns into self-doubt which begins the whole cycle of giving up on myself, because I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life anyways.
Right?
Wrong.
The other day I was having a conversation with a good friend of mines about how important it is to no give up on yourself and create doubt within yourself. When we do this we are comparing ourselves, our lives, our failures, and our success to that of others. We may not know what we are doing this, and sometimes we may know that we are doing this and just don’t want to admit it. Whatever the case may be, it’s a vicious cycle that quickly eats away at any inspiration or motivation we may find to pursue the kind of life we are pursuing.
When you are in your 20s you are going to doubt yourself, and give up on yourself many, many times. No adult ever warns you about this, but they should! You think you have everything figured out in your adolescent years until you turn 18 and realize that you don’t. Then you enter your 20s and you think that your life is going to just take off and be the best years ever, and they very well could be, but not every single day is going to better than the one before. No one tells you this! Why? Do adults think that if they did they would scare us away from adulthood? Well I hate to break it to you all but time only moves forward.
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There are many reasons as to why we find ourselves doubting ourselves. I know for me as of late it’s been because I’m not thriving in my career, and everything I have ever wanted in life is right at my fingertips but I have yet to find a way to just grab hold of it all. But this is how it all begins. We start to get picky with our lives, and start to compare it to that of others, and we are creating the idea that we are doing absolutely nothing with our life. This leads to self-doubt which can sink into our consciousness and trick us into giving up on yourself. So then what do we do? We begin a cycle of suddenly losing interests in things and finding all the excuses in the world as to why something in our life no longer has value or meaning.
We have to stop allowing such toxic ideals sink into our consciousness. We have to stop doubting ourselves. It’s not healthy, it’s not motivating, and it most certainly is not inspiring. If anything, it is exhausting!
So, from this day moving forward I’m making a vow to myself to stop doubting my abilities, my skills, my dreams, my aspirations, and most importantly where I am in my life right now on a daily basis. I will allow the self-doubt to sink in every once in a while, but I will no longer let it be a daily habit that I participate in simply due to the comfort of knowing that it’s easier to blend in than to stand out. I am going to combat such thinking by looking to things that inspire me rather than motivate me.
When I feel inspired by something I feel like I can accomplish anything. I feel like nothing I dream or envision for myself is too big or too small, but instead that everything I can see for myself is exactly what I can make it be. I feel like though my life may not be everything that I want it to be right now, I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now. When I feel motivated by something I’ll admit that it’s temporary. That motivation gets me to the door to do the things that need to get done, but it doesn’t get me to the actual act of making things happen.
Motivation and inspiration go hand in hand, but it’s really the inspiration that forces you to make the most of every moment. Being inspired encourages you to not give up on yourself, or to not doubt yourself just because everything isn’t “perfect”. Being inspired encourages you to just pick yourself up and to keep moving forward in life. Being inspired encourages you to not let any negativity get the best of you.
It’s really important to know the difference between something that is going to motivate you to keep moving forward, and something that is going to inspire you to keep moving forward.
When we have a strong and healthy sense of mind we can live a strong and healthy kind of life. This comes with great practice, but just like with everything that we do, the more we practice something the more likely it is to become a habit for us. To combat my daily battle of self-doubt I am going to work harder, and become better at making these five things a daily habit for me.
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1. Be thoughtful
The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, is a great guide about how to get out of your own way in order to allow greatness to unfold. This book is based off of the idea that consistently being positive gets us nowhere. We have to let the good, the bad, the ugly, and the many moments of self-doubt happen in order to become more fulfilled people.
2. Take care of yourself
Our health is very important. How we feel on the inside is always going to reflect how we feel on the outside. One way that I have been committing to taking care of myself is by drinking as much water throughout the day that I possibly can. I make sure to have a water bottle with me everywhere that I go as a reminder that what I’m feeding my body matters because it sets the tone for how I will treat my body, which ultimately defines what I will make of myself in every moment.
3. Tune the world out
Block out all the negativity, self-doubt, and urges to compare your life to others simply by tuning the world out. One of my favorite ways to turn those voices of negativity down is by putting on my headphones, and getting lost in the sound of music. This allows me to be more focused on the here and now, because after all that is what matters most.
4. Better yourself
Taking the time everyday to better yourself will always help you build a stronger and more resistant frame of mind. I like to do this by practicing mindfulness yoga for at least an hour, at least once a week. Ideally, I would love to take the time to do this on a daily basis, but for where I am right now in my life, this is a hard commitment to make. So I will take what I can get where I can get it.
5. Inspire yourself
In order to remain in a healthy frame of mind we have to constantly revisit the things that breathe life into us. For me these are my dreams, which represents what I want my life to look like. The more you work at bringing that vision to life, the more likely you are able to see that vision come to life. A great way to keep track of your goals and dreams is to write it all down in a journal.
Our 20s are meant to be the years of discovering who we really are and finding our place in the world. We have to stop putting so much pressure on the idea that we’re supposed to be thriving in our careers, married with children, and just living our best lives according to the ridiculous standards set by society. It’s so much easier to listen to all the negativity in the world, trust me I know. But if we always took the easy way out then what would be the point of experiencing all that life has to offer? Life is a battlefield and only the strong survive.
So be one of the strong ones. Make your mark on this world and survive. Let go of all the self-doubt, all the negativity, and all the urges to just give up. Take a deep breath and just breathe. Life is tough, but so are you.
-Xo
Kimora
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