How to Work With Feelings of Self-Doubt Through Journaling

Yesterday, I showed a piece of my writing to a few friends. I was convinced that my writing was terrible. To be honest, I thought what I had written was complete nonsense. But my writer friends had a different opinion. Here’s one response, out of many:

"What I see in you is so much potential and the only thing holding you back is your own self-doubt."

Despite four people assuring me that my writing was far from being nonsense, I still couldn’t shake off the feeling of self-doubt.

I told myself: They are all accomplished writers and they want to encourage me or maybe they are just trying to be nice.

And I went back to berating myself about how crappy my writing was and that I was never going to make it as a writer. Usually, my berating sessions last for at least a solid 15 - 20 minutes, but this time something made me stop.

I opened my journal and wrote with my favorite fountain pen.

1/7/2021.Fr 22:00 Hrs

I’m a crappy writer! That’s what I think. But my friends disagree. Are they just trying to be nice or could there be a grain of truth in what they are saying? I really need to figure this out. I feel like my entire life depends on it.

I'm going to read their feedback again.

1. There’s a lot of encouragement - perhaps they are trying to be nice.
2. But there’s also constructive criticism. Places where I can improve. So they’re not just trying to be nice. They are also showing me how to improve.
3. And the part about self-doubt holding me back. What about that? Someone who is just trying to be nice to me wouldn’t say that. It was a very clear statement. And it’s true, — self-doubt is holding me back. So, the part they say that I’m not as bad as I think may also be true.

I think it is true. I've been doing this my whole life.

When I was in school, I won the school table tennis tournament for three years in a row. But when I saw someone else play, I’d always convince myself that I was not even half as good as them.

As a software developer, I constantly compared myself with the most brilliant minds and berated myself about how little I knew. And now, as a writer, I was doing the same thing.

I’ve been running this pattern since middle school - which was a really long time back.

Q. How will my life proceed if I continue living like this without changing this pattern?

Writing that question literally shook me to the core. I saw an image of me on my deathbed wondering why I was so terrible at everything I did. It was not a pretty image. Something had to be done. I wanted my thoughts to support me and not oppose me. I did not want to sit on my deathbed and look back at my life, wondering why I was crappy at everything I did.

Introspecting with the help of my journal turned out to be a revealing exercise. I recognized a pattern that I’d been running for a long time and I did it actively, by thinking through it. And this gave me some confidence and hope and energy to dig deeper into my own psyche about why I was experiencing chronic self-doubt and what I could do about it.

As I wrote, I went back to my student days. There were several years in that time period when I was picked on a lot. It happened in high school and undergrad college.

For years, when someone called me names or bullied me or picked on me, I’d just freeze. My hands clenched, my brain refused to think, and my mouth felt like it was zipped.

Because I was bullied and because I felt so helpless, my mind, in its convoluted thinking, concluded that I was flawed in some way. I tried to keep up a facade of trying to be confident as much as I could, but under that facade, the foundation was being eaten away every day.

The next thing I did was to brainstorm solutions. Once again, I wrote in my journal:

I need to find a way to override the limiting beliefs that made me feel I’m not good enough because others saw me as someone they could harass. I really need to love myself and support myself and celebrate every small achievement.

Even though I had come until here by journaling, I realized that I needed guidance to go ahead. So I turned to the Internet. I wasn’t simply escaping my problems, but searching intentionally for a specific solution and I found several resources.

I found books, videos, and a support group of other people who were battling with similar issues. I'm working with the help of these resources and people to reverse the unhealthy patterns that have been holding me back.

I'm making progress but I also know that I have a long way to go. However, it does not unnerve me anymore. I now have a regular journaling practice which helps me understand what's going on in my life and in my mind. That along with seeking guidance and help from others will certainly help me move towards a better life.

By writing about my problem, identifying the pattern, and then reviewing my own life to try to get to the root cause helped me understand that the cause of my chronic self-doubt was the faulty conclusion that I had made about myself. After that, seeking guidance from books, psychologists, and other people who've been in similar circumstances is helping me move ahead in small but steady steps.

I'm happy that I found a repeatable process that I can use not only for this problem but also for others.

I can't say if this process will work for everyone but I wanted to share something that's working for me in the hope that it resonates with someone else who is battling the same demons.