What happens when we doubt ourselves?

Ever since I can remember there has been this voice that I hear, especially when it comes to succeeding in my endeavors, that voice that always says “you can’t do this” or “ you are not good enough” when I was a kid, I was able to block it out, or to convince myself otherwise, kind of on instinct just let that noise be just that ‘noise’ .

When I started my schooling in back in Sept 2022, my thoughts were as follows “you are to old to go back to school” and “you will never succeed at being a counsellor” I got really tired of hearing that, another one “you are not smart enough to graduate” these self doubting voices that kept coming up were, not only present but loud and aggressive, but most of all I believed the voices that I was hearing at the back of my head, these same voices led me to quitting the first post secondary school I was at many years ago in the early 2000’s, and I always regretted not being able to finished my bachelors back then.

When I tried way back then, I didn’t have a support system, I didn’t have a clue what I needed to succeed, flashforward to Nov. 1st 2023, I opened my office with only 1 steady client, who was free and 2 others that I occasionally saw, who were also free clients, I had paid into an office, an association that allowed me to charge a learning rate, of $65/session and no real prospects, but I kept telling myself that this is what I wanted to do, that this is my dream job.

Something inside me was afraid of failing, to get to this point I had quit my well paid job, great benefits and the job that allowed my wife and me to buy our first home, and our second (current) home. I left that job because, a part of my was slowly getting numb everyday, it was a job that helped me get to a place of financial freedom, but the atmosphere wasn’t what I wanted, the hours were great when my kids where not in school, even when my kids were in Kindergarten and grade one, but as they got older I kept hearing my fellow coworkers say “yup, get used to missing everything” and that scared me because I didn’t want to miss their Christmas plays, or other events that happened, I was already missing putting them to bed, it was all eating me away, very slowly, one day at a time, towards the end of the time I was there, someone had an incident, and we later learned it was a mental health issue.

To be honest I had burnt myself out, when I had a day off to try and earn some extra cash I would work, and on top of that in 2019 we had upgraded and bought our second house, it was not a pretty picture, but it was our not a pretty picture house, and the month we bought it, we moved everything in and then the real work began, we ended up tearing out the bathroom, and because it was the only bathroom we couldn’t live there, we tore up the flooring, and had a rug installed, all this had taken about a month, and at that time at work, we had gone to 10 hour days, which meant for most of my coworkers, they all had 4 days of work and 1 day off, but because I wanted to have money to do renovations, I worked 5 days a week, 10 hours a day, and it was swing shift, so 2 weeks of day shift that started at 5 am, and ended at 3:30 pm, and afternoons which started at 3:30pm to 2 am. I would do this for a month and half, I would go to work in the mornings 5 am to 3:30 pm, get off work go play with my girls have supper, put them to bed, then go over to our place and work on the house, then on afternoons I would wake up about 6:30 am after going to bed at 3:30 am and go and work on the house as much as I could then going to work at 3:30 pm to 2 am, 5 days a week working through my breaks and sometimes staying 30 minutes after work to help with things.

I was burnt out and would regularly just fall asleep while doing renovations, so why did I share all that, my drive was there, my support was there, my wife, and children, my cohort that was there with me for 2 years straight, other counsellors that I can talk to about their start and how long it took them to get a full roaster, my point is, we all have that one time where we wished we could have done things differently, we all have doubts, it’s what we do with those doubts, when we hear the doubts start to come in, the thing that feels natural and the thing that I did in the early 2000’s was to hold it in, and when we hold it in that voice, that doubt gets stronger, I now have supports, when I have doubts about something I have people I can talk to about it, I have learned that once we talk about the doubts, bring them up out of the dark, then those doubts have less power, less of a voice.

The other thing that I do, is I write it out, journaling has helped me to get it out into the world, sometimes when we can bring light into these doubts it can change the way we look at things, 12 months ago I opened Break the Cycle Counselling, I had doubts, I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it, now as I look back on this year there have been a lot of times that I wanted to give up and just go do some meaningless job that I am not in charge of, and have no responsibilities, but I know that I would regret doing that.

I am a movie guy, I love inspirational cheesy movies, and one movie that I quote daily is from a movie called “Coach Carter” one of the high school basketball team members says these line towards the end of the movie after the main character coach carter asks him, “ what is your deepest fear” and it’s something I try to remember, and i hope it helps you.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our dark that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people don't feel insecure around you.We are all meant to shine as children do. Its not just in some of us; its in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsiously give other people to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Timo Cruz-