“Do Or Do Not. There Is No Try.” – Yoda

I talk about a lot of mental health things on here. One thing I don’t think I have touched on is my crippling self doubt. It is a weighted blanket of insecurity that I have to fight off my body every day, often multiple times a day.

See, I can’t comprehend the concept of failing. Hence the title of this post. Not the original meaning of the quote, for sure, but how my internal self talk interprets it. If I do something I will do it completely. I will see it through. I will succeed at it. There is no trying it out, testing the waters, etc. If I do not believe I will be good at it, I just don’t do it. I can’t deal with letting myself down like that.

This works really well, until it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, my brain goes into analysis hyperdrive. If I do not feel I am successful in any particular endeavor, I hyper fixate on learning everything I can about it and how to be better. I look for statistics to help me understand what I can change or tools to help me do better. If its a class, I will question the teacher incessantly to understand what I did wrong.

The self doubt is this heavy voice of negative self talk that tells me by not succeeding, I am failing. There is no in between, no room to improve. It takes everything I have not to rage quit something that triggers this feeling. Sure, that might work for a game or a hobby but it doesn’t work for work.

This is where I get extra vulnerable. The reason I’m writing about this today, is that I’m feeling this blanket of self doubt smother me again. I feel like I’m failing as a twitch streamer and YouTube content creator. I also know this is a logical fallacy. I only started both of these in September and have grown both organically and authentically. I should be proud. Yet, comparison being the thief of joy and all that, I am not. I am convinced I should be doing better.

So, I don’t normally do this. I don’t ask this ever but here’s my wish. At the top of my page is a gallery page. I’ll even link it here. In there you will find finish pages. If you like what you see there, please click on the icons at the top of my page that will take you to my YouTube and twitch pages and like/follow/subscribe. I would appreciate the support and encouragement. Also notice, I didn’t just ask for the handout. Even when I want help from strangers, I can’t just ask you to do the thing, I want to make sure it’s authentic, that you do it because you like what you see and want more.

I know I can turn what feels like it’s impossible into the possible. I just have to keep doing because trying is not an option.