Self-doubt and comparing yourself

Self-doubt is unusually good at defending itself. Every other habit has to argue that it is pleasant; doubt gets to argue that it is accurate, and that the confident people around you are the ones with the distorted view. It also claims to keep you sharp, and to protect you from arrogance, and those claims are hard to answer while you are inside them.

Here is the answer the first book gives. Doubt is not evidence. The feeling of uncertainty is produced by the same mind in every situation, including the ones where you were right, so it cannot be telling you which situation you are in. You knew the answer in the meeting; somebody else said it ten minutes later and the room agreed; that is data, and the doubt was not.

Comparison works the same trick with better material. You are matching your inside against everyone else's outside — their version, edited, posted on a good day — and then treating the mismatch as a fact about your life. It is a league with no top: whoever you pass, you will pick someone further up, because picking is the habit and the person is interchangeable.

Four books here, on doubting yourself, measuring yourself, the shame underneath both, and the point at which explaining your life becomes the thing that keeps it where it is.