What Happens When Curiosity Replaces Caution

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"Self-doubt is a choice."

When I heard this comment from the star of the show I was streaming, my first thought was “Of course you’d say that, given your position in life.”

But it ate at me, as things do when they need deeper thought. The statement ran through my head for days, I talked about it with Mark, then ultimately put it up against the lens of my own life.

I’ve retreated from experiences, big and small, because of self-doubt. It became a story with endless sequels, the litany of “I can’t, because…”. Sometimes the reasons were sound. Many times, they were based in fears of looking foolish and being ridiculed (I don’t mind making mistakes if no one sees them), or my lack of confidence in not just my skills, but who I was as a person. Ouch.

An experiment was begging to be made: for one week, I’d choose to lay my habit of self-doubt aside. Behave as if, now that I'm in my late fifties, I've learned a few things. Grand or humble, I truly believe all of us have a purpose, but I’d spent most of my life acting as if what I was doing was too small to be called such an expansive word. I see now that purpose is what gets us out of bed in the morning, and adds depth to a life that would otherwise feel like running on a treadmill; going fast but getting nowhere doing it.

Self-confidence (and most other iterations of "self" words) is a common topic for many of us to read about, chase, develop, or downplay. Personally, I've translated having self-confidence as an internal process that feels downright slippery; some days I have "it," most days I don't. Easily shaken, tough to reclaim. By making the choice to give up self-doubt, I've noticed that though I'm not focused on building confidence, there's a new feeling of feeling fundamentally okay, even as life seems to tremble and sway around me. This might be the first stirrings of having a secure sense of how I can interface with the world in my own way, as opposed to someone else's advice about the right way.

My experiment choosing belief in my choices is now two months old and going strong. I’ve enrolled me and my puppy in beginner agility classes, and I’m also taking a beginner’s knitting class at our local quilt shop. The word “beginner”

causes a ripple of excitement. Though learning can be uncomfortable, what keeps me going is this growing sensation of not using my mistakes to bolster my self-doubt. Instead, I allow myself to learn without the negative internal monologue.

Self-doubt kept me from experiencing a fuller life, even though I thought it was keeping me safe. I’m old enough to know that life is going to happen whether we build a fortress against it or not. The treadmill of doubting ourselves is one we can’t afford to keep running on, not when our lives are finite, and growing more so each hour.  Once I began to live the knowledge that our life is a series of internal decisions lived outwardly, I'm discovering the power of Anais Nin’s remark: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”