This may be your #1 enemy.
Crouched in your mind, it’s lurking to spit some scorching fire about how you are not good enough to succeed. Spreading lies about how everything you want to contribute is already being done by someone else, but in a better way.
You lean in listening to more lies and live afraid. The Stealthy Self-Doubt Dragon loves to steal your fire. Consuming it until your passion dies out and is used against you to consume you.
Sinister and sneaking whispers that say “It will fail. You will be a fool.” Underneath boiling, dishonest breath follows: “There is no point to your dreams, you do not make a difference. Funny you should try!”
The Stealthy Self-Doubt Dragon is a loser. Reciting your failure as inevitable. Describing failure to be the end of you – like you could never learn something valuable from it. As though perfection in the first round is better than growth in the second round.
What started it all??
Did you see a need to fill? Did you realize a vision to grow? Did you learn something you can’t wait to teach?
Is that when the doubt crept in? Increasing its racket as you shifted direction toward a possible triumph?
Why then, would a dragon keep you from going forth? With what power can you be stopped but by your own?
The Stealthy Self-Doubt Dragon says you do not have what it takes to defeat failure for victory. What a seething tongue of garbage lies!
The truth is, mere humans have moved society forward! Not because they were the best, but because they were willing to show up and do the work. They slain their dragons each day.
The truth is, the fire-breathing façade keeping you from exploring your success is an illusion; merely a cartoon.
What lies defeat your purpose?
If you were to forge a defense against the self-doubt beast, try purpose and passion as materials to wield. Fold them together under the heat of intense focus. Your dragon will usurp you with great difficulty, if at all!
Skill happens when knowledge is applied while growing experience. The pain of being a fool over and over forms a callous of competence.
After slaying so many dragons you see they only survive when you feed them. You defeat them when fear no longer leads you straight into the liars’ lairs.
What does your Stealthy Self-Doubt Dragon tell you?
How does your dragon keep you from running after your vision and purpose?
Are your injuries in failing while you try worse than the regret of giving up or never having tried at all?
Will you take the journey to claim your Dragon?
You could tell yourself the first step is the most important one.
But then up close you see it is the next one, and the next, and the next three. The steps that are the most important to take are the moves that are the hardest to take.
The strides that you take after you’ve bled your feet and skinned your knees to the bones – when standing seems impossible – those are the most important steps to push through.
Those are the steps in the trenches, the ones near the finish lines.
A journey forged under fire is one that yields the strongest material. The Stealthy Self-Doubt Dragon stands no chance when you fire back using your own brilliant blaze.
So stand firm, look your dragon in the eye and declare to gain strength through your fumbling, power through your learning, resolve through trying again, and victory through every new failure that leads to new answers and better questions.
Because triumph comes to those who know it is not a question of if “CAN I?” but rather a question “WILL I?”
So get to slayin’!
If you defeated your self doubt, will you share with us in the comments what helped you realize your impact?