The Self Belief ‘Lost In Transition’…
What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?
I was thinking about the person I used to be.
I was so confident in myself.
Not the loud kind.
I don’t remember walking around trying to prove anything.
I just… believed in myself.
I was sportive about things. I’d try. I’d take chances. I’d get something wrong and somehow it didn’t become a statement about who I was.
I could fail at something and still go home being me.
That’s what I find so strange when I think about it now.
How easy it once was to believe in yourself.
How natural it was to just… be.
Before life happened.
Before we learned to attach meaning to every little thing.
Before a bad day became I’m not good enough.
Before a rejection became maybe there’s something wrong with me.
Before a mistake needed an explanation.
Before we started collecting labels for ourselves.
Too much.
Not enough.
Good at this.
Bad at that.
Successful.
Behind.
Capable.
Incapable.
We didn’t have all of that when we were little.
Or maybe we did, but we didn’t know it yet.
We just lived.
We tried things because they looked fun.
We ran because we wanted to run.
We said what we thought.
We made things.
We failed spectacularly and then went looking for something else to do.
And somehow, a failure was allowed to remain exactly what it was.
A failure.
It didn’t have to become a definition.
It didn’t get to decide who we were.
I think that’s what I miss.
Not childhood exactly.
Not the years themselves.
I miss the ease.
That strange, beautiful confidence children seem to have before the world teaches them to negotiate with themselves.
I think I had so much of it.
I really thought I’d figure things out.
And I did.
That’s the part that gets me now.
Because somewhere along the way, I became someone who hesitates.
Someone who thinks and thinks and thinks.
Someone who waits.
And I don’t know exactly when it happened.
I can’t point to one person, one failure, one heartbreak and say,
‘this’..
This is where I stopped trusting myself.
Maybe someone said something and I believed them a little more than I should have.
Maybe I failed at something that mattered to me.
Maybe it was disappointment.
Maybe it wasn’t just one failure that struck the chord.
Maybe it was just life doing what life does, quietly piling things onto us until we start seeing ourselves through everything that has happened to us.
Maybe it wasn’t one big thing at all.
Maybe it was just too many little things, all at once.
And then, without really noticing, I started being careful with myself.
I procrastinate, but I don’t think it’s always because I don’t want something badly enough.
Sometimes I think I’m scared to find out.
Because if I don’t try, I can still tell myself that maybe I could have.
Maybe someday.
Maybe when I’m ready.
Maybe when I’m better.
Maybe when I become the person I used to be.
And I hate that I’ve started confusing that with hope.
Because ‘sometimes’, ‘someday’ is just a very comfortable place to hide.
I think what I wish I’d started doing earlier was trusting myself enough to fail.
Just that.
To have enough belief in myself that even failure couldn’t take me away from me.
To be able to say,
I tried.
It didn’t work.
Okay.
What next!?
What a luxury that must have been.
To fail without immediately wondering what it said about you.
To lose without feeling like you’d lost a piece of yourself.
To not constantly be thinking about how you were being perceived, what the outcome meant, whether you were falling behind, whether this was evidence of something.
I sometimes think children have an enormous confidence that adults spend years trying to rebuild.
And the funny thing is, they don’t even know they have it.
They just have it.
Maybe that’s what being a child was supposed to be.
Easy.
Happy.
Free-flowing.
Not because nothing bad ever happened, but because everything didn’t yet have the power to become a definition.
You could be bad at something and still believe you were good.
You could be told no and still ask again tomorrow.
You could fall down and simply get up because there was something else you wanted to do.
You could be completely yourself without first having to figure out what that self was supposed to be.
I think I want some of that back.
Not the innocence.
Not the ignorance.
Not even the girl I was.
Just that particular kind of self-belief.
The kind so uncomplicated that maybe someone else could look at it and think,
I want whatever she has.
I miss that girl.
And I don’t know if I want to become her again.
Maybe I just want to remember what she knew before I forgot it.
That I could try.
That I could fail.
That I could be disappointed.
That something could not work out.
And none of it had to mean I was less of a person.
Maybe that’s the thing I’ve been trying to find again.
Not confidence, exactly.
Permission.
Permission to try without knowing.
Permission to fail without turning it into a verdict.
Permission to be a work in progress without treating that as a flaw.
Maybe I don’t have to wait until I feel confident enough to start.
Maybe I just have to start while I’m scared.
Maybe self-belief isn’t something that magically comes back.
Maybe it grows quietly, every time I do something and realise
‘Oh.
I’m still here.
I tried.
I failed.
And I’m still me.
I don’t know.
I’m still figuring it out.
But I think I want to try’..
Not because I know I’ll make it.
Not because I have some sudden, beautiful certainty that everything will work out.
Just because I remember, somewhere deep down, what it felt like to believe that I’d figure things out.
And maybe that’s enough to begin.
Before I spend another year waiting to become someone I’m already allowed to be…
A Little Note From Me..
Maybe I’m missing my inner child a little too much these days.
And maybe I’m sounding more nostalgic than I actually am.
I don’t really mind.
Because lately I’ve been thinking about that little girl I was. Four. Five years old. And the more I think about her, the more I realise how deeply I admire her.
She was exceptional.
Not because she was perfect. Not because she was destined for anything extraordinary. Just because she had this strange little certainty about herself. She was intelligent. Curious. Sportive. And even at that age, she seemed to have this very clear sense of what was right and what wasn’t. A moral scale of her own, almost.
I look at her now and think…
God, I wish someone had told you how wonderful she was.
I wish someone had tapped her on the shoulder a little more.
I wish she’d been celebrated for the things that came naturally to her instead of being expected to simply keep being good at them.
I wish she’d heard, ‘I’m proud of you’ more.
Not only when she achieved something.
Just because she was her.
Maybe she didn’t get enough screen time in her own starring film.
And perhaps that’s why I keep thinking about her now.
Not because I want to go back.
I don’t.
I just think she deserved to be seen.
And maybe, all these years later, I can finally give some of that back to her.
The encouragement she missed.
The tenderness.
The applause.
The simple, uncomplicated ‘you did well’.
And I don’t think there’s anything awkward about that.
Why shouldn’t I celebrate a younger version of myself!?
Why shouldn’t I be proud of her!?
Why shouldn’t I tell her the things she needed to hear, even if I’m the one who has to say them now!?
Maybe growing up isn’t always about leaving that little person behind.
Maybe sometimes it’s about going back for her.
And maybe this is your reminder to do the same for yourself.
Think about the child you were before the world got loud.
Before comparison.
Before disappointment.
Before you learned to shrink yourself, second-guess yourself, or measure your worth by things that were never meant to measure it.
Maybe there was something in that child you haven’t seen in a long time.
Maybe you don’t have to become them again.
Maybe you just have to remember them.
And give them a little of what they were missing.
I don’t really believe in coincidences.
Life has this strange way of placing certain things in front of us at certain times.
A random conversation.
A person we weren’t expecting.
A sentence we happen to read.
A thought that refuses to leave.
Something that finds us in passing and somehow stays.
And sometimes something just… finds you.
At exactly the moment you’re able to hear it.
Maybe this is one of those moments.
Maybe you’re reading this while carrying your own little version of that girl or boy somewhere inside you.
Maybe you miss them.
Maybe you don’t.
Maybe you’re still trying to understand what happened, somewhere between who you were and who you became.
I don’t have some beautifully packed answer for that.
I’m figuring it out too.
We’re all trying here, aren’t we!?
Doing our best with what we know.
Making sense of things as and when we can.
And on some days, barely making sense of them at all.
Maybe today, it’s enough that I remembered her.
And that for a few minutes, I was proud of the little girl I was.
I think she deserved that.
I think I do too.
So do you 🖤..
Whenever you’re ready, pull up a chair.
Stay awhile.
There are stories here about the things we carry, the things we outgrow, the things we’re still trying to make sense of.
Some conversations will be with others.
Some might quietly turn into conversations with yourself.
No need to have the answers.
None of us really do.
Just bring whatever version of yourself showed up today.
There’s always room for you here.
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– Temperance 💙..