Why Do We Doubt Ourselves?

It is often said that “change is good”, and “new things are exciting”. But I would have to disagree, because three months ago I started a new job.

Maybe disagree is a harsh word. But I can definitely conclude that the above statements are entirely subjective. Quite frankly, there is nothing “good” about not knowing how to do anything in your new environment. And there is nothing “exciting” about being entirely useless without the guidance of the person training you.

Or at least, this was my way of thinking prior to becoming independent, after a long, tiring, and frustrating three months’ probation.

For weeks on end, I would watch my coworkers as they performed their daily financial retail tasks. I looked on as they would open their tills, close their tills, and balance their tills by counting and ensuring all the money was there. They would “request money from the safe”, “float money back to the safe”, and a whole bunch of things that I had a hard time believing I would ever really understand how to do.

Despite dying to be on my own, so that I too could do all the financial retail stuff, and having a sickening desire to be free to work without someone peering over my shoulder, there were a lot of things I was dreading doing without someone leading the way.

The truth is, I’m always the girl that knows what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Every job I’ve ever had I’ve mastered in just under a month. My social skills and urgency to learn and be independent is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing when you are free to flourish, a curse when seniority is priority.

So you can only imagine the horror of waking up every day and heading to this job where each shift lasts 8 hours and you’re the youngest one there. Every day you learn something new, not from an organized manual but from someone whispering “by the way” to you every time you mess up.

If there is one word that just about sums up the last three months of my life-in-training, the word would be “humbling”.

According to the dictionary, the definition of humbling is:

“Marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit; not arrogant or prideful.”

I’ve come to learn that humbling experiences are often the things we fall upon by chance. Striking up a conversation with a stranger whose life tells a completely different story than yours can be humbling. Being the victim of a natural disaster can be humbling. Starting a new job and being rather disabled, in the sense that you are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of knowledge and ability can be, rather, is very, very humbling.

This last week, I had a closing shift. My heart didn’t start racing at lightning speed until I realized that for the first time, I was the only one closing. Usually my manager partnered me with a senior teller, but this time, it was just me.

Closing, prior to recent, was hands-down the sum of all my fears. I had dreaded this shift from the very first day I watched as my trainer shut down the store, while still serving customers, and held the responsibility of thousands and thousands of dollars at once.

Despite being a bit familiar with the process, although I still felt it to be a foreign territory, I was entirely unprepared when my manager said:

“Tuesday you’re closing by yourself. No one will be in the store with you. Are you ready?”

“No,” the voice in my head said. “Yes,” I said out loud.

So on Tuesday evening, I stared at the clock. Time went by so slow. But one thing I know about time is that it never goes slowly enough to make the moment you are counting down to never happen.

Be it the death of someone you are dreading letting go of, your wedding, or the birth of your first child. The moment always arrives.

Right before my last coworker left, she looked back at me and said,

“Hey Steph, don’t worry. You can do it.”

When she said that, I eased up a bit. Actually, I eased up a lot. 

For so long, I felt like I really could do it. But I felt incomplete without having a certain threshold of self-doubt.

Truthfully, these were the words that echoed in my head all day long. In fact, they had echoed in my head for the months leading up to this Tuesday. But for some reason, I hadn’t been able to relax the way I was able to when the words were said in another person’s voice.

That night, I closed the store perfectly, and on my own. I ran into no hiccups, no bumps in the road, no alarms went off, and I wasn’t escorted home, to the hospital, or to my grave in an ambulance. (Don’t ask why I imagined this being the end of my night, my imagination is quite vivid)

I wrote down a list of 5 steps that simplified the closing process for me. A list that I, and only I could understand. Essentially, a list that would get the job done.

I followed each step, making sense of my messy handwriting, mish-mashed sentences, and strange order of preference.

And I did it.

Driving home that night, I thought about my experience. I reflected on how I felt now that I had done the one thing that I influenced myself to believe that I couldn’t do on my own.

I had come to realize that we doubt ourselves for two potential reasons. The first reason being because if we doubt ourselves and succeed, we are extra surprised. The second reason being if we doubt ourselves and fail, we’re not surprised at all because we didn’t believe we could do it in the first place.

Really, I’m not sure why I doubted myself. But I am sure that as I watched the time go by, so, so slowly that day, I wasn’t afraid.

Anxious, maybe. But not afraid.

Deep down inside, I knew that I could do it. I had my list of 5 steps. I had my messy handwriting to guide me all the way through. But moreover, I had faith in myself.

The main objective at my work is twofold. The first thing is to keep the customers happy. This means being happy yourself. Emitting an energy that is welcoming, genuine, and reflective of how we feel inside. The second thing is to balance.

When you think about it, it sounds a lot like life.

Be happy. And be balanced.

And when I left that night, I was not one penny short. I was not one penny over. I “balanced to the T”, as my coworkers call it, a phrase which I now use and understand. As a matter of fact, I use and understand all the phrases I once didn’t.

In life, you have to find your way. Sometimes people will show you the ropes, other times you’ll find them for yourself, and in some instances, you might have to form your own ropes, attach them to the appropriate places, and just swing like Tarzan in the jungle.

But if you find your own way, and believe in yourself, at least partially, then don’t you think you will succeed?

It’s okay to ask for help, and it’s definitely okay to need it. You can’t expect to be a master of everything, because you can’t become a master without being a novice at one point.

It’s even okay to doubt yourself. Especially if you only doubt yourself to get twice the surprise when you succeed. But it’s not okay to doubt yourself and plan, expect, or hope to fail simply because it’s easy.

And really, failure is always the easy option.

That’s why people give up. That’s why people quit. And that’s why people walk away.

Because it’s not always easy to believe.

Things take time. I know a lot more than I did three months ago, and a lot less than I will three months from now.

But one thing I knew long before three months ago, and one thing I will know long after three more months pass is that I can do it.

I can do anything, really.

I am just as able as another person, perhaps even more able than another person, simply because I believe. I didn’t always, but I do now. And that’s about the only tool I need in my toolbox. That's about the only tool anyone will ever need in their toolbox.

That.

Happiness.

And balance.

The 4 (+1) Noble Truths

If there is anything that the last year has taught me, it is the following five philosophies that I have come to learn are the most basic, simple, but necessary insights in living a fruitful and enjoyable life. I hope that they offer some guidance, something to hold on to, or at least serve as words of comfort. Here are the 4 (+1) Noble Truths.

1. Don’t seek revenge.

When Mahatma Gandhi said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” he was entirely correct. We tend to have this tit for tat mentality that poisons us, impedes us, and blocks us from giving and getting love in different areas of life. If someone wrongs us or hurts us, it can sometimes be our only desire to hurt them back. In theory, this sounds like a simple and logical concept, and kind of sounds like the concept of karma. But in reality, no amount of your attention and energy, no matter how small, should be spent on what could be devoted to so many other beautiful regions of life like friends, family, and self-discovery.

The solution isn’t to strike back, it should be to move forward.

Even the phrase that I once loved, “living well is the best revenge,” has it slightly wrong. It assumes that we should want to live well as revenge against people who have wronged us, when really; we should want to live well regardless. Revenge can be healthy; you just have to learn how to eat your vegetables.

2. Speak less, listen more.

My Dad always used to repeat a Guyanese saying, “Mouth open, story jump out.” Coming from the same man that always told me “Less is more,” I didn’t actually value these sayings until I grew older. I used to think that at all times, everything I felt and thought needed to be made public. Later on, I would find myself re-evaluating my thoughts and feelings, not sure of how to articulate my new ones because I adamantly proclaimed the first feelings and thoughts I felt.

How many times have you wanted to eat your words, take things back, or feel like you should have said less?

I’ve come to learn that when it comes to speaking, “quality over quantity” is the rule of thumb. It’s not how often you speak, but what you say when you do. How you feel or think about something might not be the same a week, a month, or a year from now. Don’t commit to your immediate feelings and thoughts, leave yourself, your mind, and your feelings open to change. When you get there; write it in the sky.

3. Take your time.

People who make it to the top have an air of being cool, calm, and collected. Look at Barack Obama. The guy is the President of the most powerful country in the world and every time we see him he looks like he’s enjoying a golf tournament. Taking your time with things, everything from deciding on the words you choose to speak, down to the way you drive, is the key to being grounded.

Patience is a virtue; one that we must always exercise in order to not get bogged down by the things that pile up on us in life. Everything can and will be dealt with; this we know. So why become flustered and impatient when things have not yet come to fruition in the specific way we intended?

Slow down and pace yourself. Life doesn’t need to be lived in fast motion.

4. Find your peace.

I once read an article that said the simple phrase:

“Being at peace is being with what is.”

After my mind processed the words, I felt that in that moment, I had found my peace. We often have this idea that peace is when we get everything we want and find the ultimate satisfaction in all areas of life. But if you’re like me, that hasn’t happened yet, and might not happen for a very long time.

I’ve come to learn that peace, instead, is being happy, and more importantly, being okay with everything in your life the way it is at this very moment. This means removing the people and things that you don’t want in your life, and choosing to focus instead on the people and things that you do. It means narrowing your vision to the things that advance you forward, lift you up, and fuel your aspirations.

Your attitude is everything. Using it wisely will help you find your peace.

5. Lessen your needs.

I had a very interesting discussion today with my ultrasound technician, a beautiful Pakistani woman named Sarah, about how funny it is that we have all these technologies that we view to be “necessities”, simply because they have been introduced to us. We talked about the idea that some women refuse to give birth without an epidural, when hundreds of years ago, that wasn’t even an option.

This got me thinking about the things that we can live without, but choose not to. Things like our cell phones, having a certain amount of money in the bank, having a car, or having a huge pool of friends.

The truth is, we can live without all these things, we just prefer not to.

By humbling your needs, you humble yourself. More importantly, you experience a more quintessential version of life. Remember that you are a human, and humans are capable of a lot. If you don’t believe me, look at the world that has been created around you. To think you can’t make it through the day without your cell phone is an insult to yourself. To think that you need to have thousands of dollars to survive is untrue, and to think that you must be driven somewhere is to forget you have two feet.

Be honest, be realistic, and be fair in what you think you need. Don’t devote your life to things that distract you from living it.