I never saw Frozen so maybe that’s why I don’t know how to let anything go. Actually, that’s not true, I’m pretty good at letting go of almost everything if I have to–except for my writing. I am so obsessive and shy about my writing that I never feel like my pieces are finished. It takes me weeks to get them to a first reader and don’t even ask about when it comes to submitting them for publication.

In fact, I haven’t submitted anything since I was published last year. It sounds crazy but every time I write or edit this horrible little voice enters my mind and tells me that was it, my one moment, and I should probably just quit now instead of embarrassing myself.

I openly admit that it’s really tough and discouraging when you’re your biggest critic and I think if I am ever going to fully move past this year of change (and yes, growth) that I’m going to have to start supporting my dreams a little bit more. Of course I support myself financially and somewhat emotionally, but if I really think that one baby essay was the end of the road for me, I’m not doing myself any favors.

I think Anna from The OC probably said it best when she said, “Confidence, Cohen.” Believing is half the battle.

I know I can’t be alone in this. Sure, you may not be a writer but is there something you want that you are purposely stopping yourself from having? A good relationship? A better job? A healthier lifestyle? We hold ourselves back from what is most important to us because we are afraid of failing. It’s so much easier to put effort into less important stuff because the failure is just a scrape and succeeding is just some icing on the cake of life.

But… we should dare to put effort into what matters, shouldn’t we? And if our hearts get broken, our book fails, we get turned down for a promotion, whatever it may be, if it happens to us we have to make the promise that we won’t break and that we’ll try again a different way. Because we’re all here together just trying to do our best. We need to just let go of our fears and the ties we bind ourselves with and just see what happens.

So… how DOES one build confidence for those important things that really matter? Asking for a friend… but she also reads my comment section.