Started:     06-Jul-2023  |   Thu
Finished: 15-Jul-2023 | Sat
Read Time: 5 Minutes

Man, these people are so damn annoying.

The incessant skeptical nagging in life. We could do without.

They never stop, either.

“You’re not good enough”
“Look at what everyone else is doing”
“Be better”

Every goddamn day.

Like today? Really? Could we please cool it? Just for today?

I feel relatively confident about my life. I’ve got dreams. I’ve got goals. I’m satisfied (ish) with at least the path that I’m on. For now I’m content with what I’m creating.

I’m okay with me.

Yet, these mother fuckers still chirping at me:

“What if you fail?”
“What if you can’t do it?”
“What if you get hurt?”
“You’re going to do that by yourself??”

Well, there’s one chirping mother f$%&er to be specific.

Me.

The Voice of Doubt, to be specific.

Always there. Always with us. All the time.

The fear of failure.
The anticipation of rejection.
Devil and the Angel.

Back and forth. All the time. Does the Fear win out or will Belief triumph?

Can the Voice of Doubt just chill out for a minute? For a couple days? Who are you helping? Who do you benefit?

The Voice of Doubt is a constant, but what we really need is a Vote of Confidence. Where’s that, huh? Where’s the chip on the shoulder, the path on the back, huh?

There’s just that tiny little voice that lives inside.

Me battling me.

Perpetually, and always.

God damn.

Feels like I’m part Schizophrenic with these voices constantly chipping in – A roundtable of obnoxious troublemakers.

What’s worse is The Voice of Doubt is clever. It never tells you that you can’t do it. It never rules out the possibility entirely. It just sprinkles in it’s “harmless” 2 cents every now and then.

“Uh oh, that’s wayyy to scary”
“You’re certainly outsider”
“What if you hurt yourself?”
“What if you’re not capable”

It then proceeds to run a 4K, perfect resolution film strip of you falling, failing, or otherwise freaking out.

V.o.D provides nothing but a looming dark cloud of doubt. Skepticism plagues every decision throughout the day.

Can you just shut the hell up?

With everything. Like a bickering best friend who doesn’t believe in you. They’re with you every step of the way, but all they tell you is that you’re not good enough.

Nobody asked for your opinion. Nobody asked you to chime in. You are not wanted here.

The Voice rationalizes itself to us under the guise of ‘keeping you safe’. It won’t go away.

It gaslights us, pretending to be the “Voice of Reason”.

The audacity.

Worse than a manipulative lover, constantly redirecting your thoughts, your actions, back in to the plateau of complacency that we subconsciously call Average.

Uh oh, what if we’re different? What if we can’t make it? What if we embarrass ourselves?

If I wanted someone to constantly doubt me and tell me it’s not possible, I’d just go talk to the other 8 billion people on this planet.

They’ll let me know how ‘not possible’ it is. I don’t need my own brain yelling at me too. I don’t need me yelling at me.

The Weird Part

It’s funny because I know that it IS in fact possible.

Up until the exact moment that what I’m trying to do IS accomplished, The Voice of Doubt has me in a choke hold. It tells me I can’t do it until the moment I prove it wrong.

Making the move.
Jumping the gap.
Talking to the person.
Hitting the gas.

Precisely the moment ‘do the thing’, the Fear absolves itself, pretending like it was with us all along. It fades in to the background, awaiting our next scary decision.

It tries to reel us back into the comfort of safety.

Prove It Wrong

I’ve dealt with this cacophonous choir for long enough, though. How to move through the voices is a damn mystery to me.

The doubt. The fear. Shame. Embarrassment. Insecurities and indecision.

The fear thrives on belief. It thrives on the ‘what ifs’ of the world.

We have the option to ignore the thoughts. We can redirect our minds once they become polluted with improbabilities, but god damn is that difficult.

It is just a thought. Cast it away. It loses power.

I’ve accepted that the doubt is always going to exist. That doubt, anxiety, fear, nerves. They never go away, but they also do keep us alive. We just have to learn when to listen and when to quiet them- It’s a dance to tame the mind.

The upside, is that you don’t have to listen to the voices.

The voice of doubt is just a pesky neighbor constantly complaining about your grass being too long. Like you could listen, but you’re in control of your own life.

You get to determine who you listen to and who you don’t. That includes the internal dialogue.

Distract yourself.
Think another thought.
Meditate.
Consider an alternate viewpoint.
Talk to a friend.

But it’s not real.

It’s just a thought.

We become what we think.


If we continually internalize the good thoughts, that’s what we become. If we dwell on the bad ones, that too is what we become.

Good or bad, we become whatever we fixate on.

Obsession becomes reality.

Obsess over the Good.