January 30th Tiny Resolution: Quit Doubting Yourself (Guest blog by Leela)

Guest blogger Leela (not her real name) is a mother of many living considerably north of the Mason-Dixon line.  She's a firecracker from her hair to her spirit, an artist and writer who is continually trying to cram three or four lives into an average human timespan.  She bridges the political gap with a wary eye.  She has a sparkling wit and 1000 watt smile.  She's making a change.    --jls
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I am not a person who commits New Year Resolutions. I will not make changes in myself simply because Western culture decided to make the new year end and start seven days after Winter Solstice and we are in the new year. Sorry folks, you are stuck with the same Leela.

Right now I am looking at a new job and leaving an old one behind. The old one was one that I loved and was a perfect fit, but it was time to move on. My new job is something for which I lack experience but have a great deal of passion for doing, and it is creative but opposite to what I had been doing. I also signed up for a couple of college classes that are lower division, but where the profs are friends who have promised to challenge me. They see skills in me for which I constantly have to remind myself that I possess.

After I got my new job and was told that a contract with a non-compete agreement was forthcoming, I panicked. It was my first adult job and they liked me enough to want to make sure I’d not compete against them in the near future. Then I got nervous about the art classes where I would be speaking often to my professors who would give me one-on-one feedback for my assignments. I was very much afraid that I would be like the politician who gets elected for his personality and potential and then turns out to have nothing between his ears. One of my future co-workers told me that my new boss is a genius and that he is very perceptive of people. He told me that if I thought he spent ten minutes researching me that he actually had ten people vetting me. My professors are very smart. If they say that I am smart, then I am smart. Actually, regardless of whether or not they find me smart, I am smart.

TIME TO GO ON IN?

My present challenge is to quit doubting myself. There is nothing that I am incapable of doing. If I don’t know how to do something, I will either figure it out on my own or learn it from someone who will show me. People who know me on FaceBook meet me and say that I am the same person on FaceBook as I am in person, so it should be clear to me that I am not presenting myself as a fraud. New things are not going to scare me, they will simply be something that I have not yet tried and mastered.