Doubt
Remove it from your vocabulary and your life. Now.
Doubt invaded my life last week. It wove it’s way into my writing and hissed into my ear as I went about my day.
It’s companion, anxiety, also took up residence.
Ideas evaporated with the swiftness of boiling water.
Every draft I wrote last week clunked.
A client called off a project due to time constraints, an interviewee rescheduled because of the weather, and personal drama permeated my thoughts. I spent a lot of time staring at the curser blinking on an otherwise blank screen.
I used the “f” word in a poem — and I don’t write poetry.
I feared that I was out of words. Yet, I soldiered on. Accepting that I had nothing to lose, I published two articles on Friday and pitched a draft to a publication I doubted would ever accept my work.
Doubt is a showstopper. It creeps into the minds of the greatest leaders and hinders progress. Doubt steals creativity and loses battles. Doubt will be the end of the world.
Doubt shatters relationships. Breaking even the strongest bonds with a whisper or a hint of anything amiss. Leaving parties to pick up the pieces and carry on in opposite directions.
Doubt singularly loses court cases — the best litigators lose the most solid arguments if a shadow of doubt appears. Attorneys spend hours, days, weeks and months searching for that shadow of doubt before arguing their cases before a judge — knowing all too well that their opponents are doing the same.
Doubt kills careers. Once it takes up residence in someone’s head, it whispers, “impossible” until the host suffers from crippling Imposter Syndrome. Sometimes the host never recovers — and they reside themselves to a life of mediocrity.
Doubt invades good writing with its passive voice, it’s cliches, its overused topics and its semicolons. Doubt stamps out creativity and originality.
Doubt slithers among us in the form of stage fright, as writer’s block, as imposter syndrome. It appears as beads of sweat, trembling hands and pacing feet. It signals its targets as a crackling voice beginning a speech or a complete break of the voice during a song.
Doubt settles in the stomachs of warriors and athletes unless they vomit it out on the way to battle.
Doubt stops risk taking in its tracks.
Doubt leaves its victims feeling that they are without options. But, I doubt that doubt is everlasting. The greatest leaders, the smartest thinkers, and the most creative of artists fight and win battles over doubt.
Don’t listen to the naysayers, the rule followers, and the doubters. Just don’t listen. Don’t let the hiss of doubt into your ears. Ignore any evidence of Imposter Syndrome.
Pitch anyway. Publish anyway. Hustle anyway. Fake it until you make it. Because you will make it. I have no doubt you will.
Read the authors who ignore the doubt. Read them well. They slayed the doubt long before you came along. You will defeat doubt too.
Remind every business owner you meet that their business benefits if they hire a writer. Remind yourself that every story, every essay, every poem, and every article you write has an audience. You have something important to say — and you can help others speak too.
Look for the angle. Find the fascinating in the mundane. Write what you see, what you hear and what you feel. Make your audience feel. Deliver the story with meticulous detail that compels your audience to keep reading. If you ignore doubt, your audience will learn something new without feeling like they’ve worked for it.
Last week, I battled doubt and won. In the end, the two articles I published got as much attention as any other work I’ve done. And the third? The one I pitched to the bigger publication? Accepted, published and double curated!
Erase the doubt. It has no place in your work or your life. You’ve got better things to do.
Kim Funk is a freelance writer who lives in a small town outside of Minneapolis, MN. She writes about freelancing, small towns, being a hockey parent, and life after divorce. And she’s trying really hard not to be a perfectionist.
