Once upon a time, I was a self-proclaimed perfectionist.
I had good self-confidence, despite my incredible amount of paranoia of what others thought of me, and was a go-getter. I set goals for myself and went after them – achieving awesome goals such as interning on Capitol Hill at the age of 21, interning in the MA State House at the age of 19, graduating from college, running a marathon (make that three almost four), among many, many others.
Somewhere along the line, that self-confidence took a beating. Maybe it was my first real boss out of college telling me I couldn’t handle high stress situations. Or losing my job on my honeymoon via email, or getting laid off and later finding out a co-worker essentially staged it because “it needed to happen.”
I felt, for a while after that, lost. Really, really lost. Like, what-the-eff-am-I-doing-with-my-life kind of lost.
Then I realized my passion lies in social media, blogging/writing, being healthy and fit and running and yoga.
Recently, I was given an opportunity to start a monthly podcast as an expert in [insert topic here] from Stiletto Woman. A great magazine if I do say so myself.
But now that I have this amazing opportunity, I feel like I’m standing at the edge of the deep end of the pool and afraid to jump in. Afraid to just, in the words of Taylor Swift “jump then fall.” My biggest worry is that I’ll have nothing to say, what the eff am I an expert in? Surviving some of life’s biggest hurdles? I mean, I know there’s much worse out there but not going bankrupt when the two of us were unemployed for so long, was HUGE! I’m still amazed we kept our heads above water for so long and now we’re both employed happily, with our health, and a good roof over our heads.
I’ve never felt so blessed.
But still, that’s not a topic for a podcast right? I could talk about fitness but for as much as I love it, I’m still struggling – it’s an ongoing struggle really – to make it a regular part of my life. My motivation is such a yo-yo that I struggle to keep up with my self-set training schedules and not just get into a rut. I mean there are people that take years of schooling to do podcasts about being fit and healthy and eating well! I can do it but I certainly can’t tell you why avacado is good for you, but I can tell you that it’s incredibly yummy on sandwiches! (a fact that I really only learned recently)
My self-confidence is so low that I just feel like people are going to see me as a joke. A fraud if you will. I’m almost 27 years old, what the hell could I possibly be an expert in?
I feel lost, scared to jump in but at the same time, wanting to oh so badly, like I’m missing out on some sort of fun party that everyone else is in but I’m not. It’s intimidating. Very intimidating.
What say you readers, what do you do when you need a little boost in the confidence department???
