I don’t know if I have talked about or intimated here before, but I struggle with confidence. not the confidence of wearing bikinis, because I slay those . I mean, we don’t come out of here live and so that reggae cannot be stopped. What I struggle with on the other hand is my self narrative and how much I judge myself.

I want to believe it has something to do with being a middle child and lacking affirmation, but that is a thought I am currently exploring through therapy. What I know for sure is that there are a few incidences through my education that really affirmed this habit and took me to the real pits. You see, I was a smart kid growing up. I basically drew most if not all my validation from my ability to exhibit some level of academic prowess. And as expected I got it. I tried things and they fell through perfectly, I passed exams without feeling that I really had to work as hard. I fell sick in the final year of high school, ahead of a big exam, but somehow my grades still worked out…It was the one thing that was really going for me.

I strongly feel that some friends I made were on the account of being smart or at the very least not struggling with academia. So I closely tied my worth to my academia really hard. I really couldn’t picture a life without it.

University brought with it a level of life that I hadn’t experienced. I experienced firsts in many things, fell out with friends, was backstabbed and even got into a relationship (which was heavily influenced by academics). This was also the first time I had a real face to face with failure and it shook me. Everything that I held on to suddenly didn’t make sense…The way that failure hit, wueh! It was the classic case of “when it rains, it pours”…and pouring it did. Instead of questioning the failure and exploring the thoughts around it, I constructed a narrative around me being incapable and horrible. That was the beginning of my unhealthy relationship with productivity…and its something I have been exploring ways of dealing with better.

I actually started to think about this because of a failure I experienced this week. Well, it wasn’t a failure per se…more of like a no I received after applying myself to something. Its technically the second nonchalant no I am receiving in a month. Of course I was numb at first but then for a change I began to explore thoughts surrounding the two opportunities instead of coming to the conclusion that I am a shit human being and there was something wrong with me. It struck me as some improvement (thanks therapy) to how I am processing things.

August came with some renewed determination on my goals to set my boundaries and look out for myself and that at times comes at the expense of some opportunities. Its funny how in both instances I had told my bestie in one of our conversations, that I had a strange gut feeling about them ad they turned out the way they did.

I guess what I am trying to say is, we develop confidence in discomfort and in really small decisions. Its also ok to have your existence shaken sometimes…

Catch my other posts here.

hugs,