500 Words a Week - Doubt, Hesitancy and Attention

Something I have struggled with is a sense of doubt and hesitancy. This expands beyond just my work alone. In past, I have always viewed this as something negative. Something I needed to change or get rid of. We often hear how people who have achieved some form of success never had any doubt about themselves or their abilities.

The more I have dealt with both of these issues the more I see them as beneficial. For one, these emotions never let us get too comfortable with our position or our perceived level of competence. This can easily be taken too far when we might continuously perceive ourselves as never being good enough.

Regularly in meetings I will express very little because of this hesitancy and doubt. Before I saw this as a negative, as I wasn’t continually expressing my point of view. Then, I saw this as a plus as I will only express my point of view for issues that I feel strongly in or where I believe something is being missed. In my own head, this provides more value to what I am saying as I only express my viewpoint on important situations due to this hesitancy and doubt.

I’m sure you have also experienced the opposite, someone who doesn’t experience these emotions and constantly states their opinion without much thought or foreplaning to what they are saying.

The 80-20 rule or the Pareto Principle was initially created to show the distribution of wealth in Italy, stating that 80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the people. What’s interesting to note, is this also applies in meetings. 80% of the talking is done by 20% of those involved within the meeting.

I remember reading the Dalai Lama’s book “The Art of Happiness”, and something that struck me was that throughout the book Howard Cutler (co-author) constantly notes how the Dalai Lama would take several seconds to process what was said to him and think of an answer before responding. How often in conversations are we formulating what we want to say without actually listening or paying attention to the conversation?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt talks about the difference between getting attention vs paying attention, and how craving attention will disrupt your creative process.

In other words, do what you want, pursue whatever your area of interest is and forget about how others will respond in light of this. Pay attention to what matters to you, before worrying about getting attention.

I made a little image to put on my Instagram story the other day, I had it saved on my phone and thought should I or should I not for the majority of the day. Before deciding to put it up. Here is a prime example of the negative side of hesitancy and doubt. We must be aware of our doubt, and understand how it can be a positive but recognize when we let it go too far.