If we were to break down the components of self-doubt we would quickly start to see it is the opposite of self love, self-esteem, and the ability to support oneself. If we are functioning in self-doubt it can be very difficult to be planted securely in self-approval. Making small decisions as we go through life can add up and over time to become a critical piece of self-respect. When we make decisions that support our personal rights and healthy choices, we are immediately in a place that we start to experience an enhanced feeling of self-respect. We feel proud of our decisions and it grows our self-esteem. If we do the opposite of what is healthy for our person, we can instantly be flooded with self-doubt. It can be a small decision, or it can be a large dynamic that we find ourselves needing to make choices for; regardless, it is so important to move away from anything or anyone that would support self-doubt.
Some of us might not always look at each decision we make in life (large or small) with such a deep or complex lens. We might be the type of person that thinks of it as a casual thing, but then seem confused as to why, a few hours or possibly days later, we start experiencing feelings of doubt and don’t know exactly what to attach those feelings to. It seems to come on as a generalized feeling of self-doubt, and then our brain starts to survey to find what task or dynamic to attach it to.
In early childhood development we see this dynamic show up when the child is learning initiative. If the child is trying to accomplish a task, he or she needs to feel efficacy and a sense of accomplishment. If they do it in a way that they feel they were reasonably directing the process with the support and influence of a healthy adult they leave with a self-esteem boost. On the other hand, if they are managing the adult or caretaker and doing it to follow or overly please the adult, they are left with self-doubt.
An example of this is when a small child is asked to make their own bed for the first time. They do the best that they can and they feel a since of accomplishment and self-esteem because they did it. It doesn’t matter that the corners were not lined up and part of the bedspread were falling to one side, they think they did great. If the adult or caretaker comes in and remakes the bed in a way that is satisfactory to the adult, that can take away the sense of accomplishment for the child and leave them in self-doubt.
Some parents won’t let the child even attempt a job because they want it done to their own standard; possibly leaving the child arrested, or stuck, in the initiative developmental stage.
We can also experience this as adults. It might not show up in exactly the same way, but anytime we use our healthy initiative and it is shot down, we can experience this same sense of self-doubt.
Here is an example:
One of our clients at Human Art recently was excited to go to an event with a friend. They went to great lengths to plan the outing and were getting more excited with each task that they marked off their combined list to get them ready for the event. They would call each other and collaborate as to who was to do each task, and they would also talk and exchange excitement when the tasks were completed. It would make them feel as if each check mark of completion was getting them closer and closer to the event.
The day that they were to leave, one of the friends was not in the meeting place at the designated time. A few minutes after the designated time, the missing friend called the one that was at the appointed meeting spot to tell her that she was delayed hours and that she had decided to put off the time they were going to go to the event. That would leave little time for them to experience the event. This put the friend that was ready to go in a place of frustration and felt that her feelings and rights were not considered in the other’s decision to abort the original plan. When the absent friend was asked why she decided to not be there at the appointed time, she said she had a few things to do and errands to run. She had not gotten everything done to prepare to go, so she was doing it now. Upon further exploration, it was uncovered that really she was just doing something else; a different task at a different event that she valued more than the one they had spent all this time preparing for. She expressed that she thought it would be ok because she thought the prepared friend wouldn’t mind just waiting around for her to decide when she wanted to leave.
The prepared girl had to ask herself: was she being considered and respected in the decision making of the unprepared friend? Was she feeling important to the other friend? As she thought about these things, she expressed to us that she did NOT feel respected or considered, and going with this friend late would make her feel like a second choice to what the other girl really wanted to do. It was at that very point that she had a decision to make. Do I keep my self-respect intact or do I just put up with bad behavior for the sake of being able to go to the event? She decided that she was going to cancel for now and expressed to the unprepared girl that she would love to go with her at any time it was a priority to her. She believed if they waited until then they would both enjoy it more. This left our client, the prepared girl, in a place that she felt she had rights and that she made a healthy decision for herself and that she had considered her own feelings. That led to immediate self-respect and she expressed that she felt like her self-love grew in that very moment. She could feel it.
This month we are talking about what self-doubt looks like in each design. This week we will focus on the Blackened design.
In the rapprochement model, we know that when a Blackened person gets overwhelmed it is usually because they cannot complete a task or check it off their list. If they have a box or compartment in their head for a task, they have usually taken the time to carefully line up all the other boxes that are around it—the structure of how each task needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it needs to be done. If someone gets in the way and they cannot complete it, this has the possibility to overwhelmed them. They can also get overwhelmed with drama or too much talk and not enough action or doing. It is also possible that the Blackened person themselves can get in the way of getting the task done. It is usually because they have completed the prior task on the list early and they don’t like to waste time so they try and throw another task in there. If they don’t have enough time, they might run into problems completing the next task on their list. In certain situations, that can lead to social or professional failures.
Here is an example of this dynamic:
One Human Art client was Blackened and was so good at structuring her tasks that she had a planner where each category of tasks even had their own color. To look at her organizer was like looking at a carefully crafted graph and was an exercise in organization. She was equally as good at completing those tasks.
She had just been given a new title in her job, and with this new position came the requirement for her to accompany the CEO of the company to meetings and events. This client would mark the start times of all these different events in her organizer, but often found herself early in completing the task that was before the event or meeting, so she would try to squeeze an errand in beforehand. She did this because she couldn’t tolerate wasting time. Unfortunately, many of these errands would take a little more time than expected and she found herself being late to the meetings and events. When confronted, she told the CEO that she was only a few minutes late each time and that it didn’t seem to be a big problem. But the sheer amount of times she showed up late was a problem for the professional expectation of the leader of the company. This later led to the decision to let her go from this position and the company. The client was left hurt and confused because she thought she had done a great job on each task, but she failed to see the overall reflection her tardiness had left on the professional reputation of the business.
One of the strengths of the Blackened design is they are efficient and resourceful. They value making good use of their resources and don’t appreciate waste in any of these areas. The challenge is, one might lose credibility with a Blackened person if they are careless with resources; and when it comes to collaborating the respect level has diminished a bit due to this perceived carelessness, so it is difficult from the get-go. The Blackened person might not see the “careless” person as their equal and might dismiss them quickly.
The problem with the Blackened design is that they might be quick to see perceived carelessness in others, but it might be harder for them to see the “resourceful to a fault” in their own design. Both of these instances can lead to failures and self-doubt.
If you are high in the Blackened design, do what you do best and just “fix” it. If you see that something is not working, you have a natural and warm logic that can see what is not working without throwing out what is, so focus on that. Take a step back and evaluate what is working and increase that, while at the same time see what is not working and eliminate what is destructive and creating self-doubt. You are the “no drama” design, and you are quick to reassess the situation and abruptly move to what is working. Your casual demeanor makes things easy to move along void of a lot of fuss or conflict. You just offer reasonable solutions that are made fun with your dry wit and the realness you bring to each situation. Your profound honesty and your “it is what it is” attitude lead to accountability when used in healthy interactions and tend to keep those you are with safe and secure.
So go out and fix, get things done. Take care of those things that you are responsible for. Move to help and create solutions. It creates a sense of security for you and those around you. And always remember, Everyone is a Masterpiece.
Brook
RELATED POSTS:
Who Am I Supposed to Be? Overcoming Self Doubt (Week 1-Saturated)
Who Am I Supposed to Be? Overcoming Self Doubt (Week 2-Whitened)
Who Am I Supposed to Be? Overcoming Self Doubt (Week 3-Grayed)