overcome doubts & fears

non-coercion fear of taking action imposter syndrome Doubts

non-coercion

https://twitter.com/uberstuber/status/1488633316227960832 https://jamesstuber.com/notebook/what-is-non-coercion/

Every time you tell yourself “I should…”, you’re using coercion. Coercive techniques work, but not reliably, and not forever. They’re also a large source of tension, resentment, and self-hatred.

It could also mean creating the conditions of emergence and letting things go. Let things play its own course. If you try to mould or create them yourself, and even if you succeeded, would it be coming authentically from them or would it be a concession to appease you?

But maybe it’s hard to completely non-coerce ourselves to do things, so maybe we can gently coerce ourselves to do it instead.

No such thing as non coercion, just nicer coercion https://twitter.com/the_wilderless/status/1575002523962052609

fear of taking action

You're not doing something because you don't know enough. You're not because you're afraid of what others might think of it.

Most of the time when we’re not doing something, our excuses are we don’t know enough. But the truth is, most of the time we’re just afraid of what others might think of it.

The biggest regrets are opportunities you missed not because of your lack of insight, but because of your lack of courage.

When we keep using the same excuse, we’ll come to regret it. Again we may say we lack the insight, but we’re just afraid of starting and what others might think of it.

"be more loyal to your dreams than to your fears.”

Maybe if our dreams are bigger, we might come to fear it less.

You will always have fears of failure and self-doubt in your journey. But you have to understand what your fear means. Being fearful means you want that "thing" so bad.

Most common failure: Not doing anything, because you're paralyzed by fear of uncertainty

Maybe another way of framing is when we’re fearful, it means we want something so bad that we can’t afford to fail. But maybe failing is better than not trying at all. Because the most common cause of failure is not doing anything because we’re paralyzed by fear — the fear of uncertainty that is.

the answer to almost every “if you’re so smart why aren’t you X” question is “because you’re a coward”

A lot of people won’t admit it but a lot of problems could be solved if we are less fearful and have more courage to do something.

Maybe it’s a lack of inspiration?

But talent, inspiration, inclination—I’ve come to learn—is only half the battle. Sitting down, showing up, being consistent, disciplined, and present for your inspiration to materialize is the other half.

“The separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.” — Will Smith

The thing I so naively forgot about inspiration is that no matter how high it reaches at its peaks, it always ebbs and flows. Inspiration is fleeting, inconsistent, transient. Even if you pick something where your inspiration can be maximized, it will always fall as quickly as it rises, like a yo-yo, or a sinusoidal function.

To capture the inspiration spurts, you need to be there, waiting for the muse to reveal herself. When your muse does arrive, you need to launch yourself at your creativity in that moment and hang on. You need to stay in the saddle. If inspiration is the lemon, then discipline is the juicer. You don’t know when someone is going to put a lemon on your table, but when it appears you need to be ready to attack it—grab the lemon and squeeze hard. That is what discipline does. It gives you the muscles and the routine to squeeze your creative juice when it presents itself.

It’s worth noting that you don’t just stumble into the top right corner of this diagram by accident. It is a combination of agency and consistency that gets you there. Agency lets you choose to operate in your zone of max inspiration (that top half of the page), but to get to your zone of genius (the top right) you need to maximize your discipline, too. You need consistency. You need to stay in the fucking saddle.

https://mindmine.substack.com/p/the-zone-of-genius

Inspiration comes and goes. I don’t think anyone can rely on inspiration forever. Sometimes discipline is very much needed. How can you tell if you need more discipline or more inspiration?

To solve for inspiration, we can put ourselves in particular environments, consume content, and meet people that whet our creative appetite. Solving for discipline boils down to structure, systems, and negotiating with yourself.

Novelist Paulo Coelho on taking action:

"One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now."

imposter syndrome

Impostor syndrome is a paradox: (Adam Grant) -Others believe in you -You don't believe in yourself -Yet you believe yourself instead of them

If you doubt yourself, shouldn't you also doubt your judgment of yourself?

When multiple people believe in you, it might be time to believe them.

If you’re in a situation where you feel like an imposter, you’re simply doing something outside of your comfort zone, which is expansive (Jenny Lee)

Imposter syndrome (imho) is a protective cognitive bias. “If I don’t get what I want, it’s because they saw who I really am.” Which equates to “I failed because of who I am not what I did.” Which is a form of perfectionism? How to beat it? Detach from the outcome. Admit that you’re in a position of low control. That you cannot control what happens next. Accept that. And know you can do everything wrong and win. And you can everything right and lose.

Imposter syndrome will have you constantly questioning your value. Remember, you are where you are because someone believes in you (perhaps, even more than one person does. Shocking, I know). People see your worth all the time. Don't question it—use it to fuel your success.

'instead of imposter syndrome, you should embrace con-man syndrome': stop feeling like you don't deserve to be here and instead start feeling proud that you conned everyone into believing you did, your acting skills must be great

heard someone say “if you weren’t ready, you simply wouldn’t have the opportunity that you are nervous about - you have it because you’re ready” and that’s on slaying imposter syndrome today

2 common biases:

Dunning-Krueger Effect: thinking you're a master when you don't know very much.
Impostor Syndrome: thinking you're a fraud when you actually know a lot.
The antidote to both: writing. You'll quickly understand how much you know (and how much you don't).
the problem of imposter syndrome (under-estimating yourself) and Dunning-Krueger (over-estimating yourself) are both addressed by Talking To Other People so you can revise your self-estimates (visa)

Doubts

But when I really paid attention, I started to notice something: this voice didn’t come from the part of me that loved to create. It didn’t belong to the part of me that felt most alive when writing, sharing my stories, or dreaming something into existence. It belonged to the part of me that was afraid. And fear, I’ve learned, has a lot to say. It took me a long time to understand that the voice wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I let it lead. That I treated it like the authority on my creative life, instead of what it actually was—an outdated survival mechanism trying to keep me from taking risks.