Self-defeating Self Talk

I went to sleep thinking about this notion last night because a friend sent me an article about how women hold themselves back by thinking they don’t ‘know enough’, are somehow ‘lacking’, not ‘up to it’ – whatever that means – you get the idea.  I, too, struggle with this learned lesson.  Yes, I think it is a learned lesson, or certainly was when I was growing up in the fifties.  My mom called my writing, after I had been working regularly in episodic TV in Hollywood for some years, my ‘little writing’.  I left that New York lunch furious, asking myself if she would ever take me seriously.  I think my successes made her feel her failures more.  She had given up work and career to marry my father.  More on that in another blog. How does it carry over?  When I sit down to write this blog I wonder why anyone would listen to me, or take my advise? Who am I to offer it, etc. etc.  Despite the fact that I know I’ve helped many women, and even a few men through my Huffington Post blog because they have written to tell me so, I still have that niggling little voice in my head telling me that doing this means I have a swelled head, an inflated view of my own importance. I consider stopping, and then don’t.   I think this is a woman’s issue.  Even the more laid-back men I know, including my partner, don’t seem to doubt themselves in this way.  What do I do with this information? This is my solution though it may not work for you.   I sit down to type, to write, and get on with my day.  It’s just self-talk, and I don’t have to live by it.