“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” — Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
I sat on a project idea for eight months. I kept telling myself it wasn’t ready, that someone had probably already thought of it, and that I’d bring it up next quarter. A coworker pitched something almost identical in a team meeting last fall. It landed well. I just sat there knowing I’d had that exact idea since spring.
That’s the thing about self-doubt. It doesn’t present itself as a problem. It masquerades as carefulness, as being realistic. But being careful has a cost. My heart still races when I hit “send,” but I do it anyway. I pitch things earlier now, even when they’re not fully developed. The doubt is still there. I just stopped letting it make decisions for me.
Self-doubt doesn’t announce itself as the enemy; it arrives disguised as caution. It took a missed opportunity for me to finally agree.