Thank you so much for reading We’ve Got This. This is my bi-weekly newsletter filled with feel-good “We’ve Got This” moments. Each one will have stories, interview snippets, quotes, and more that I’ve devoured and found helpful. I love the behind-the-scenes, starting out, keep going stories - I really hope you enjoy them and find them as inspiring as I do!
On not ticking off your vision board
I’ve noticed that this time of year can carry a sense of disappointment for me; the end of the year is creeping up and it feels like another year where I’ve held myself back.
My goals and vision board keenly created on the 1st of January flash in my mind when I’m walking to work or chilling in front of the TV, a reminder that I’ve not yet achieved them.
I sometimes work out how many weeks until the end of the year and start mentally planning if it’s possible to start and tick everything off my list in that time. Feeling motivated one moment and then ‘what’s the point?’ the next. Knowing how on New Year’s Day (hungover, so it’ll feel worse), I’ll feel a tinge of sadness that I spent another year letting self-doubt run the show.
The things on my list include the usual ‘lose weight’ and ‘write my book’ to the very deep ‘figure out what I really want to do with my life’. Randomly, Baz Lurhmann’s song came to mind when I was mulling this all over, and it made me think about the different paths we are all on and choose.
I could copy all the lyrics here, but instead here are just a few that I reread several times.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life
The most interesting people I know
Didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives
Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don'tDon't waste your time on jealousy
Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind
The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself
More than one path
This led me onto revisiting Lisa Kudrow’s commencement speech where she shares her journey to playing Phoebe on Friends after studying Biology (you can always change paths!)
She covers all the rejections and cruel criticisms: “they want a beautiful actress!”
However, she talks about how in the end she is glad she was fired from Fraser after two days, and that the TV pilot for Romy and Michelle didn’t get the go-ahead, and that she said yes to taking a small part as ‘waitress’ despite being told not to, because it all led to her being the second person cast in a little-known show, Friends. (The beauty of hindsight!)
“Naturally, these things knocked me off balance and caused me to wonder if this was the right path for me. Am I going about this the right way? Do I belong here? Maybe I never will be a working actor and I've wasted all this time...then I'd DECIDE, no, they're just wrong (and a little insensitive) but mostly, they are just wrong. And that's ok. They don't see it yet.”
Confidence vs delusion
I noticed that in most of my favourite interviews, they all had this strong sense of self belief and confidence throughout.
Despite being rejected and knocked back, Lisa thought they were wrong and although she questioned her decision at times, she decided to keep going. It reminds me of Jen Sincero in her book, You are a Badass, that when you make the decision to go for something, you also have to make the decision to stay the course.
Mindy Kaling in her 2018 Dartmouth commencement speech revealed how she sat at her own commencement whispering, “Why not me?” and ‘continued to do that for 17 years.’ She starred as Kelly Kapoor in The US Office, wrote over 18 of their episodes, created and starred in her own show, The Mindy Project and more recently, created Never Have I Ever, to mention a few. You could say it worked!
Issa Rae, actress, writer, producer, and comedian, was interviewed about her journey. She says that it was ‘all of those things I've thought were the end of the road, the end-all-be-all, my one chance’ that were her most difficult times yet blessings in disguise.
How did she keep going?
“For me, the ending lesson is always: It's only failure if you stop. I don't think that I've failed yet because I'm always going.
When you don't get the outcome you want, change what you want or shift the mission. I don't like to be wrong. I don't like to feel like I wasted my time. So I keep going and make that time worthwhile. I always find a way to get that win.”
Maya Jama, when interviewed by Vogue, was asked how she was so confident to keep putting herself up for things:
“Do whatever you would do if nobody was watching; don’t ever hold yourself back because of other people. Whatever I can do, I want to do it – because why the f**k not?”
I sat there reading through the interviews bewildered - how did they not let it destroy their confidence? How on earth did they pick themselves back up?
“I’ll tell you my secret, the one thing that has kept me going through the years, my superpower: delusion. My point is, you have to have insane confidence in yourself, even if it’s not real. You need to be your own cheerleader now, because there isn’t a room full of people waiting with pom‑poms to tell you, “You did it! We’ve been waiting all this time for you to succeed!”
Mindy Kaling
Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong? Waiting to feel confident and ready, when really delusion was right there all along? There’s no ‘right’ way of being deluded either, unlike manifesting where there’s expensive courses and the subconscious to battle with.
I’m going to be deluded and think that the path I’m on now, or the one I might change to, are all leading to my wildest dreams, even if at the moment we’re on pause. I’m filing this one under many things but mostly, to start being kinder to myself, a reminder we’re all on different paths, and delusion could be our superpower.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something, but especially not yourself. Go conquer the world. Just remember this: Why not you? You made it this far.”
Do you have any tips to share on what you do to feel confident? Is it really ‘fake it till you make it’ or delusion? I’d love to hear!