I almost didn't upload this...how to get over self doubt
What's up, you guys? It's Graham here.
So, I almost didn't want to upload this video or even make it because I wasn't sure if it was going to be good enough. It sounds crazy, but that is the entire topic of this video: it's about self-doubt and it's about questioning yourself and why that's so toxic and how you just get the [ __ ] over it.
So, before I go into it, here's just a little background on me. Almost every video I make, I don't think it's good enough, and it sounds so crazy, but now that I have so many people watching me, I'm really self-conscious about making videos and putting it up because I'm worried about [ __ ] something up or about it not being good enough, or maybe like I could make it better. I don't know, there's a million things that run through my head every time I make a video where I don't think it's good enough.
There have been so many videos too where I film the whole thing, and it could be like a 10 out of 10; it could be a total banger. But I film the whole thing and then as I'm editing it, I realize [ __ ] I forgot to mention that like this one little minuscule bit 9 minutes in and I should have clarified that and like I left that one little part out. So, oh man, maybe I should just do the whole thing over again because it's ruined now; it's not going to be the same; it's not good. Let me do it over.
And that happens in almost every single one of my videos. I'm sure this one included. As I'm editing this, I'm sure I will figure out something where I'm like oh man, I forgot to put that one little like sentence like right there. You know, I imagine like that State Guy, that Akake meme, just like, "I forgot to do that halfway through the video," and it's like it's going to suck now.
Even in my first video that I ever uploaded onto YouTube, if you haven't seen it, check it out. Even on that video, I get people still talking about how confident I seemed in that video and how like sure of myself I seemed. That's from their perspective. From my perspective, I almost didn't upload that because I thought it was total crap and I didn't think it was good enough.
[Music]
Do you hear that, you guys? If you have a motorcycle, please don't have it sound like that. Anyway, I didn't think that video was good enough; I thought it was totally crap. And even as I was doing it, I thought oh man, like maybe I should just do this again, maybe I should just delete the whole thing and like try it again, and maybe the next time I could do it a lot better.
It happens in every single one of my videos. And the funny thing is too, the more people I talk to about this, the more I realize everybody feels the same way, and it's not just me. Even people who I think are totally sure of themselves and are totally confident and seem like they've had it made, even those people are still questioning themselves. They're still doubting themselves, and they still feel the exact same way as I do, whether they're making videos, whether they're making business moves, whether it doesn't matter what it is, whatever they're doing, they feel the exact same way.
And that makes me realize that it's way more common than what I originally thought it was. I mean, I thought it was just me, but apparently everybody feels the same way. So, I thought this is something worth addressing.
So honestly, I just think doubting yourself and questioning yourself will totally [ __ ] kill you. I mean, there's nothing more crippling in my opinion than just doubting yourself and questioning yourself and getting in your head too much to the point where you overthink things and then blow it out of proportion and then think everything you do afterwards is just going to suck. So, you may as well just hold off a little bit longer before you do something; that is so toxic and it just kills every dream and desire that you have in your mind because it just keeps postponing it a little bit longer, a little bit longer, a little bit longer.
And then years pass, you still haven't done it yet. At some point too, I think you have to realize that it's just all in your head. Literally, it's just you getting in your own way. Every little thought you had, every time you question yourself, every time you doubt yourself, realize all of it, 100% of that is just in your head. You are literally holding yourself back from realizing whatever you want to do by just doubting yourself in your head. It's literally, it's all right there.
You also have to realize that you are your own worst enemy. I mean, literally, nobody else holds you back as much as you do in your mind.
All right. So how do you get over this and how do you not like overthink everything? You first of all, just recognize that everything is in your head and that it's you holding yourself back. The next thing is you just go and do it. You don't overthink things; you don't overcomplicate things. It's not about having something be absolutely 10 out of 10, 100% perfect. It's about doing something and learning from it and then moving in the direction that you want to be going.
Even if you're not 100% confident about it, even if you're not 100% sure about it, you just want to do the things you're afraid of doing and that pushes you in the direction of where you want to be going. Even if you [ __ ] it up, even if you fail spectacularly, even if this video bombs, it's still moving me in the direction of where I want to be going, which is just realizing all the self-doubt that goes in my head, realizing that everybody else feels the exact same way and just doing it anyway.
I've also noticed too that we're our harshest critics. Nobody else is going to criticize us as much as we do ourselves, and usually, people perceive it way better than you do in your mind. It's pretty cool to realize that too because it really puts it in perspective that we kind of [ __ ] ourselves up a lot of the time, that we criticize ourselves the most and that we hold ourselves back the most.
So just realizing that, understanding it's in your head and just committing to it and doing it anyway, that's the best way to get over it and to really realize your full potential. I know I'm getting into like, like, hippy-dippy, you know, self-help territory here, but seriously, that's the entire point of this video.
I'm making this video just to get that point across because we all suffer from the same [ __ ].
As always, you guys, thank you so much for watching these videos. It seriously means so much to me to see everybody enjoy it. If you haven't already, feel free to click subscribe, feel free to add me on Instagram, feel free to add me on Snapchat, feel free to share this, feel free to comment down below, all that, all that YouTube stuff that everyone tells you to do. Anyway, thanks again, and until next time.