Quotes About Self-doubt

I've worked in supermarkets, put tags in baseball caps and provided security during Wimbledon, but I never thought acting would be something I'd be any good at, or make a living from.

When you put the pressure on yourself, it's not good. If you fight afraid to lose, you wind up not fighting that good.

Performance was a shock to me. The first time I remember feeling I could do it was during the making of my first video, 'Fun for Me.' I couldn't sleep the night before the shoot, I was so frightened. I had to play a ghost and a piece of merchandise in a shop window, and I had no idea whether I was going to be able to pull it off.

There have been times - and not just on 'The Newsroom,' but on 'The West Wing,' 'Sports Night,' 'Studio 60'... - where it was hard to look the cast and crew in the eye, when I put a script on the table that I knew just wasn't good enough.

I auditioned for 'Mad Men.' I auditioned for 'Top of the Lake.' I obviously auditioned for 'West Wing,' so I still get excited when I get offered stuff. Like, a part of me thinks, 'They think I can do it! That's awesome!' And that's a part of me I have to squash; otherwise, I would do everything just because people gave it to me.

I'm not that good a player, and I'll be the first to admit that. I might be a three or four grand-slam winner; I might be a two grand-slam winner, I don't know.

I grew up thinking you're either a winner in the world, or you're not. I presumed I was not. I had no reason to think I would be, and my inclination is towards self-deprecation. I wish I'd known no one was judging my every move, but I'm still like this!

I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That's sad.

By 2013, at the age of 29, I was failing. I had left two good jobs in succession to complete a novel I'd been tooling around with since 2009, had enrolled in a graduate programme in Texas, as far away from home as possible, to finish it - and yet: what did I have to show for it after five years of work?

My house is full of paintings by my mother Pam. She was a fantastic, prolific artist but had no confidence in herself, thanks to my father running her down. They married during the war when she was 19 - she had planned to go to art school. But my father didn't want her to work, so she became a housewife.

The hardest thing about being an unpublished writer is that there's always that voice in your head that asks if you're really being a fool. You might just really stink and not know it. You have to have a lot of blind faith in the process. You have to like it so much that you're going to do it anyway.

For a long time, I've been an overthinker. The problem with that is when you're in perfect shape for a fight and you've got everything worked out and you've got all the moves you think you're going to need and everything's fine but in your own mind you're going to make up things and you just add pressure.

When you're winning, your confidence is through the roof, but when you're losing, that self-doubt is like, 'Am I doing the right thing?'

I panicked in my 20s and 30s about whether I was doing the right thing. I was an excited puppy, wanting to please people and feeling guilty that I'd had a privileged education and an acting career.

As an artist, you're very sensitive about your art. And you feel like, 'Am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right music?'

When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.

I hate bad reviews, so yeah, every now and then I think, 'Boy I hope everybody really likes this and thinks this theme is good.' You can't help but do that. I think we all are, or at least I am, reduced to a schoolboy seeking approval.

Joe, I think I might be clueless when it comes to love. Afraid I wouldn't know real love if it bit me in the ass." He chuckled in spite of himself. "Been there," he said. "Pretty recently, in fact." "I

It's like . . . I'm paranoid about people borrowing my laptop because I'm convinced they'll find some secret document on there that would make the whole world think I'm a terrible person—something I don't even remember writing. And it doesn't matter that there's no document like that. I'm still terrified, you know?

I'm so sorry. I always felt like there was something off about me, and now I know. I'm broken." It wrecked me all over again to hear her say that. "You're not broken." "Then how come I can't be fixed?" she asked, shaking as she held back tears. "If I'm not broken, how come no one can fix me?

But the thing about being a disaster in middle school is that the shame of it never fully goes away. Even after your braces are off and your hair is exactly the way girls wear it on Tumblr, underneath it all, you're still just as unsure whether someone actually likes you, or is only talking to you so they can laugh about it afterward.

I'm so sorry. I always felt like there was something off about me, and now I know. I'm broken.' It wrecked me all over again to hear her say that. 'You're not broken.' 'Then how come I can't be fixed?' she asked, shaking as she held back to. 'If I'm not broken, how come no one can fix me?

But then, I've always been terrible at math.

Isn't mockery the province of the insecure?