Self-Doubt: A Confession and a Way Through

I am an expert in self-doubt.

I could teach a masterclass on the subject. If there was a market for people who were willing to pay someone to teach them to believe in themselves less, I could make a lot of money.

Don't believe me? Consider this.

When I started writing things and sharing them online, I had a couple of my early pieces go viral, or whatever the blogging equivalent was at that time. We're talking hundreds of thousands of shares. Millions of views.

At one point, if you were to Google the word "Christian" and "depression" or "anxiety", the first two results were my little blog.

So what did I do with this? I got overwhelmed by the exposure, eventually stopped writing, and killed the website altogether.

So when I tell you my struggle with self-doubt is real, I'm not exaggerating to try to be relatable.

The funny thing is I could have told you at a relatively young age that writing was something I was meant to do. Or at the very least, something I longed to do.

I was published for the first time in elementary school when one of my teachers sent in a poem I had written. When they finally gave us computers to play with in the 4th grade, I used my lab time to mock up a magazine and wrote all of the articles for it. By the time I got to high school, I spent many of my evenings alone at Barnes & Noble reading and writing. I loved being surrounded by books. And I regularly imagined seeing my own titles on the shelf one day.

That's all before I could legally vote.

And I spent most of the last several years acting as if none of that wasn't true?

Yep, I sure did.

Almost all of it was rooted in self doubt.

Here's the thing though...

As I was reflecting on self-doubt's ongoing presence in my life, I realized something I think is important and perhaps worth sharing. Almost every significant thing I've done in my life - both personally and professionally - has happened on the other side of self-doubt.

Asking Megan to be my wife. Deciding we would try to become parents. Planting a few churches. Helping found a seminary. Helping start and lead an international network of missional practitioners.

When I reflect on those things, the impact they have had, and the relationships we've made along the way, I realize had I let self-doubt win I would have missed out on so many of the best things I've had the privilege of being a part of!

What an incredible waste that would have been.

We would have missed out. And not only that, the world would have missed out.

So as I begin sharing my writing publicly again for the first time in a long time, I've been reflecting on some of the lessons I've learned along the way that helped me push through in the past and are helping me push through again now. Three, in particular, keep coming back around.

Ask better questions.

In my experience, both the core problem and key solution to self-doubt lie in that first word: self.

Self-doubt becomes stronger and more paralyzing the more preoccupied we are with ourselves. We become consumed with questions like What is going to happen to me? What if this doesn't work? What if I fail? What will other people think of me?

Me. I. Myself.

When I shift the focus away from what I want for me to what God wants for me, things begin to get a lot clearer.

Some of these better questions might sound like: What has God made me to do? What callings has he placed on my life? What are the things I must do? What are the things I know that to not do them would be a willful act of rebellion?

When I ask these questions, things become a lot more clear.

Stop trying to be good and start trying to be helpful.

I still remember the first time I heard Jim Collins say some version of this over twenty years ago.

I was early into ministry and trying to figure out where I fit and what I had to offer. Like many young leaders, I was naturally driven. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to be really, really good at it.

This caused me to try my hand at a lot of different kinds of work in those early years — campus ministry, international ministry, working with the unhoused, worship arts, and more. And while I cherish many of those experiences, it took me a while to realize I was often weighing my "fit" for the work by how good I thought I was at it, rather than asking how I might be the most helpful wherever God had me.

When I stopped trying to be good and started focusing on trying to be helpful, everything changed.

Each season and work were infused with new meaning. I found myself focusing less on the quality of my performance and more on my effectiveness in helping others. Funny enough, this in turn greatly improved the quality of my work.

Not only that, it unlocked a kind of courage I didn't know I had in me.

Stop thinking of peoples and start thinking of persons.

If you feel as though anything you do, create, or lead has to be great for everyone everywhere, you'll never pull the trigger. The sheer scope of the internet and everyone on it can be paralyzing.

So shift your focus to those you seek to serve.

Think of those you know. Picture their faces. Reflect on their stories. Think about their unique challenges, questions, and struggles. And then do whatever you are setting out to do with them in mind.

Create for them. Answer their questions. Solve their problems. Meet their needs.

Do that, and you'll be surprised at how many others come along and find it was created for them too.

So that’s it.

Nothing too groundbreaking. Or novel.

But it's what got me here - back to writing, back to sharing, back to hitting publish again.

I still don’t know how this will go. And there is a part of me that worries that history will repeat itself.

But I’m asking better questions these days. I’m trying to be helpful, not good. And I'm not writing for everyone. I'm writing for you — whoever you are, wherever you're stuck, however loud your own self-doubt has gotten.

So if this is helpful to you too, even a little, I consider that a big win. And if it's not, well I already told you I'm not exactly an expert.

Just someone who is deciding to push through anyway.