When Doubt Hits
I was once told that photographers/creatives are some of the least confident people out there and always thought it was complete rubbish but now I'm starting to see some truth in that statement. Lately I've become absolutely riddled with doubt, I've doubted every single decision I've made in the past year and found myself in tears more times than I care to admit lately. I've not felt proud of anything I've created in weeks and I'm questioning everything I think of. The reality of this is that I'm 24 and I own two businesses, I'm an entrepreneur and I should be really proud of how far I've come but I'm not, in fact most days I question if it is good enough at all?
When I decided to become self employed it was a huge decision, my health played a big part of this because I at that point I was so sick that I couldn't work a 'normal' job and I was ashamed that I couldn't. Something like this really isn't spoken about in society and I felt the pressure of being in my 20's and not having a proper job down which made me so unhappy it was scary how low my mood was. Late last year and earlier this year I realised I was so silly to doubt the choice I made in my career, why shouldn't I be proud of owning my own business? Just because I don't have a huge pay check every month doesn't make me any less of a success. I see a lot of talk on Twitter of what a success is and I don't think we should measure success in that way, it is such a personal matter and we're all running our own race.
However in the past month or so I've really started to doubt myself again and it has really knocked me back. Self doubt is something we all encounter from time to time as nobody oozes confidence 24/7 it isn't possible. From Roses has always been my happy place and right now it is just isn't, something isn't flowing right for me and it is time for a change. I love beauty I really do but I've started to feel caged into a beauty blogger box which isn't a place I want to be. I want to push the content that I put out on a daily basis and bring something new to the table which will take time but from now on I want to be proud of every post I publish. Being your own boss is amazing but it means sometimes you can get quite lonely as you make all the decisions yourself and you have to keep yourself going constantly.
I think we all feel like this from time to time and Jen wrote an awesome feature on how to get over self doubt a few days a go and it did get me thinking as well as the other posts she has been putting out lately too, she is killing it with content lately. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do a lot of things and some of the time it seems like I'm trying to prove a point to everybody else. I know how hard I work on a daily basis and I need to start cutting myself some slack because I'm crushing myself under my own pressure. In general there is a lot of pressure of people in their 20's, my best friend wrote an entire feature about it on ALO. I worry about the fact I've not moved out yet, don't own a car, don't go on holidays, I'm not married or starting a family and I don't have a lot of savings or do any of the other things that I 'should' be doing. I've chosen to built my career from scratch instead of having a lifestyle that is the norm and that makes me far happier.
From now on I want to be proud of myself and the businesses that I've built myself, yes I will probably still worry as I can never be that care free. I want to push myself more and more to create something that I can look back on 5 years down the line and think yes I'm still pleased with that now. I'm making a conscience effort in all areas of my life to become am more confident person, that is why I've started exercising again so I can become more body confident too. The people in your life play a part in this too, I'm lucky that I have two amazing best friends, awesome boyfriend and an incredibly supportive family. There have been some people who have been in my life who I've just cut out because they weren't positive and just sucked all the happiness out of things as nobody wants to be around negativity, this can easily happen with people online too. So here is to the rest of the year which will be full of pride and celebrating successes, no matter how small they are.
This months gold sponsor is Živa who runs the blog Nothing Fancy Really, this months bronze sponsors are Dainty Hummingbird, Blueberry Segments, Darling Dee Dee and Loulabeth, you can advertise with me here.
