Leveling Up Confidence

By Steven A. Clubb

This blog isn’t about informing you on a subject or giving advice. Instead, it will be a post of my self-reflection and processing my inner demons and emotions. This will probably be the start of many journal entries to help me love and respect myself.

Confidence is a binary concept that makes or breaks us. I either have it or I lack it. Thankfully it isn’t all-encompassing. I might not have confidence in one aspect of myself but have an abundance in other parts. Gaming is something I have complete confidence in. Learning quickly and adapting on the fly is what I know I can do. Writing on the other hand is something I desire to be good at, but don’t believe in myself enough to really sit down and do.

How did I get so confident in playing games? Probably because I started at a young age and have been honing those abilities for years. I haven’t been writing long. I haven’t even wanted to write until recently. I was recommended by a social worker to express myself through my thoughts and write them down to help deal with my depression. That’s another story for later. Why am I so scared to write? Why don’t I have confidence in myself? I have been told I have great ideas and a knack for it. What is stopping me?

My confidence. I have this voice in the back of my head telling me that what I put down on paper won’t be great, so why bother even doing it? I want my voice to be heard, but if I don’t write it in a certain way then it will just fall on deaf ears. Does how I write matter so much? Will my inexperience be my downfall and halt my career in this field before it even begins? I want to try to make at least some money from this, or at the very least have a few people read it. Read it and enjoy it I mean. What if they don’t enjoy it? What could I have changed to make them like it and to make them share it with their friends and family?

Why does my brain design these intricate labyrinths to stop me from doing anything that truly matters to me? It could be that I see the world as a game. You either win or you lose. Publishing an article is like completing a level. I put this expectation on myself to have a certain number of reads or likes and if I don’t get them then I failed that level causing me to start from the beginning. But I don’t start from the beginning, do I? Respawning from a checkpoint is a more positive outlook on this. I could even go a step further and say that maybe I did complete the level. It’s a beginner’s level. I shouldn’t expect to face a boss so early on. I must train myself to get stronger before moving on to a harder difficulty.

It's not failing if I don’t get 1000 reads on my first few blogs. Finishing a blog is an achievement of its own. Pushing myself to finish a blog is a great start. Opening myself up to the world is a great start. Finding my voice is a great start. Not worrying about my terrible grammar in this post is a great start. Confidence is a stat on my character sheet. Training myself by slaying metaphorical monsters to level it up.

Writing alone won’t give me the confidence I need. Putting myself in a state of vulnerability is the only way to try the things I have always wanted to try. I have also wanted to voice act or do voice-over work, but felt auditioning was a waste because I am so new and wouldn't get much work, if any. Then there is my biggest dream of all–a career in the tech field as a programmer or game designer, but starting has been daunting since I know so little about the field.

Many avenues of my life are at a standstill because of my confidence. I must learn not to skip steps. Giving myself an impossible amount of work hurts me. Of course, I will fail if I try to write a book series as popular as Harry Potter.

I may not have confidence in my writing currently, but I will. It just shouldn’t stop me from trying. As for everything else, starting at level one is better than not starting at all.